PlayPosit - Self-Paced Interactive Video

This concept project was created to provide adult language learners with comprehensible input for their listening and vocabulary learning and practice. Under Bloom’s revised Taxonomy this project addresses factual concrete knowledge and cognitive processes that require the learner to remember, understand, and apply the learning material.

It was created using PlayPosit, YouTube, and Inshot. I selected PlayPosit to explore the the platform’s functionality and user experience (both as the instructor/creator and as the learner). YouTube was necessary to add subtitles while still using PlayPosit’s free version, and the InShot app was used for video editing.

This project also falls within Mayer’s Principles of Multimedia Learning. The principles that were especially prevalent here were the signalling, modality, segmenting, spatial and temporal contiguity, and voice principles. Using my own voice to tell the story offers a more human touch. By having only essential text show on the screen (signalling and modality) and using PlayPosit’s features that pause the video and ask a comprehension checking questions (segmenting), learners could easily identify what information was important without becoming overwhelmed and process each segment independently to build understanding gradually. It was important to have the text be placed close to my face and in time with the corresponding parts of story for spatial and temporal contiguity so learners could process the information and build meaningful connections between the text and the audio of the story.

I followed the ADDIE model by analysing the learner needs (listening comprehension practice), designing and developing a lesson that would address those needs, then implementing it and seeking feedback from colleagues. Based on their evaluation of the initial training product, I made some small but impactful adjustments to the structure of the lesson, such as having the comprehension questions appear during the second telling of the story. In the end, I had created an effective learning tool for students to practice their listening comprehension and expand their vocabulary.

(Click the video in the slideshow below for sound.)