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Choose colours to convey the following:-
- Aggression: Red, black
- Friendly: Yellow, Green
- Solid: Grey, White
- Weak: Light Blue, pink
- Serious: Black, White, Brown
- Depressed: Grey, Blue

Consider your e-Learning product – what colours might work? Why?

Plain simple colours like Red, Yellow, Black and White.
These colours mite work as it conveys the information clearly. The more important parts could either be highlighted in more black or in red. The background should be nice and simple in white or a very light cream yellow so to not overwhelm the readers who are viewing it.
Very vibrant and strong colours like pink, purple and blue would not be so relevant as it brings out mixed emotions and feelings from the learners. When providing information you need it to be plain simple and straight to the point. By having plain simple colours learners can easily obtain information and take it in with ease instead of having to be distracted by strong and vibrant colours.

How would visual hierarchy influence learners?

Visual hierarchy can influence learners in all sorts of ways as visual hierarchy determines what the learners see or notice first. By drawing attention to the right thing will aid the student in their learning and will direct them in the right path, whilst having poor visual hierarchy, learners will be confused and won’t know clearly what they should be looking at first in order to gain the information they want.
Other ways visual hierarchy can influence learners is by distractions. If one particular design has too many colours or layers of information, learners can be easily distracted from the main content and start to draw attention to all the non-important parts of the web page or file.
So visual hierarchy can work in both ways, either enhance or support the learning content that is being presented by having a clear and ordered structure of the information, or confuse and puzzle the learners from the learning content by having an unorganised structure, messy design and the overload of information.

Provided examples of multimedia elements you would recommend.

Some multimedia elements I would recommend would be the use of pictures, colours and the sequencing of those two put together. Any other flashy animation and sound would not be that effective in a learning context where most of the time, it doesn’t enhance the learning of the content and is sometimes even a distraction to what is being taught. By using pictures as illustrations and examples with good colours in the background or in the text of information it will really help to enhance the learning of the content.
For example, by having red text for heading or very important facts will draw the learners attention to those specific facts, and also by having pictures as illustrations or examples will help the learners to picture the learning in their own heads and will be able to draw relation to it as they are learning both through text and visually.

How do you define multimedia in today’s e-Learning context?

In my own opinion, I think that e-learning would not exist or be able to reach its full potential without the use of multimedia.
Multimedia is what e-learning is based upon, where learners get to learn from a different platform with not only using computers to type out notes and see power point presentations but visual aids, sounds, music, and video clips makes the e-learning experience as full as it can be. Multimedia is almost like the extra spark that makes e-learning as effective as it can be. Through e-learning we see multimedia used in websites, programs and software that we incorporate into the learning content. Without it, e-learning would be as dull as a normal ordinary and traditional class room.
Web 2.0 technologies that have emerged most recently have just given multimedia more variety. As social book marking and social websites come into place, it is multimedia that attracts the attention of people to begin with. The fancy layout, good use of colours and many useful applications have all been put together through the means of multimedia to make Web 2.0 technologies as popular as they are today.

How could you apply Bandura’s Social Learning Theory in an e-Learning context?Social learning in e-learning is very much apparent.
When learners go through e-learning they are experiencing new technologies and these are based on peoples actions.
This happens almost all the time when learners go through e-learning experiences.
As a result of this, expectations come into place as a result of these experiences.
So social learning can be applied to e-learning because it is something that we all go through wether we notice it or not whenever we learn and discover new things in e-learning.

Now – consider the learning theories in the context of  the technologies you have researched in Module1.

Which theories are suited or more appropriate?

- Social Learning Theory and Constructivist Approach

 They are both based on learning through experience and discovery. This is highly relevant to all the educational technologies we have looked at.

How could you apply constructivist learning principles in an e-Learning environment?
Group Work - Collaborative Learning
Groupwork is a great way to apply constructivist learning in e-learning. When dealing with e-learning many people are unfamiliar with many of the things that has emerged. By wokring in a group, individuals can collect ideas together and share information with one another. This is a very effective way of discovering new ideas and concepts thats related to e-learning.
Scenario, Case Study:
Case studies are a great way of helping learners to find new information and to study it. Case studies usually have many new ideas and information with good examples that learners can related back to. By reading case studies learners can identify themselves the new information and learn from what they have analyzed.
Enriched Learning Environments (Multimedia e-learning):
The many traditional class room setting of learning has become rather dull to most people. Learners continuously seek new ways of learning and are always interested to try to gain information in different ways. By having special video clips, slide shows or presentations through the use of multimedia students can sometimes learn allot more from just a normal class held in a room with tables, chairs and a white-board.

- Individual Research
By giving learners tasks or assignments where they can research themselves is a great mean of helping a constructivist approach to learning. Learners can do their own discovering as much as they want through this mean.

What effect might e-Learning contexts have for the Humanist approach?

The Humanist approach is very much based on feelings and emotions. Having this in mind in the e-learning context a humanist approach can work in both a good way and a bad way.
It works in both ways where if people feel confident and good about the e-learning technology they would be happy to try it and interact to learn and experience it.  If bad feelings and emotions come into place it will work in a negative way towards e-learning where the leaners mite be reluctant to try to learn in the e-learning context or is very unmotivated to do so.

Having said this, a humanist approach can help learners to relate the e-learning to previous experiences and if supported in the e-learning experience it would be an encouragement to the new experiences and can improve and support learning.

What effect might meaningfulness and insight have in e-Learning contexts?Meaningfulness in e-learning context can help people to recognise familiarity with certain learning contexts. Things that they see can be related to something that they have done before in a different context or just make them feel more comfortable since they are not totally unfamiliar with the e-learning material presented to them.
If users can find meaning in the e-learning content they are studying it will be more usefull for them as they are learning and getting familiar with the information.

When it comes to exploring new things in the e-learing context, having insight is very important.
Insight is what makes people think and helps people to think outside the box of how to deal with watever they come across.
By having a different view of things it will help people to have a more possitive attitude towards solving different problems. Usually by solving problems or coming across problems is what helps people to learn.
This is just part of the learning experience and it certainly applies in e-learning also.

How can we use Advance Organisers in e-Learning contexts?

Advanced oragnisers can be used in e-learning in a few useful ways.
By having advanced organisers learners can link old information with new information that they have gathered or learnt and collaborate the information to further improve and grow their own knowledge.
Advanced organisers can also be used to encourage new learning styles and ways or learning.
Some things that can be used are graphic organizers for taking notes, learning new things/words/definitions, as well as a pre-writing tool.for taking notes, learning new things/words/definitions, as well as a pre-writing tool.
The use of Narrative and concept mapping can also be used as story telling in advanced oragnizers.

What effect might generalizing have in e-learning context?

Generalizing in e-learning context can disrupt information to be communicated effectively.
The many softwares and programs out there can cause people to have false ideas of what it really is or they mite think they know what it alredy is and therefore wont try out new things.
When generalizing, it can play a huge role in the way people think and what they think is usefull or popular. Some not so common websites or programs mite give users the impression of it not being known or popular and therefore its not a good thing to use.
Depending on the way people think or behave they only go for things that they feel comfortable with things that they trust. Generalizing is not helpful when it comes to these matters. The best way to deal with it is to find out for yourself wether the new technology in e-learning is relevant and usefull or not by trying out many new things and teaching yourself how to use those particular things.