The Personalization Principle

Annotations:

• Personalization Principle 1: Conversational Rather than Formal Style

1. Conversational Style

   Annotations:

   • nConversational Style: The style of  writing a e-learning script in the first or second-person. The use of a friendly human voice. 
   1. Evidence to Support the using of Conversational Style

      Annotations:

      • Based on research and a multitude of studies, the evidence states that a personalized script vs. a formal script results in improvements in student learning. 
      1. Voice Quality

         Annotations:

         • Voice Principle: People learn better from narration with a human voice better than a machine voice.
      2. Polite Speech
2. Formal Style

   Annotations:

   • Formal Style: The style of presenting information or facts in a third person, more traditional form. Less personal. Although the formal information delivery may seem like common sense, it is not how the human mind works.  Research shows that people learn better when the feeling of social presence is made known, which causes the learner to be more engaged, thus deepening the cognitive processes. When there are not any social cues, the learner does not feel engaged with the author, thus will not work as hard to make sense of the material.

Annotations:

• Personal Principle 2: Use of Effective On-Screen Coaches to Promote Learning
• What are pedagogical agents? On-screen characters who help guide the learning process during an e-learning episode.

1. Human vs. Cartoon

   Annotations:

   • The research shows that on-screen agents to do not need to be human-like in appearance but do need realistic human-like behavior.
2. Sound

   Annotations:

   • Research shows that even if a agent may not look real, there is compelling evidence that the agent has to sound conversational.   Students learn better from a human voice vs. a machine-simulated voice.
3. Gender & Ethnicity

   Annotations:

   • There is no significant evidence that gender or ethnicity plays a major roll in the retention of a information.

Annotations:

• Personalized Principle 3: Make the author visible to promote learning

1. Human to human relationship

   Annotations:

   • The activation of a relationship with the author encourages the learner to engage in deeper cognitive processing learning, leading to a better learning outcome.
2. Motivation

   Annotations:

   • A personal guide through difficult material can be encouraging and motivating.