Day 1 at eLearning DevCon ..Does Learning Happen at Learning Conferences?

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Posted on 16th June 2010 by admin in Collective Intelligence |Learning Conferences |eLearning Development

Notes from the eLearning DevCon 2010, Salt Lake June 16-18, 2010

As we debate the topic of content vs context in the industry of instructional technology, I sit in an e-learning development conference, sitting in lectures. A lecture is essentially an information dump. However, information is fine if it’s relevant an you can quickly take the information and determine how to apply it.

Mobile Learning
So I am currently sitting in a session on mobile learning. No, I am not sitting in the e-learning guild mobile conference. I am in the Rapid Intake, e-Learning DevCon in Salt Lake City. “If learning is change in what the learner knows, caused by a learner’s experience”(Mayer, 2011), how can mobile devices help support learning? It seems like mobile devices are great for knowledge management but I am not sure about learning management. Mentioned in this conference session, is that there are a lack of e-learning development tools designed specifically for m-learning. I think this is bit short cited. iPod and Android apps are pretty rich in terms of capabilities. We should be able to create learning interactions. The company Luminosity.com has a nice application to help memory skills. Maybe m-learning would best be used for foundational skills. Just as in e-learning the presenter is explaining that there are different levels of content complexity

  • Simple content deployment (documents, audio files, slide decks)
  • Medium demonstration videos & demos or moderate interactivity (anything with a QuickTime or AVI output) Adobe After Effects for example can be used to create a video and export to AVI and convert to QuickTime. For conversion you cna use Roxio Toast for Mac and Roxio Creator for Windows. Note that H.264 MPEG4 is the video standard for HTML5.
  • High end development requires the use of the same tools used to develop Apple and Android apps, including HTML 5, CSS3, and Javascript

    • Collaborative learning, presented by Bloom Fire, is all about learning in groups. We learn from our peers. Rather then learn from only the expert down, allow for the community to learn from one another using tools a Wiki. The “ask the expert” option on Millionaire is correct 91% of the time. Why? The incorrect users cancel one another out the the correct answers rise above just slightly.So here’s my question which I will ask the speaker. When people talk about collaborative learning, it seems like they are talking about collaborative knowledge management, not learning management. Learning is about change and experience so how can online collaborative tools like a Wiki provide an experience unless the team is learning how to develop documents? Another term that is used is user generated “content”. Content is information but as Dr. David Merrill tells us, it is not instruction.(Merrill, 1997). How do you measure this activity? How much content is contributed on a particular topic? How much content is consumed on a particular topic? How active is the discussion around a particular piece of content? Here’s an idea, allow the experts such as the product development team post formal content and allow sales representatives and field sales engineers to post applications and how they addressed application related problems. BloomFire looks like a very nice knowledge management system with a nice easy to use interface. I could recommend this.

    Bryan Chapman is presenting the evening keynote entitled, 5 major influences changing the future of learning. Bryan suggests that tools are moving a bit ahead of the customers, the developers. I wonder if the example of this is 3D virtual environments for example?

    1. Rapid development extreme
    2. Single source, multi-mode delivery
    3. Infusion of informal learning practices
    4. Removing entry level barriers for simulations and serious games
    5. Linking HR and training practices through performance management

    Rapid Development Extreme, Bryan Chapman

    Here we go again comparing the difference between developing 1-hour of classroom training vs the development time to create e-learning. Honestly is this even a relevant question? Now we are talking about time to build an Articulate style course, conversion of PPT slides to page turning content. Both of these average development times of about 40 hours.

    So how long does it take to build a traditional e-learning course. The average is about 200 hours. To develop simulation based learning requires on average 750 hours. IBM decided to build a mix of delivery modalities, 60% of knowledge management, 20% of practice centric learning, and 20% of classroom instruction. Again, this is a set of round numbers that are not aligned with learning and business goals. This is aligned with culture more then strategy. Think about it. If learning is about experience and change why would an organization only provide 20% practice when experience it key to learning. This is a sales pitch to a training organization afraid of losing classroom instruction. We will deliver facts and concepts in traditional page turner e-learning. Oh no, Bryan Chapman is advocating “remember ” type learning objectives for e-learning and application “do” objectives classroom or on the job training. He’s kind of saying that e-learning is not capable to provide experiential learning. That is a very deadly and completely incorrect statement.

    Single Source: Multi-Mode Delivery, Bryan Chapman

    This is also much more about content or knowledge management, particularly explicit knowledge. In other words you take a text based document and treat it as an object. Each document has attributes which you can set unique local properties. The data is XML and can be loaded up into content centric elearning, job aids, mobile documents. This is not learning management. You are not delivering learning through multiple delivery modes. You are distributing content through different channels. Wow SAP is being used as an example for building learning from blocks of content with scenarios, videos, stories, and transitional wording. They are getting awards for simply adding scenarios. Oh my goodness. If adding some scenarios is all it takes to get an award I would have a wall of awards.

    Infusion of Informal Learning Practices, Bryan Chapman

    The question asked by Bryan is this, is informal learning directed by and organization or somebody in control? When does informal learning become informal? Sun decided to put the collaborative interface as the core interface and the LMS, Google search appliance below the collaborative interface. As a result, learners are pulling content as well as working through curriculum with a collaborative space as the core. Pfizer uses a Wiki, the open source Wikipedia tool, to create, organize and find content. The content includes audio and video content. They refer to it as Pfizermedia. In a few short years the site generated content from 10,000 authors.

    Removing Barriers to Simulations and Serious Games, Bryan Chapman

    Bryan separates simulations into 3 categories, software simulations, soft skills simulations, and hard skills or technical simulations. The hard skills include troubleshooting, procedural walk-through, simulating physical spaces, simulating concepts, emergency response simulations, virtual worlds with spacial relationships. What we need are new innovations at simple to use as Articulate to build hard skills simulations in order to increase the use of these. Bryan is showing some hard skills simulations and he gets ooos and ahhs from the crowd. People want to know how to do this.

    References

    Mayer, R.E. (2011), Applying the Science of Learning, Pearson Education Inc. (p. 14-15)

    Merrill, M. David. 1997. Instructional Strategies That Teach. CBT Solutions, Nov/Dec, 1-11.

    Why is e-learning so boring? My top 5 reasons discussed …

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    Posted on 24th March 2010 by admin in eLearning Development

    ,

    Admit it, most of the e-learning you have taken or created is dreadfully boring and causes this affect in you or your learners. You can get the same effect from reading a poorly written or irrelevant book. You may have this same experience in a poorly designed or irrelevant instructor led course as well, especially at 3 in the afternoon when the instructor is on slide 88. However, this has become all too common with online learning courses. Let’s explore a few reasons why this is the case. These are not all of the reasons by the way.

    Why is this happening? Why do we as learning professionals continue to create e-learning courses that apply little if any research in learner motivation, adult learning theory and some fundamental principles that date back to the 1960s?

    Here’s my list of top 5 reasons why most e-learning is boring and ineffective:

    (1) Training professionals are developing e-learning courses without the training on how to effectively design and develop instructional technologies. Trainers are being ask to develop e-learning with little to no experience. They might understand how to design effective classroom instruction but do not fully understand the merging of technology and instructional design.

    (2) Tools for rapidly taking classroom content and publishing it to the web have been placed into the hands of training professionals without training on how to use them effectively. Tools that take training slide decks and convert them into slick professional “looking” online page turners do not ensure that you will get effective behavioral change or even a minimal increase in knowledge. Designing an online learning experience is not the same as designing a set of slides to facilitate an instructor led discussion.

    (3) When training professionals are introduced to well designed online instruction, they quickly become frustrated because they have neither the time, money or skills to do it correctly. As a result they fall back to narrating slide decks and putting a quiz at the end. Training professionals go to a professional conference or take a course on e-learning design and discover that in order to create engaging online learning you really need to have skills in graphic arts, animation, audio, video and web programming. The training professional who does not have these skills gets frustrated and does the best she can with rapid development tools.

    (4) Individuals with the competencies to design effective instructional technology strategies are very rare. Yes, I know there are a lot of great instructional designers out there. Yes, I know there are lot of great Flash developers out there. Now find someone who can translate the instructional science, business process and the technology into a creative engaging and effective instructional strategy. I have tried to pass on the craft to others and I am baffled at how difficult it is. After reading Daniel Pink’s (2005) book, “Whole New Mind”, I believe the problem is that the craft requires both an analytical mind and an artistic design mind working in symphony and it seems like this is an anomaly that few people exhibit. An artist struggles with the analytical approach of object oriented programming design and systematic instructional design and the analytical person struggles with seeing the creative design appear on the white board. A competent instructional technology designer must have strong competencies in both the technology and learning sciences.

    (5) People in the organization, both the business and training groups, may not “believe” that e-learning can teach, motivate or change behaviors. As a result there are no strong business drivers that would warrant putting effort into design or investing significant training dollars to create highly engaging and effective e-learning applications. The organization simply doesn’t believe that the investment in time or money is worth it. The unspoken opinion, is that e-learning is for online informational overviews and classroom is for teaching and learning how to do something.

    Please complete this short 4 question survey in response to the comments in this post. I will post the results next week.
    Click here to take survey

    I will also post a strategy for overcoming each of these obstacles to overcoming boring and ineffective e-learning.

    Reference

    Pink, D. H. (2005). Whole New Mind Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. New York: Riverhead Books.

    e-Learning Vendor Partnerships: Ensuring Quality Learning Outcomes

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    Posted on 19th March 2010 by admin in eLearning Development

    In 2009 I was asked to begin evaluating and working with various e-learning development vendors. I will not mention their names. However, I will explain that my team took the time to evaluate three companies using an India outsourcing model and about four other companies located locally to our company in the U.S. Each of these companies have at least a decade designing and developing e-learning. For those of you that do not know, the term e-learning was coined around 1998 – 1999 and probably came from the term e-commerce which was a popular term in the mid-1990s. Prior to e-learning the term used by most of these same companies was Computer Based Training (CBT).

    I will add one additional caveat to my 2009 unofficial e-learning vendor research project. I used to work for an e-learning vendor as a instructional designer and project manager so I have an understanding from the vendor’s perspective. I have sat on both sides of the table.

    Type of e-Learning Vendors

    There are different categories of e-learning vendor companies. You can select from small boutique e-learning shops that focus all of their energy on the design and development of e-learning. These companies are normally small with 20-50 employees and other then some web development related services, they focus entirely on e-learning. Secondly, you can look to the larger consulting companies (you know who they are) that will do everything for you in terms of learning and talent management. They offer a suite of learning services which include e-learning design and development. I am cautious about these larger companies because they might treat e-learning work with a little less respect then the smaller highly focused companies. Then there is a new and growing business model which offers a few account managers and learning technology specialists located locally with a larger highly skilled development team located in India. This model allows for the personal in-person touch with a cost savings on the development side of the business. Some of these companies choose to only offer in-person account management where others offer in-person analysis and design. I have found that this last model seems to work the best.

    What does this blended model look like?

    There are many ways to structure an internal learning organization or a corporate university including the “temple model” and the “pyramid model” (Allen, 2002). Which ever model you select you should have someone that has a set of competencies in conducting training needs analysis, defining measurable learning objectives and designing instructional strategies aligned with fundamental learning principles. For e-learning projects you also need someone that can differentiate between good and bad design. Your internal learning professional doesn’t need to be a programmer or a multimedia developer but they should have a good understanding of best practices in software development and project management. Keeping up with the technology and the learning theory is very time consuming and this is where the external local learning professional comes in.

    You might consider having an internal learning technology center of excellence who’s role it is to keep up with the technology and learning sciences, but this is not necessary since your external partner should offer this service. You might also consider hiring an independent learning technology consultant as a broker or liaison between your internal learning professionals and your external development partner. It’s all a matter of trust and fit with your organizational learning goals. The role of the external learning professional is to ensure that your instructional goals are met through effective design and application of the technology. This person should be an expert of experts in instructional design and technology. There are vendors out there who have these types of people on their teams but I was surprised to find that not all e-learning companies have these types of experts on staff. These expert designers also have a very unique competency to input analytical data into their left brain and output a creative design using their right brain. There are very few people that have this capability. As a result the design process is needs to be a collaborative one where diverse cognitive abilities are brought together to come up with the right design.

    Reducing Costs

    You want to reduce costs but not sacrifice quality. If you post a poorly designed one-hour e-learning course on your learning management system (LMS) and one thousand people take the course, you have just wasted one thousand labor hours. So you want to reduce costs but not by doing things like converting slide decks to Flash and throwing it out on the LMS. This might provide valuable information to the organization but are you meeting your organizational learning objectives by doing this or wasting people’s precious time? So do not go cheap on design or the use of the appropriate technologies. Adobe Flash is the tool of choice to develop engaging and interactive web based learning but it is not an easy tool to develop in. So what many people do is sacrifice quality due to a lack of competencies. You wouldn’t wire your home with the wrong wire and do it yourself because you can not afford a licensed electrician. So why develop poor learning products just because you don’t know how to program and develop in Adobe Flash?

    So here’s how you do it. Ensure that your internal learning professionals have a solid instructional design background and the foundational competencies to differentiate between good and bad e-learning design. Next, locate an external partner who can provide local design and technology expertise. You need this person on-site working with your learning professionals or through an online technology that makes them feel like they are there. Finally, find a vendor that has a team off-shore with Adobe Flash and a wide variety of online web development skills. Save on the developmental costs. Costs for well designed and developed e-learning courses should run you between $7,500 and $25,000 these days. If you are paying more, you are paying too much.

    References

    Allen, M. (2002). The corporate university handbook: designing, managing, and growing a successful program. New York: AMACOM.

    Selecting Authoring Tools Begins with a Design Strategy

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    Posted on 26th February 2010 by admin in Instructional Strategies |eLearning Development

    In a recent discussion board, a reader asked the question, “How do I select the right e-learning authoring tool?” Several answers were posted which I suspect caused the person posting the question a great deal of confusion because it is obvious that there is little agreement on which is the best tool to work with. However, it’s not just the tool but how you plan to use it. All too often people start developing before they formulate a design strategy.

    Effective e-learning courses require good design. That’s were most people fail in their pursuit for the design of effective online learning applications. When I refer to good design, I am not referring to the artistic layout, although that is important as well. However, aesthetics is not as important as good instructional and cognitive design. We are developing learning applications which mean that they profess to support learning. So why am I beginning with the topic of good design when the title is about selecting the right tools? For anyone that likes to work around the house or on your automobile, you probably have a collection of tools. You know that you need the right tool to match your project. So it goes with the selection of an e-learning development tool. You need to first know what you are designing and what you want for the outcomes. So if you want your learners to be motivated learners, retain the learning, and change at least one behavior on the job then you need to seriously consider both the tool you select and how you use it.

    The science of motivation, learning and behavioral change is not trivial. There are mountains of research on all three of these topics. Dr. Michael Allen (2003) has done an excellent job of bringing the research and practice into everyday language in his books on e-learning design. I highly recommend them. Dr. David Merrill (2009) on the other hand has clearly demonstrated that motivation alone is not sufficient. You can have a very motivated learner but if that learner enters a boring online learning application, all the motivation in the world is not going to promote learning. Dr. Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer have contributed much to the design of online learning providing the industry with practical ways to improve learning. For example, according to cognitive load theory your audio narration should never read onscreen text (Clark & Mayer, 2008). So I am going to assume that you have read the research and the industry best practices and you want a tool that will allow you to create courses that will promote learning and behavioral change.

    There are different categories of tools on the market today. I am going to break down each category for you. By the way I have used various examples of the tools in these categories over the past 15 years. So what I am writing in this post is based on personal experience as an e-learning developer and manager of an e-learning development team. All of these tools will output a package that you could post to a learning management system.

    • Authoring tools with built in scripting languages
    • PowerPoint conversion tools
    • Screen capture tools
    • Template based tools
    • Graphics tools with programming languages

    Authoring Tools with Built in Scripting Languages

    This is oldest category of tools used to develop computer based learning applications. These began to emerge in the mid-80s with Hypercard on the Macintosh and Toolbook on the early Windows based PC. The basic premise for these tools is that you can create an learning application without the need for knowing complex programming. In the early days computer based training was developed with a standard programming language like C++ or Visual Basic. Then when the internet emerged, people built courses in HTML, Javascript, Java and XML. Some people still built learning applications from scratch like this. However, the instructional designer, trainer or teacher, wanting to develop an online learning application will likely not have the programming skills needed to work directly with programming languages.

    These tools generally provide a very similar metaphor of the book, chapter, and page design. They provide reusable objects to insert media and quizzing. However the problem is the book metaphor used in these tools. This metaphor influences bad behaviors for developing “page turners.” Drucker (1993) refers this as simply doing “old things better”. We are taking a common metaphor of a text book and lecture and doing it a little bit better. In order to make these tools really deliver on instructional design you need to learn the built in scripting languages. Some of them use standard languages like C or Javascript and others have created their very own scripting language. If you are not a programmer or web developer, you will be very limited in what you are able to do.

    PowerPoint Conversion Tools

    These types of tools have been become very popular very quickly. This is understandable because everyone knows how to use PowerPoint, sort of. Not everyone knows how to use PowerPoint correctly. We have all sat through slide presentation with images and text so dense that you can’t even read it. The presenter reads from the slide. Wake me when it’s over. So what many people are doing now, is taking these dreadfully boring slide decks, narrating them and putting quizzes at the end and calling them e-learning. This is just wrong. Again we are doing old things just a little bit better by making it available just in time to the masses. If you read the research on good design, you can use these tools to create engaging learning but you will not use PowerPoint in the same way that you would use it to present to a live audience. I do not like these tools because they are going to cause a flood of really bad e-learning to hit the networks very rapidly. Trainers love them because they can become e-learning developers virtually over night. However, they need to be told my someone that if you do not take design into account you will not get the desired learning outcomes.

    Screen Capture Tools

    These tools are also quite popular and I recommend having one in you toolbox. The ability to quickly take screen shots of an application and turn it into a linear step-by-step or branching interaction is a very powerful to have. These tools normally allow you to export to a SWF (Flash) format which you can in turn place into other development tools. Some of these tools even come with quizzing now and can be exported as a stand-alone learning application ready to be deployed to your LMS, as is. Get yourself one of these.

    Template Based Tools

    These are great for rapid development and truly require no programming skills at all. They don’t even require layout skills because the tool takes your content and places into a pre-configured design layout. These are great for in-house development teams. Most of the self-contained authoring tools have templates. However, now there are online hosted template based development tools which I highly recommend for small in-house development teams. They are very inexpensive and in some cases are free. Nothing is free of course. The companies that offer online development tools for free want to sell you their design skills. The tool that I like best in this category allows you to take the templates and revise them yourself or in partnership with a Flash developer.

    Graphics Tools with Programming Language

    Ok, there is only one tool that fits into this category, Adobe Flash. You might be able to put some of the 3D technologies like Maya and 3D Unity into this category but 3D development is still relatively young. Adobe Flash has changed the way websites are developed. It combines tools for the graphic artist with tools for the programmer. The latest version of the Flash programming language is object oriented and allows for very rich development. Any e-learning vendor that is not using Flash is not a vendor you want to do business with. This is truly the standard tool for professional online e-learning development. However, this is a professional tool. This requires advanced skills in graphic arts and programming to use. Adobe Flash even comes packaged with quizzing templates and an LMS packaging tool.

    So what’s my recommendation?

    Well, I rather not advertise for specific vendor solutions on my blog. I will say this. First read the research on design strategies. If you can afford it, invite an expert from the field of instructional technology to come and speak to you, or attend a conference on learning with an e-learning track. Once  you have your learning strategy, which I hope includes: improving motivation to learn, increasing learner retention and changing behaviors, you will ready to select your development tools. I recommend: a hosted template based authoring tool, a screen capture tool and either one in-house Flash developer or a partnership with a vendor with high end Flash competencies.

    References

    Allen, M. W. (2003). Michael Allen’s guide to e-learning building interactive, fun, and effective learning programs for any company. New York: John Wiley.

    Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008). E-learning and the science of instruction proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

    Drucker, P. F. (1993). Post capitalist society. New York: HarperBusiness.

    Merrill, M. D. (2009). Finding e3 (effective, efficient and engaging) Instruction. Educational Technology, 49(3), 15-26

    Effective e-Learning does not require an excessive budget

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    Posted on 16th October 2008 by admin in eLearning Development

    I hosted an elearning showcase today at our company. A few of the courses were built entirely in house using rapid development tools like Articulate and Captivate. A few of the courses were built in Flash and Flashform (now Proform), a tool that I really like.  Some of the courses were built in collaboration with a vendor and one of the courses was built entirely by a vendor.

    The course built entirely by a vendor had a $110K price tag. It was an amazing work of art and demonstrated the power of Flash. It utilized an elegant interface of a building floor plan, included video, didatic lectures and everything  you can think of. It was submitted for various awards and the owner proudly displayed them. Some of the awards rivaled an Emmy or Oscar in their outward appearance. But I must admit this award winning BMW elearning suite did draw me in but I wasn’t very motivated to take her for a test drive when I saw that the learning delivery wasn’t much more engaging then the Articulate course across the room.

    The day prior I gave a presentation on effective elearning design and showed one of the examples from the CD that comes with Dr. Michael Allen’s book, Guide to e-Learning.  The demo was built in an earlier version of Flash and simulates HR policy case studies. It is very learner centric and task centric.

    The content is accessible but in the form of resources, an interative coach and embedded in the feedback. There is no reading of slides or pop-ups.  The graphics are simple and for a person with intermediate Flash skills it shouldn’t be that complicated to built. However, despite it’s lack of high end graphics, abscence of video or even audio, the course is highly addictive and as I presented it, the participants were yelling out to keep going with the exercise. They were anxious to see what happened next. How often have you developed or paid for an elearning course and you were told that the learners couldn’t wait to see what came next? It might happen on occasion but rarely.

    In summary, if you are on a low budget, applying learning principles and motivational principles should be your priority. It can be done with moderate effort. It’s not simple. You do need to learn the basics of Flash but you don’t need to be a high end programmer or graphic artist to create highly effective elearning that will improve performance and impact the business. And you do not have to spend $100K to provide your audience with a highly effective and engaging learning experience.

    Focus on Design and let the Programmers Develop

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    Posted on 7th October 2008 by admin in eLearning Development

    After 6 years of struggling to convert corporate trainers and instructional designers to the concepts of well designed online learning, I have come to a conclusion. It’s not so difficult to convert a training and development professional to the fact that online learning should engage the mind in the same ways that a well delivered workshop does. I have taught people how to design learning interactions applying research in the field. In my workshops people have come up with some very innovative learning interactions. So why don’t they ever bring that back to their training departments. The answer is simple. Developing innovative learning interactions takes a competency level that these same individuals simply do not have.

    In the 80s and early 90s if you decided to go into the field of CBT development you expected to learn tools like SuperCard, Toolbook, Director or Authorware. All of these tools required programming skills. Some very innovative and engaging courses were developed and deployed to CDs in the late 80s and early 90s. You were expected to spend a year learning the scripting languages of these tools. That’s how you got it done! In fact some e-learning companies used Authorware to prototype and then built the final product in C++.

    Now folks are so used to tools that allow you to rapidly build “slide deck page turners” that they simply don’t attempt to learn how to develop creative Authorware or Flash interactions. Honestly we’ve become lazy my friends. It’s much easier to convert a slide deck to a Flash slide show then to learn how to program learning games.

    Solution: Internally develop competencies to design effective learning technology solutions, applying research in the field. Then outsource the development of the interactions. Why is this so powerful? It allows the designer the freedom to design and be innovative without worrying about … how I am going to build this thing? I am not a Flash programmer. I will never be a Flash programmer. If this is the case, please don’t ignore 50 years of research in instructional technology design and throw in the towel. Find a local web development shop or an over seas low cost Flash development shop and let them do what they do best. You focus on learning more about good e-learning design. Read Dr. Allen’s books, Dr. Ruth Clark, Dr. David Merrill .. read about Cognitive Load and Modality research. Take time to play with casual games and as many e-learning examples that you can get your hands on and focus on becoming a better designer or architect.

    Final analogy: An architect does’t try and learn the science and mathematics of engineering. An architect studies building design and masters their art. Decide on whether your speciality is to be an architect or an engineer and master one.

    Cognitive Technologies

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    Posted on 2nd August 2008 by admin in Cognitive Science |Uncategorized |eLearning Development

    What do I mean when I refer to cognitive technologies? This refers any technology used to support cognitive learning, which would include: traditional e-learning, mobile learning, synchronous webinars, educational gaming and simulation, and learning management systems.

    In addition to the technology, in this blog, I will discuss applied cognitive (learning) sciences in learning technologies.

    For example, research shows that when you play an audio narration together with identical text on the page, you will reduce the quality of learning. Why? Because, since the audio and the text narration have to both be stored in the same memory banks of the brain, the learner experiences something referred to as cognitive load (Sweller 1999). So to apply this research is quite simple. If you are going to use an audio narration, that’s fine, just accompany it with very short bullet points or a labeled diagram (even better).

    Sweller, J. (1999) Instructional Design in Technical Areas. Camberwell, Australia: ACER Press.