Daily Creates: May 25 – 31
#tdc5204: International Plant Appreciation Day
This daily create tasked me with taking an image of a plant in my house and sharing what it means to me. The plant I chose to photograph is my Monstera deliciosa, or Swiss cheese plant. I bought this plant a couple of years ago for my apartment and have enjoyed watching it grow. I also like the look of the plant and how easy it is to maintain.
Displaying these two images provides context on the appearance of the plant and includes a bit of storytelling. It can be seen that the plant has grown significantly over time. By placing the “before” and “after” images side-by-side, it visually displays the progression of the plant that would be difficult to describe through text. Documenting the growth of this plant also relates to the reflection stage of the design process, as caring for the plant has allowed me to observe its growth over time and make note of its health.
#tdc4897: Streetview an interesting spot in the world you may never visit
As the title says, this daily create tasked me with finding an interesting spot in the world that I may never visit. Personally, a location in the world that I don’t think I’ll ever end up visiting is Iqaluit. I chose Iqaluit because it is so unique; it is the northernmost city in Canada and the capital of Nunavut, yet only has about 8,000 residents.
To find an interesting spot in the world that I may never visit, I had to filter through a variety of locations across the world. I used the Coherence Principle by focusing on aspects of this challenge that I believed to be important. I chose this image because it adheres to Mayer’s theory of Cognitive Load, as it does not include unnecessary information. The image was also specifically selected as it accurately represents both the location of the city as well as its size.
#tdc4542: Here comes the sun!
This daily create tasked me with showing my sunniest image. I thought that this picture taken from my deck was perfect, as the sun was so bright that it pretty much wipes out the rest of the image.
I interpreted this prompt to show an image where the sun was the main focus. From a multimedia learning perspective, the extremely bright sun highlights the signaling principle as it is clearly the focus of the image. Furthermore, the brightness of the sun overexposes the image, providing a good example of the Coherence Principle, ensuring that the focus of the image remains on the sun.
This task was interesting as I feel as though it shows a different side of multimedia learning. I typically think of images like this as poor because of how the sun overpowers the other details, but it is interesting to think about how this can be used to intentionally emphasize specific sections of an image. From this I feel like I learned that images do not always have to be perfect to provide meaning.
Reflection:
Completing this week’s daily creates gave me an opportunity to learn how images can be used to provide different types of emphasis or context. I don’t often consider how an image can provide context on a topic such as the size and location of Iqaluit, or how overexposed images could place meaning on different visuals within an image. It was also interesting to think about how two simple images of a plant can provide readers with context much more effectively than through text. I have learned that managing cognitive load for images such as these is important to ensure they have their desired effect.