Distracting Distracted Digital Learners

Digital media has drastically changed how students learn and master concepts. It also has opened up endless opportunities for enhancing online classroom design and educational landscapes. With so many options available, it is important to be selective in multimedia inclusion and purposeful when designing multimedia activities. Institutions report the need for continued guidance in multimedia options and design (Goodfellow, 2011), and many instructors seek ways to increase their confidence and their abilities to include multimedia in their classrooms (Hong & Songan, 2011). Additionally, today’s twenty-first century learners believe it is critical for educators to reform educational content to account for the digital literacy ever present in today’s hyperconnected and technologically-rich world (Anderson & Rainie, 2012). Such reform can be set in motion when instructors attain a full understanding of today’s digital learners and the programs that can be used to best meet their evolving learning needs. This presentation will explore microlearning via an effective use of screencasting, Remind.com, Snapchat, infographics, and Twitter. In essence, we desire to enlighten educators’ understanding on these pedagogical innovations that can be used to distract today’s distracted learners. Shared multimedia and visual aids will be included. Furthermore, guidance on the pedagogical inclusion of such programming will be provided in order to help all instructors more effectively meet the unique and specific needs of today’s online learners.