11/10/2013

EDCI 672

Kelly Trozzo

LYNN DIXON CASE STUDY
Lynn Dixon is an American instructional designer with a masters degree. She is currently working at
Telopea Learning in Sydney, Australia where, due to her formal training, she is considered one of the
companys best designers. The majority of her colleagues acquired their learning on the job. Lynn has
been asked to work on a project with the Marine Park. The project entails working on a touch-screen
kiosk for the Aquarium in Cairns.
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Who are the key stakeholders in the case, and what are their primary concerns?
Stakeholder Description Primary Concern
Lynn Dixon Lynn is an instructional designer
at Telopea Learning in Sydney,
Australia. She is working on the
kiosk project for The Aquarium
in Cairns.
Lynns primary concern is how
she will fit this project into her
already full schedule. She is also
concerned about meeting all of
the clients needs within the set
parameters (time and budget).
Telopea Learning Telopea Learning is a small e-
learning company in Sydney,
Australia. It has been hired by
the Marine Park to work on a
touch-screen kiosk for The
Aquarium at Cairns.
Telopeas primary concern is
meeting the clients expectations
within the determined
parameters.
Janette Parks Janette is the head of the sales
team at Telopea Learning. It is
her job to secure project work
with new and existing
companies.
Janettes primary concern is
making sure her clients needs
are met.
The Aquarium at Cairns The Aquarium at Cairns is the
client. It is building a new
wetland exhibit to enhance their
existing collection of fish tanks
and aquatic exhibits. The
aquarium hired Telopea Learning
to help with the kiosk project.
The aquariums primary concern
is that the kiosk project is
successful.
Laura Barton Laura is the project sponsor
within the government
department responsible for The
Aquarium. She is leading the
team that is responsible for the
exhibit.
Laura is very busy with several
other projects. Her primary
concern is major reviews and
signoffs. She doesnt have time
to be involved with the day-to-
day runnings of the projects.
Ben Williams Ben is the education manager at
The Aquarium and the SME in
the case. He will coordinate with
Lynn to answer her questions, do
all of the preliminary reviews,
and provide feedback for the
project deliverables.
Bens primary concern is seeing
that all of The Aquariums needs
are met. He wants a top notch
kiosk that will deliver all of the
necessary information.

The Visitors to The Aquarium at
Cairns
The visitors are the audience. Their primary concern will be
getting their moneys worth out
of the exhibit.


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What are the key design challenges in the case?
The first, and biggest, design challenge is including all of the bells and whistles that Ben wants
within the budget. The kiosk needs to demonstrate the connections between the Great Barrier
Reef, the wetlands, and the catchment areas as well as provide information about the different
types of wetlands and the role they play in the Aboriginal culture and heritage. And, when Lynn
presents the design document, Laura adds several more regional wetlands that need to be
included. Ben is also pretty determined to have the kiosk showing a bird zooming around the
sky looking down on the catchment, then quickly flying down to a more detailed billabong
setting. The problem here is that the budget only allows for 20 minutes of total content time at
an average interactivity level of medium across the entire kiosk. The medium interactivity
level does not include the animations that Ben is looking for. Ben and Laura also want audio
narration, someone of Aboriginal descent to read an Aboriginal Dreamtime story, and Laura
mentioned that The Aquarium gets a lot of international visitors who may only speak a little
English. This means the kiosk needs to operate in several different languages, but there is no
room in the budget to hire a professional voice talent to do the recordings.
The second design challenge is the use of graphics. Lynn posed the questions: Where should the
buttons and links go on the screen? And, is there an optimal size? But, there are other questions
she needs to ask, such as: Do people learn better from word and pictures or words alone? And,
Are all kinds of graphics equally effective in promoting learning?
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Describe how the assigned readings and your previous experiences contributed to your
understanding of the case problem.
The readings in this case helped me to understand multimedia instruction is a presentation that
contains words and pictures, and is designed to foster meaningful learning (Mayer, 2003). I
also learned that graphics make a difference. Meaningful learning occurs when learners engage
in appropriate cognitive processing during learning, which includes attending to relevant words
and pictures, organizing them, and integrating them with each other and with the instructional
goal and organizing the lesson content around them (Sung & Mayer, 2012). In my experience
in the field of Deaf Education, visual content is extremely important. And having the right visual
content is even more important. Different learners have different learning styles, and as
designers, we need to address all of the learning styles of our students whether its in the
classroom, online, or at a kiosk.
Solutions/Recommendations
My first recommendation is to look closely at each item Ben and Lisa want to include in the
program, and address each one to figure out the best way to accommodate each one. First, we
need to look at the content. It is a must to show the connection between the Great Barrier Reef,
the wetlands, and the catchment. Its also necessary to provide information about the different
types of wetlands and their connection to the Aboriginal culture and heritage. That being said, it
could be possible to make this all fit into the timeline if we use the graphics appropriately. Next,
we need to revisit Bens idea regarding the bird. Aside from not fitting into the budget, it doesnt
fit into the design. According to Sung &Mayer (2012), all kinds of graphics are not equally
effective in promoting learning. Meaningful learning occurs when learners engage in
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appropriate cognitive processing during learning, which includes attending to relevant words and
pictures, organizing them, and integrating them with each other and with knowledge from long-
term memory whereas adding attention-grabbing irrelevant graphics can hurt learning by
encouraging inappropriate cognitive processing such as attending to graphics that have nothing
to do with the instructional goal and organizing the lesson content around them (Sung & Mayer,
2012). This means that the bird can actually be detrimental to the learning process unless it is
truly relevant to the lesson. Next, we need to address the audio portion of the program. Lynn
already mentioned a great solution to this problem. Being theres no room in the budget to hire a
professional voice talent, the audio can be recorded by someone at Telopea Learning. Lynn also
mentioned looking for help from the local university. This could help with language factor, and
theres a good chance it will fit into the budget.
The second challenge has been addressed during the first recommendation.
Pros/Cons
Solution/Recommendation Pros Cons
Use of graphics to
supplement content
Meaningful learning
Increased engagement
Addresses multiple
learning styles
Inappropriate graphics
can be detrimental to
the learning process
Using voice recording from
people at Telopea Learning
Cost effective
May not sound
professional
Help from the university for
the language options
Cost effective Fluency of languages



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Final Recommendation

My final recommendation is to revise the content of the program to include carefully selected
graphics. Next, we need to forget the bird idea and replace it with well thought out graphics.
Next, we need to find a volunteer with a nice voice at Telopea Learning to do the voice
recordings. We also need to find language students at the university to help with the recordings
for the language options.
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References:

Ertmer, P. A., Quinn, J. A., & Glazewski, K. D. (2014). The ID CaseBook: Case Studies in Instructional
Design (Fourth ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Hffler, T. N., & Leutner, D. (2007). Instructional Animation Versus Static Pictures: A Meta-analysis.
Learning and Instruction, 17, 722-738. Retrieved November 8, 2013, from
https://mycourses.purdue.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-2184643-dt-content-rid-
7915787_1/courses/wl_65704.201410/H%C3%B6ffler%20%26%20Leutner%202007.pdf
Mayer, R. E. (2003). The Promise of Multimedia Learning: Using the Same Instructional Design Methods
Across Different Media. Learning and Instrution, 13, 125-139. Retrieved November 8, 2013, from
https://mycourses.purdue.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-2184645-dt-content-rid-
7915788_1/courses/wl_65704.201410/Mayer%202003.pdf
Sung, E., & Mayer, R. E. (2012). When Graphics Improve Liking But Not Learning From Online Lessons.
Computers In Human Behavior, 28, 1618-1625. Retrieved November 8, 2013, from
https://mycourses.purdue.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-2184647-dt-content-rid-
7915792_1/courses/wl_65704.201410/Sung%20%26%20Mayer%202012.pdf