Application Review ~ Duolingo
The task to review a multimedia application felt very daunting at first because there are so many to choose from. When deciding which application to further investigate I wanted to pick one that I have previously used, that can be used by a large population and age group. With these requirements in mind, I decided upon Duolingo. Duolingo is a free mobile application which helps people learn new languages. This is a multimedia platform because it offers both audio and visual cues throughout their lessons.
This application is user friendly and allows you to learn based on prior knowledge and skill level. This program offers 95 different language courses in 23 languages, provides a personalized learning opportunity, delivers immediate grades, and offers various challenges and rewards where a student can earn coins, move up level and unlock new settings. Each level and lesson are delivered in a fun and interactive game design which quickly engages you. One reason I enjoy the application is because it is mobile. It can be played from a laptop, tablet, smart phone etc. In addition, Duolingo is a free program however there is an option to purchase the “Duolingo Plus”, which offers some additional settings which are posted below, but it is not necessary for an education setting.
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Image Retrieved from https://www.duolingo.com/plus
From an educator perspective, I enjoy that is can be a collaborative application. Students can follow each other’s progress and engage in friendly competition based on their scores from their individual work. Duolingo has also developed a new setting for educators, where they can track all of their students progress on with a new dashboard setting. This allows teachers to view constant progress and provide quick and descriptive feedback on their learning journey.
I have been familiar with this application for the past eight years, when I first used it to help supplement what I was learning in my grade 10 Spanish class. I used it for review and knowledge refresh for years to come, including teaching myself Italian for our Personal Passion Project in our EDCI-336 course two year ago. In addition, we used Duolingo to supplement our knowledge as future Core French teachers in our EDCI-369 course last year. Having a vast experience with this platform for multiple years has allowed me to gain experience using it as a student and now apply a critical review of it with what I have learned as a future educator.
While reviewing Duolingo, I critically examined the application with the principles of multimedia learning in mind. I believe that a principle that is not being followed in the “Redundancy Principle”. This principle states that presenting information more than once is redundant. It furthers illustrates that educators do not need on screen text to repeat what they are saying out loud. I believe the creators of Duolingo did not follow this principle and present information multiple times over and in various ways to appeal to a greater collection of learning styles. With a program that allows students to self-teach and work at their own pace, there is no one to specifically tailor lesson plans to the student’s needs. The next best thing it to provide information in as many ways possible to hopefully have it resonate with the learner. On the other hand, I believe Duolingo excels at the “Interactivity Principle” which states that students learn best when they are able to go at their own pace. This application also students to take their time, choose the lesson they want to complete and the ability to revisit previous lessons and content.
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References
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Anstey L.M. & Watson G.P.L. (2018) Rubric for eLearning Tool Evaluation. Retrieved from https://teaching.uwo.ca/pdf/elearning/Rubric-for-eLearning-Tool-Evaluation.pdf
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Mayer, R. E. (2014). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Introduction to Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1017/CBO9781139547369
Duolingo for Schools - Video Tutorial
Video Review of 7 Free Language Learning Apps
(Duolingo 0:37-2:10)
Rubric for eLearning Tool Evaluation - Duolingo
(Click the Icon Below)
Group Evaluation of a Multimedia App
Why did we choose the App Prezi?
In our group, we looked at the apps “Flipgrid”, “Google Docs”, “Duolingo” and “Prezi”. After having a discussion on which app we wanted to research deeper, we chose Prezi. Prezi is an app that is not only accessible for teachers to use but also for students of all ages. It allows for a variety of ways to be both presented and created. It’s user friendly and allows for presentations to be 3D and interactive with the addition of pictures, words and videos.
Although Flipgrid is a great classroom tool, we decided against it because Prezi has more interesting elements that we can focus on. Since the group evaluation of the selected multimedia app assignment makes up such a large component of our final grade, we wanted to ensure that we had enough content to cover for the evaluation.
Another application we evaluated was Google Docs. As a whole, Google Docs is appealing because students can connect and collaborate on a platform with the ability for teachers to provide support throughout their learning. Although it’s a great application to use for students to collaborate with peers, it didn’t connect well with the multimedia principles without a set of criteria given by the teacher. For this reason, we chose Prezi because students are able to use this application more in-depth, and as a teacher, the design can connect many more principles than Google Docs.
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The third multimedia application we reviewed was Duolingo. As a whole, this application provides an engaging and interactive opportunity where information has been presented through a gamification method. However, we didn’t choose to spotlight it for our final evaluation of a multimedia app. This platform is limiting because it’s solely for learning another language. It’s user-friendly but lacks the ability to allow users to interact with each other beyond a score. An educator can review statistics of how their students are doing but they cannot provide descriptive feedback via the application or share additional resources. A successful multimedia app should touch upon most or all of the principles, however, Duolingo lacks prosperous cooperation of most of multimedia learning Principles.
Prezi touches on several multimedia learning principles. Some of these principles include modality, redundancy, signalling and collaboration. These principles were noted on the first app review blog post but will be explored more in our final detailed review of Prezi next week.
Image retrieved from https://prezi.com/?click_source=logged_element&page_location=header&element_type=logo
Check out Miss Fletcher's Blog for an Insightful App Review of Prezi
Group Evaluation of a Multimedia App ~ The Final Review
What is Prezi?
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Prezi is a web-based application that allows users to work collaboratively to create a dynamic presentation. One of PC magazine’s top 100 websites and TIME’s top 50 websites, Prezi is adding “more than a million users a month” (Pack, 2014, p.38). Creating a Prezi is like creating a story for your students to read. In Shaadi Elswaifi’s article “On PowerPoints and Prezis”, he recommends thinking about “designing a movie” when creating a Prezi presentation. Instead of a typical PowerPoint where you go through slides linearly, the Prezi application allows you to present a bigger topic and then zoom in and out of different subtopics. This format is proven to make the content more memorable, which increases the retention of information (Prezi). It is also found to be “more organized, engaging, persuasive and effective than both PowerPoint and oral presentations” (Moulton et al., 2017, p. 31). With Prezi, you can present anywhere, online and offline. Prezi is also very user friendly with its clear instructions and how it offers multiple free Prezi templates. With Prezi the possibilities for creation are endless; you can show the life cycle of a salmon, the scale of the universe, or jazz up a math lesson!
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Connections to Multimedia Learning Principles
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As collaboration principle 2 states “multimedia should stimulate the effective and efficient distribution of thoughts and cognitive processes while members carry out tasks” (Kirschner et al., 2005, p. 553). Prezi allows multiple people to be working on different tasks in order to allow the concept of a presentation to be constructed collaboratively. It allows educators to use the personalization principle noting “people learn better when the words of a multimedia presentation are in conversational style rather than formal style” (Mayer, 2014). The learning through Prezi can be personal and presented as a conversation with the class over reading directly from slides. Additionally, the guided discovery principle states that “people learn better when guidance is incorporated into discovery-based multimedia environments” (Mayer, 2014). Prezi supports students getting started and offers multiple free templates to choose from.
For more connections to the Multimedia Learning Principles (such as the modality principle, signalling principle and redundancy principle) check out Erin Fletcher’s original evaluation on Prezi on her blog.
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Why Choose Prezi?
Prezi is a great application to create a presentation because it includes many multimedia principles that are essential for student engagement and will enhance the overall presentation. Prezi offers a free option that gives you 100MB of storage space; “enough for a few Prezi’s” (Prezi). With the free option, all of your Prezi’s will be public. Only by paying a monthly or yearly subscription fee will you be allowed to create private Prezi’s. There are student/teacher discounts offered for as low as US$3/month. This subscription allows you to use premium images and icons, have privacy controls, PDF export and even import PowerPoint slides into your Prezi (Prezi).
While the classic PowerPoint uses a slide to slide linear model, “the major features of Prezi are an infinite canvas and a nonlinear presentation style” (Chou et al, p. 74).
PowerPoint vs. Prezi Youtube Video
This being said, “the nonlinear presentation style precisely depicts the essence of elaboration theory (i.e. one of instructional design principles), which provides detailed guidance for instructional sequences” (p. 74). Students have even noted that Prezi is an effective learning tool that lets them dive deeper into their learning. There are even “innovative features emphasized in Prezi that may arouse the learning interests of students, leading them to pay additional attention to learning materials” (p. 82).
Educators Experience With Prezi
As an educator, you can create your educator account and easily teach your students to create student accounts. You can also add a Prezi video to Microsoft Teams, in order to keep students up to date.
Educator Erin Pomphery
To dive deeper into an educator's experience with Prezi, we decided to interview Erin Pomphery a TTOC with the Saanich School District. This interview done by Ariana Kelly was very insightful and gave us lots to think about when exploring Prezi further. Below is a link to the audio and written transcript from that interview.
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Audio Interview with Erin Pomphrey
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Written Transcript of Interview with Erin Pomphrey
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Here is a video called“Teachers Using Prezi: Prezi Review”. It breaks-down what is beneficial about using Prezi as a teacher, and how it can be used in the classroom. This is a great video to highlight all of the amazing tools that you can access when using Prezi.
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This page reviews and describes what Prezi is, as well as looking at the pro’s and con’s of Prezi for education purposes. Overall it is a great resource to look at because it is well put together, and includes real reviews from educators online.
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Lastly, we included a teacher blog post about Prezi explaining how to create a video lesson using the application. Paul Tueske does a great job simplifying the information, so you understand and follow along as you work through his post. The blog post further illustrates how to prepare a Prezi video, and how to develop more customized templates. This illuminating blog post features numerous tutorial videos, showing educators how to record and share videos. Paul’s blog post is recommended for teachers who are providing remote learning opportunities for students during this uncertain time of COVID-19. We felt as though adding this blog post was very worthwhile at this time because it centers around how to create a Prezi to teach in the time of Covid-19. As Paul Tueske points out, Prezi is a great alternative to continue that connection with students in an online space.
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Walk Through of Prezi
This video shows a walkthrough of a completed Prezi, and how it can look including many means of multimedia principles.
Screencapture created by Erin Fletcher representing a Prezi she created for a Leadership Forum on
“Inclusivity and Barriers”.
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To learn more about Prezi check out the blog that they have on their website
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References
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Chou, P., Chang, C., & Lu, P. (2015). Prezi versus PowerPoint: The effects of varied digital presentation tools on students’ learning performance. Computers & Education, 91, 73-82. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/science/article/pii/S0360131515300695?via%3Dihub
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Elswaifi, S.F. (2016, May 4). On powerpoints and prezis: a case for considering prezi as an alternate in medical education. Medical Science Educator, 26, 397-401.
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Fletcher, E. (2020, June 24) Prezi Example. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXBehkOgZ_A
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Kirschner, P. A., Kirschner, F., & Janssen, J., (2005). The collaboration principle in Multimedia Learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 547-575). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Mayer, R. E. (2014). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Introduction to Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1017/CBO9781139547369
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Moulton, S. T., Selen Türkay, & Kosslyn, S. M. (2017). Does a presentation’s medium affect its message? PowerPoint, prezi, and oral presentations. PLoS One, 12(7), 1-39, doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1371/journal.pone.0178774
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Pack, T. (2014, April). Create eye-catching presentations with prezi. Information Today, 31(3), 38.
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Pricing plans and options. (n.d.). Prezi. Retrieved June 25, 2020 from https://prezi.com/upgrade/edu/next/.
Rogowski, M. (2019, June). Prezi Classic Review. Common Sense Education. https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/prezi-classic
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Teachers Things That Work (2017, October 25) Teachers using Prezi: Prezi review. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPO7e2or9fo
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Teske, P. (n.d.). How to create a video lesson on Prezi Video and prepare for next year. Prezi Blog. Retrieved June 24, 2020 from https://blog.prezi.com/first-prezi-video-lesson/?fbclid=IwAR2DfzR_lJk8cq3xY87Js88PGq1W8DvlQmbrZBpGIU1yiDvTVcdvBlWjRK4
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The Presenter. (2016, December 13th) PowerPoint vs Prezi. Youtube. Retrieved June 25, 2020 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OU6gu8lcA4
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The science of effective presentations. (n.d.). Prezi. Retrieved June 25, 2020, from https://prezi.com/the-science/?click_source=logged_element&page_location=footer_mobile&element_text=the_science