CHAPTER 2

Digital Media and Learning: A Glove Fit

In This Chapter

•  How does your brain interact with digital content?

•  What are the universal content principles?

•  What are some digital media mindsets?

The thought of making engaging digital learning content is intimidating for many learning professionals. Sure, anyone can pick up a microphone and record a podcast. But how do you make it interesting enough for someone to want to listen all the way to the end? And while just about anyone can shoot video on their smartphones, how do you craft a visual message that keeps learners engaged?

Making digital learning content takes work. But the learning curve for learning professionals is not as steep as many might think. Why? Because one of the most important steps is planning—defining a learning objective, breaking it down into digestible chunks, then assembling it in an order that makes sense to the learner. Then it becomes a matter of deciding whether audio, video, text, or graphics will be best to facilitate the learning. Planning digital media content is not much different from traditional instructional design, so as a learning professional you have a head start. Planning is 40 percent of the work.

What you may need to learn is how to convey a coherent message through each of these modalities, how to develop a work flow, and how to record, shoot, and edit. So if you’re feeling daunted by this brave new media world, don’t be. You’re probably further along in your learning journey than you think.

This chapter explores the media mindset that will ensure you make engaging content and consider how your learners will make sense of your digital message. It also offers some universal media principles to guide you as you create digital learning content.

Goal of Media: Make It Quick and Easy to Understand

Most people these days want their information fast. In fact studies show that when people visit a webpage they ignore 75 percent of the words (Nielsen 2008). So, if you write a 200-word article, most folks will read only 50 of your words, if you can call that reading. And if the content doesn’t immediately make sense when they read through, they’ll search for another article in Google. It’s not that much different with video. Visible Measures did a study in 2010 that found that 20 percent of viewers will abandon watching a video within 10 seconds of it starting; 33 percent will be gone within 30 seconds, which is not very long. People simply don’t want to wait for content, and this should not surprise us. In our culture of 24-hour news and instant access to just about any information we need, we want media that’s fast and easy to consume.

People working in the professional media, such as journalists, audio and video producers, and editors, are schooled in crafting content that is quick and easy to understand. In the world of nanolearning and just-in-time training, learning professionals also need to adopt this approach. So how can you review content to be sure it’s quick and easy to understand? Science can help explain.

Digital Content and the Brain

It’s tempting to think that making digital content is about using the latest technology, such as a video camera, new software, or a microphone. Some may think that simply pressing start on their audio recorder and talking about whatever comes to mind will lead to an engaging podcast. Or that learning the features of Adobe Photoshop, rather than visual design techniques, is all it takes to be a creative graphic designer. It’s like the trainer who wants to flip the classroom and devotes her time to learning iMovie rather than the craft of bolting pictures together to construct a coherent message.

Learning how to use new technology is certainly important. It enables the real work of digital media: to help readers, viewers, and listeners make sense of your message. But learning how to communicate and shape your message is actually more important than learning all the extra features of your $1,500 camera. Effective communication requires a basic understanding of how the brain creates meaning.

Knowledge formation takes place in the learner’s brain, where he builds mental models to make sense of the world. Mental models, first proposed by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget as schema, are abstract models that represent the real world by drawing together memories into a pattern. Mental models, built from instincts, experiences, and memories, help us make sense of the world, thus playing an essential role in survival. A very basic mental model is that we need food to survive. The hunger pains we feel before lunch are interpreted through this basic mental model to tell us to go eat. Another mental model is that when we see a red traffic light, we stop. Seeing the red light may mean nothing on its own, but interpreted through this more complex mental model, we know the road rules tell us to stop when the light is red.

As a matter of survival, our brains constantly refine existing mental models and build new ones. For example, consider a friend who says nasty things behind your back. At first you won’t believe it because your mental model of that person tells you she’s a friend and wouldn’t say such things. However, if you find more evidence, your mental model will change.

When learners listen to, read, or view your digital content, they use their experiences and memories to interpret your message. When a learner hears you talking about a bus trip on your podcast, she pieces together a picture in her mind of that trip by visualizing her own experience of being on a bus. When she sees a learning video of snow falling, she will draw on her memories of snow, how it is cold and wet, and match that with the messages she is taking in from your video. (This is why it is so important to have a good idea of the types of experiences your learner is likely to have to interpret your content. This knowledge should influence word choice and even the analogies or examples you share to bring content alive.)

Of course it gets tricky because mental models, which at first seem straightforward, are complex, especially when it comes to the construction of meaning. For example, use the phrase, “We’re expecting snow,” to someone from Minneapolis and they will most likely consider it a burden. Someone from the Caribbean, on the other hand, may see it as a delight.

How Your Learner’s Brain Makes Sense of the World

This process in which the learner matches experience with your message can be helpfully explained by the Multi-Store Memory Model (Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968). Despite being more than half a century old, this model is still one of the best ways to understand what happens when we take information into our brains. While different aspects of this model have changed, such as terminology used to describe parts of the process and the capacity of different stages of memory, it is widely used to make sense of what happens with learning and media.

Why memories and not messages? That’s because the brain thinks in memories. Everything you see, hear, feel, taste, or smell becomes a memory your brain uses to make sense of the world. Imagine you just saw a car drive by as you walk along the street. That car is now a memory. Digital media uses audio and visual memories.

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin suggest that new memories are processed in three stages, which describe a process, not a physical location in the brain. The first stage is the sensory register, also referred to by some theorists as the sensory memory. The second stage is called the working memory, also referred to as the short-term memory. The third stage is the long-term memory.

New memories, such as the visual memory of the car that just drove by, come into the brain through the sensory register, which determines whether that memory is relevant. If it is, the memory passes into the second stage: the working memory. In a sense, the sensory register acts as a gatekeeper to keep irrelevant, useless information out of the working memory to avoid overloading it. For example, you are walking along the road and see a newspaper stand but you don’t want to buy a newspaper. Your sensory register discards that memory almost immediately. However, if you are walking along the road, feeling slight pangs of hunger, and you see a hotdog stand, your sensory memory may consider it important. It would then pass that into the working memory, where you think about buying a hotdog.

Sensory Register

There are a number of theories about how long it takes the sensory memory to determine what memories to allow through to the working memory. Sperling (1960) suggested that for visual memories it could be a fraction of a second, while Baddely (1999) suggested that for auditory memories it could be two to three seconds. Without being specific about the exact amount of time, which may evolve with subsequent studies, what is clear now is that the time it takes to decide what to pass into the working and long-term memory is very short.

The practical implication for creating digital content is huge. Voice-over scripts with redundant words are useless clutter that increase the work of the sensory memory, slowing down the speed of comprehension. Elements in a graphic or video frame that do not contribute to the message increase the work the brain must complete to understand the message (Figure 2-1). The digital communicator must be disciplined to reduce sensory clutter.

The Working Memory

The working memory can be described as the space where you think about what’s happening around you. The car that drives by finds its way into the working memory because you recognize a friend driving it. The working memory draws on long-term memories (mental models) as well as what’s in front of you to make sense of what is going on.

As with the sensory register, theorists differ in how they believe the working memory functions and its capacity. Some measure its capacity in duration, while others quantify it in terms of how many chunks of information it can hold. Many educators are familiar with the magic seven formula originally proposed by George A. Miller in the 1950s, which suggests we can remember seven chunks of information, plus or minus two. This was taught in train-the-trainer classes and teacher education programs well into the 1990s. However, more recent studies suggest the brain has a smaller capacity: Cowan (2001) finds it to be closer to between three and five meaningful items.

This leads to cognitive load theory and how much the brain can process without being overloaded (Sweller 1988). When cognitive load is too high, learners might experience difficulty in processing and understanding information. What’s important for digital communicators to remember is that the human brain has a limited capacity to process lots of information at one time.

Long-Term Memory

The long-term memory is where we store all our memories as mental models. From a biological perspective, memory is formed by regularly firing neurons that form associations and networks with other neurons—this is known as long-term potentiation.

Most educators don’t need brain science to tell them that role plays, rehearsals, experiments, and other active tasks make it easier for learners to remember content. You’ve been doing this for years, right? Outside the learning world, this act of processing through rehearsal has been a critical skill. Actors rehearse their lines. Kids study flash cards to remember their times tables for math class. Neuroscience simply helps us understand the importance of moving in and out of the stages of memory. Anything that has a degree of rehearsal will reinforce that memory. To be sure, there’s still much to learn about memory development, but there are two clear implications for digital educators.

First, the more the learner can rehearse what she has learned, the more likely she will remember it. That’s why flash cards and times tables are used in school. However, digital media content creators are at a distinct disadvantage because we have no control over whether learners rehearse what they learn. So in its place we need to build repetition into our content. Consider how marketing professionals do this. Infomercials repeat a toll-free phone number four or five times, while car manufacturers and soda makers run their ads many, many times in hopes that after a few viewings the message will stick.

Second, your learners use their experiences (mental models) to understand your message. These experiences include culture, life story, language, education, and even different interpretations of the same word. So it’s imperative to get a feeling for how your audience may interpret your message before you finalize any content.

Survival Instincts

The three-stage memory model is helpful for understanding how your learners will process what you teach them, whether that be in a classroom or through digital content. But it also presents a dilemma. If the sensory register is designed to discard most of the sensory stimulus it encounters, how can you ensure your content gets through to the working memory and is not discarded with everything else?

The human brain is wired for survival, as are most animals. So people are on constant alert for anything that may be a threat. Humans like to have an element of control over their environment and for their lives to be calm, certain, and predictable. Anytime that is threatened, they are triggered into an alert status. For example, consider a woman sitting one afternoon at an outdoor café, reading a novel and sipping on a latte. When a nearby car screeches around the corner, her head snaps up and she becomes very alert. Her heart starts pumping faster, preparing the muscles in her body to jump out of the way or react in some other manner. She looks to see what is happening and wants to know if it is a threat. Of course, physical dangers are not the only thing that put us on the defense. Anything that changes or disrupts a human’s sense of control will increase alertness. Consider when a CEO announces a restructure. This change is a major threat not only to the certainty and predictability of how people work in the organization, but also to their income and survival.

So does this mean you have to pepper your digital content with threats? Not quite. Over the years, practitioners in traditional media have instinctively known that any time you change something, it will get most people’s attention. This is why good voice-over artists constantly change their pitch, pace, and volume. They pause to disrupt the flow of a phrase and create an emphasis. At the pause, the listener stops and refocuses attention so the orator can make a point. It’s why morning radio shows have more than one presenter—if one person is speaking and the other chimes in, it creates variety and grabs attention. In addition to keeping attention, anytime there is a perceived change it creates the sense that you are missing something, which again draws your attention.

So change is an important currency in digital media content because it’s what you use to keep learners’ attention and trick them into thinking that if they discard the information, they’ll be missing something. You’ll see that the importance of change is incorporated into many of the techniques shared throughout this book.

Universal Content Principles

So what do all of these ideas mean when it comes to making engaging digital learning content that is quick to understand and easy to remember? Here are six universal principles of good media that will help you shape content for your learners’ brains. These apply to all aspects of your content whether it be the words you choose, background music, or overall package:

•  The Short Principle: Keep content as short as possible without compromising the integrity of the message. This applies to all elements of your message, such as individual words, sounds, graphics, or shots, as well as the overall package. The shorter each element is, the quicker the sensory memory will process it. And media and learning consumers are generally impatient when seeking information, so overall content should be kept short. There is no specific length for the perfect video, podcast, or piece of written text. Instead it should be determined by the content, the audience, and the question, “Is this as short as it possibly can be?”

•  The Simple Principle: Make sure content is not difficult to understand. If your learner has to scratch his head trying to figure out something while the video or podcast continues, the content needs to be simplified. Don’t complicate your message with multiple purposes. Stick to one learning objective and use it as a yardstick to remove anything not relevant. Some approach media asking, “How much can I put in?” It’s more helpful to ask, “How much can I take out without compromising my objectives?”

•  The Familiarity Principle: Draw on the audience’s memories and experiences. It’s easy to think, “This makes sense to me.” This is why video content on organizational change often fails. If messages are produced by people with MBAs who use jargon like vertical integration and the like, factory floor workers will not understand because they use different mental models to make sense of such terms. In some cases they may not have the memories to understand the jargon. Of course it works the other way as well: Content needs to use words, expressions, stories, and media elements that are familiar to the learner.

•  The Emotion Principle: Increase engagement by tapping into emotions such as humor, happiness, and tension. Consider how to use elements like music, sound effects, words and phrases, and images. Use techniques such as camera angle, shot size, editing style, and the rule of thirds.

•  The Creative Repetition Principle: Repeat key points but do them differently each time. Repetition leads to memory retention. However, if you repeat the same thing over and over again, there is no change, and the audience will zone out. So repeat the key point but vary it every time.

•  The Change Principle: Keep changing the way you communicate. Anything that stays the same will cause the learner to zone out. To avoid that, incorporate change—for example, keep changing shots in videos, music in podcasts, and vocal pace and pitch in voice-overs as appropriate.

Digital Media Mindsets

Creating good content is not just about adhering blindly to a few principles. It’s also about adopting a digital communicator’s mindset. Here are three mindsets that lead to more engaging content.

•  Modality Sensitivity: Look for the best modality to most powerfully convey your message. This has two aspects. First, multimodal communicators choose the modality that best works for the topic, not the one they personally like or are familiar with. The digital ecosystem liberates you from using only video as in TV, only text as in newspapers and magazines, or only audio as in radio for learning. If you need to show someone how to do something, like use a piece of equipment, you should use video. Second, when a modality is chosen, digital communicators exploit all it has to offer. If you’re creating learning podcasts, it’s easy just to switch on the microphone and speak. But audio offers two additional storytelling tools: music and sound effects. They can make the content more lively and engaging. The digital communicator not only chooses the best modality for the topic, but also uses everything it offers to make the message stand out.

•  Platform Sensitivity: Craft content so it works well for the platform it is being consumed on. Not every piece of digital learning content will be viewed on a desktop computer. Some learners will read your job aid on a smartphone. Smartphones are really useful because they take your content anywhere there’s a cell signal. However, they are clumsier to use than a desktop. Hyperlinks and buttons are pressed by fingers that don’t have the precision of a mouse. Content might be viewed outside under a strong sun. The screens are much smaller, which means text is harder to read and graphics are harder to decipher. A PDF that looks good when printed will be very difficult to read on a smartphone screen. So identify the most common device people will use to access content and design the content so it is easy to consume on that platform. If it’s a smartphone, use bigger fonts and make the graphics larger. Create bigger buttons for fingers. Use less text. If learners will be accessing your content across multiple platforms, it is ideal to produce a different version for each platform. Yes, that can be expensive, but that’s true platform sensitivity. If you don’t have the budget to do so, go for the lowest common denominator or use responsive design techniques.

•  Personalization: Give learners choices to manage their learning. One of the biggest changes to media consumption since the digital revolution has been the shift of control from the publisher to the consumer. For example, a TV program director once decided what time you would watch a hit TV show. Now you can watch your favorite shows on demand by going to the channel’s website. When you log in to your favorite news site while traveling, it won’t offer the weather forecast back home but for your current location. Personalization means always asking what you can do to be more focused and targeted, rather than broad. This could mean creating different versions of the same content for different users. It might mean designing your learning management system architecture to let people skip over content that simply regurgitates prior learning. It also means building in as much interactivity as you can.

Summary

As you progress through this book, you’ll see that the universal principles and digital media mindset underpin the techniques found within its pages. While there is much to learn to truly master the art of crafting digital content that goes beyond just a point-and-shoot video or a rambling podcast, learning professionals are uniquely suited to craft this content. Learning, like media, is about taking complex information and making it easy for the learner to make sense of. But crafting engaging content is only part of the story. Digital communicators also need to know how to efficiently work through each step of the production process, which we’ll tackle in the next chapter.