MicroMasters® Program in Instructional Design and Technology
University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC)
MICROLEARNING PROJECT
PROJECT OVERVIEW & WHY I PICKED CANVA?
I will reflect on my learning of the tool Canva (https://www.canva.com) that supported my work as an instructional designer while completing this course. I used Canva for designing infographics for my course portfolio (presented on this page). I like learning new tools that add value to my instructional designing skills, so I was highly motivated to find a new way of presenting information as visuals.
The main reasons why I picked the tool are, that the platform is free to use (there is also a paid subscription called Canva Pro with added features which I used afterward), Canva offers hundreds of templates for the users, and it is very popular for creating infographics presentations, social media graphics, posters, and other visual contents. Canva is a very successful venture founded in Australia in 2013, and in September 2021 the platform is valued at USD 40 billion as Wikipedia suggests today.
In the context of my learning of the tool Canva, I think most of the learning theories have played a part. Andragogy, Cognitivism, Constructivism, and Behaviorism are the key learning theories that have supported my learning. As an adult learner, the Andragogy (adult learning) theory is more dominant than the others.
LEARNING THEORIES & THEIR APPLIED PRINCIPLES
Knowles discusses five assumptions about the characteristics of Andragogy to be self-concept, adult learner experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and motivation to learn (Cochran & Brown, n.d.). I signed up for a Canva account and learned the tool in a self-directed way (self-concept), my past experience with graphics designing tools played an important role in my learning (experience), and my maturity led to an openness to learning new tools (learning readiness), also my orientation towards the learning was problem-centric where I identified a solution for presenting my coursework using visuals (learning orientation), and finally, my motivation was intrinsic to produce work that is of the high standard to achieve “exemplary” grades (learning motivation).
From Cognitivism learning theory perspective, I wanted to reduce my Cognitive Load and improve my information processing by choosing Canva to design infographics as a Cognitive Aid. Cognitive Aid is any tool or set of materials that can offload some of the demands on working memory (Malamed, n.d.). Cognitivism suggests that learning improves when extraneous materials are excluded, like the elimination of interesting but irrelevant words, pictures, sounds, music, and symbols (Mayer, 2009). Adhering to this Coherence principle of multimedia learning, I could eliminate all irrelevant content while designing.
In Constructivism, students are encouraged to learn on their own through discovery learning (Aljohani, 2017). While learning this new designing tool, I worked on the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) by starting with smaller steps like editing a template, to designing an infographic from scratch stretching my abilities while discovering the platform. If I got stuck with anything, I referred to the "Learn" menu of Canva platform, which has a blog, design school, help center, etc. that worked as a Scaffolding tool to support my learning.
Behaviorism was observed when I was doing repetitive, technical tasks (Skill & Drill) until the task became more automatic. I did some trial and error until I figured out the task sequence and got the desired outcome from the platform.
THE BIGGEST 'AH-HA' MOMENT & WHY?
After I finished designing the first infographics using Canva, I downloaded a PDF version of it and linked it to the Constructivism page of my portfolio through a button using the Wix website designing platform. After it was published, the moment when I opened the PDF file by clicking on the button, was my biggest ‘ah-ha’ moment.
Now, let's discuss why this was my biggest 'Ah-ha' moment. I have learned many new things while doing this course and designing my portfolio website by myself from scratch was a big one. Being able to visually represent information using nice infographics in my portfolio was like the cherry on top of the cake. This microlearning reflection is an attempt to portray a part of my own learning process.