Factors That Affect the Use of Media in Supporting Learning

Selecting media to use as you facilitate a course is one of the most important decisions you’ll have to make as you plan a learning event. As you make this decision, remember that the most important rule is to ensure that the media you select will support the learning objectives. Otherwise, the media might distract the learners, actually posing a barrier to learning.

As you’re deciding upon which media to use, think about how you like to move throughout the room as you facilitate, how formal your learning event will be, and the level of learner interactivity that you wish to encourage.

Basic Rule 36

The media must relate to and support the learning.

Facilitator Movement

It was noted in earlier chapters that your ability to move physically around the room and among the learners is important in creating an interactive learning experience. One factor already discussed is the room setup and how it supports—or hinders— your movement. Your media must also support your desired level of movement. If you want to move around quite a bit (which is to be encouraged), you won’t want to use media that hampers your movement or keeps you tied to one part of the room or to a piece of equipment.

The media that allow the most movement on the part of the facilitator include written materials; flipcharts; PowerPoint slides, digital presentations, and photographic slides with a remote control; physical props; and videos and DVDs (once you have started them up). The media that allow less movement include whiteboards; overhead transparencies; and PowerPoint, digital presentations, and photographic slides without a remote control.

Basic Rule 37

Media must support the desired amount of facilitator movement.

Level of Formality

The level of formality in your learning event is dictated by a number of factors: the organizational level of your audience, the physical environment, and the organizational culture. The higher the level of the audience (for example, executives as opposed to middle managers and first-line supervisors), the more formal your media should be. The more formal the environment (for example, an executive meeting room with drapes and mahogany furniture as opposed to an employee cafeteria), the more formal your media should be.

And, the more formal the organizational culture, the more formal your media should be. If you’re not sure about the formality of the culture, take a look at how everyone dresses (casual, business casual, professional); type of industry (blue collar, white collar); and the type of job your audience works in (office, plant, lab, and so forth).

The more advanced your media technology, the more formal it is. Based on this rule, the order of formality (from most formal to least formal) is:

1. PowerPoint, digital presentations, and photographic slides

2. videos and DVDs

3. overhead transparencies

4. written materials

5. whiteboards

6. flipcharts and easels

7. physical props.

Learner Interactivity With the Media

In an earlier chapter, the fact was presented that learning activities must correspond to the learners’ level of knowledge: the more they know, the more active and self-directed the activity. The same characteristic applies to media, and it is recommended that you use media at the highest level of interactivity that is appropriate for the learning involved.

Learner interactivity means how much intellectual or physical involvement learners have with the media (table 8–1). Do the learners have an effect on the message communicated by the media? Do they get to touch the media or manipulate it in some way? Are learners more passive than active in how they are using or interacting with the media?

Table 8–1: Interactivity levels associated with different media.

Media With Higher Interactivity	Media With Lower Interactivity
• Handouts with blanks to be filled in • Flipcharts that learners create themselves • Whiteboards that learners write on themselves • Overhead transparencies, whiteboards, flipcharts with blanks that the facilitator fills in as discussion continues • Wallboards that learners write on • Physical props that learners handle	• Overhead transparencies (pre-prepared) • Whiteboards (pre-prepared) • Flipcharts (pre-prepared • Wallboards (pre-prepared) • Handouts with all text filled in • Videos, DVDs • PowerPoint slides, digital presentations, photographic slides • Physical props that only the facilitator handles

Basic Rule 38

Madia should encourage as much learner interactivity as is appropriate for the learning activity at hand.

Variability in Content Emphasis

Emphasis on course content can vary according to specific learner audiences or as the subject matter itself continues to evolve. Media must allow real-time change and low-cost, low-effort revision when the emphasis on course content varies (table 8–2).

Table 8–2: Ease of revision for certain media.

Media That Allow Real-Time Change	Media That Allow Low-Cost, Low-Effort Revision	Media That Work Best With Content That Does Not Vary or Evolve
• Flipcharts • Whiteboards • PowerPoint slides	• Flipcharts • Whiteboards • PowerPoint slides • Written materials (handouts) other than books • Physical props	• Videos • DVDs • Books • Photographic slides • Digital presentations • Wallboards

Think About This

Your choice of media relative to learner interactivity must also depend on the time of day and course sequence. Your media should be at the high end of interactivity if it is right after lunch or close to the end of the day or if the prior learning activities have been passive to this point. Media can be at the lower end of interactivity if the learners have just completed an intense, active activity, and are in need of a rest.

Noted

When learners work alone on an activity, some finish before others and may then become bored or disengaged while waiting for the others to finish. Some facilitators hand out photocopied puzzles, games, or brainteasers to keep these learners occupied while they wait, but these handouts can distract the learners from the subject at hand so you have to reengage them, or they may disturb other learners if they start collaborating on the puzzles, or the learners who work more slowly feel penalized because they didn’t get to work on the “fun stuff.” Consider instead using handouts that contain additional reading about the subject at hand or creating an additional quiet assignment the faster learners can work on until everyone is finished.

Noted

Have you heard the saying “When you get a new hammer, everything looks like a nail”? These days, Microsoft PowerPoint is that hammer. Don’t misunderstand: PowerPoint is a wonderful tool for presenting information. Its many features allow you to make content presentation lively and colorful. Having said that, however, PowerPoint is used too often and too much. Some organizational cultures expect PowerPoint to be used as the only media in courses (too often), and you have probably also seen four-hour courses with 300 PowerPoint slides (too much)! You must choose and use media that best support the learning at the moment. Sometimes that choice is PowerPoint, and many times it is not. Let the learning needs drive the media; don’t try to fit the learning to the PowerPoint if it’s not a good match.

Basic Rule 39

Don’t use just one or two types of media. Use a variety of media in one module or setting.

Generating or Revising Material on the Fly

When your learning activity requires that you (or the learners) brainstorm ideas or generate a list of items on the spot, you need to use a medium that allows you (or them) to write items down in real time. The media that provide this opportunity are flipcharts, fill-in overhead transparencies, fill-in handouts, and whiteboards.

And, just because you’ll be working on the fly to list brainstorm ideas, doesn’t mean you don’t have to be prepared. For example, make sure you have the equipment you need, including the correct writing instruments for the medium you are using. Flipcharts require water-based markers so that the writing doesn’t bleed through onto the pages behind, or worse, onto another surface, such as a wall. Whiteboards require dry-erase markers. Use water-based transparency markers (thin point) for overhead transparencies. Here’s what happens if you use the wrong marker:

• Dry-erase markers used on flipcharts results in not enough ink being applied, which causes faded lettering that is hard to see.

• Water-based markers used on whiteboards can’t be erased on the spot; they require special cleaning.

• Regular water-based markers (instead of overhead transparency markers) used on overhead transparencies results in fading and smearing, so the overhead is unreadable.

Need for Continued Visibility

In many learning events, the facilitator wants not only to save media that have been produced during the class, but also to keep it visible as an ongoing record of what the learners have produced. This method helps learners review concepts, look back at prior events, and see progress that has been made. Flipcharts and wallboards posted on the wall work very well for this need. Whiteboards work well if there are several of them in your room.

Portability

Sometimes you must take your learning materials on the road to a different site or sometimes simply to a different room in your facility. In this case, ease of portability becomes a factor. Part of your portability decision rests on what media or technology is already be available at the facility you’ll be using.

Overhead transparencies are extremely portable, especially if the facility you will use already has a projector and screen. PowerPoint and digital presentations are very portable on a laptop computer if the room you’ll be using is equipped with an LCD projector or computer data projector. Though relatively expensive, there are now small computer projectors that are easy to transport. Videos and DVDs likewise are very portable if there is equipment available at your site. All of these items become much less portable if there is no audiovisual equipment at your site. The best option in this case is to take a portable overhead projector with you or a compact computer projector and laptop.

Flipcharts are not very portable; even the supposedly “easy to carry” charts and easels on the market aren’t! (Ask anyone who has had to lug flipcharts around.) The best option is to request a flipchart and easel at the site or to use blank overhead transparencies in place of a flipchart. If you have many handouts, these are not very portable either and can be quite heavy. The best bet in this case is to use a rolling suitcase to carry them—even for a short trip from the trunk of your car into the building!

Alternatively, you can ship materials and equipment ahead of time. If you ship materials, get the name of the person who should be receiving your shipment. Then, follow up to be sure the material arrived and will be at the room.

Think About This

Facilitators who must move to multiple sites should have a backup plan in case the expected media arrangement is unavailable. In other words, know what you will do ahead of time if you must switch to a different way of presenting information. You can even bring an alternative set of media with you; for example, if you plan to use PowerPoint, bring a set of overhead transparencies of the PowerPoint slides, as well as a set of printouts that you can photocopy and distribute if worse comes to worst. Many facilitators have been saved more than once by having such a contingency plan ready to go.

Basic Rule 40

Always have a media backup plan.

Physical Environment

The physical environment of the space you are working in will affect your use of media also. The larger the room, the “larger” your media should be—typically overhead transparencies or PowerPoint slides. If columns or other barriers hamper visibility, multiple flipcharts stationed at multiple points help all learners feel involved. If you want to keep a record of work done, the wall surfaces must be amenable to tape or self-stick flipcharts or pushpins. The lighting options available will dictate whether it is appropriate (and advisable) to use media such as slides, videos, PowerPoint, or overhead transparencies that require dimmed room lighting.

Think About This

Keep the room as brightly lit as you can when you’re projecting media. Some rooms allow you to dim only the lights in the vicinity of the projection screen while keeping the rest of the room fairly bright. Under no circumstances turn out the lights right after lunch!

A large room or poor acoustics dictate use of a microphone. If you must use a microphone in a large space, use a lavaliere microphone with a power pack that clips to your clothing. You can then move about the room if necessary, unlike with a stationary microphone at a podium. Another tip is to wear clothing that will make attaching the microphone and power pack easy (for example, a jacket with a lapel for the microphone and a pocket for the power pack).

A Word About Physical Props

To paraphrase, sometimes a prop or object lesson is worth a thousand words. Physical props are especially useful in illustrating analogies. Seeing or handling a prop makes learning much more meaningful to visual and kinesthetic learners. Here are a few quick examples:

• Using a Slinky to illustrate cause and effect

• Having learners build something with Tinkertoys or LEGO building blocks to demonstrate teamwork or effective planning

• Using an actual burlap sack to illustrate the negative effect of “gunny-sacking” complaints in a conflict situation.

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and creativity. And, remember the discussion in chapter 4 about personalizing the learning to fit your style? If you have a talent or hobby, this is the place to use it to illustrate a learning point. For example, there was a description in chapter 4 about a musician who uses music and instruments to illustrate synergy and teamwork. Amateur magicians can use magic tricks to illustrate learning points, and so on.