Overview

This week, I completed three Daily Creates on the Today’s Daily Create (TDC) website. I started by taking a video of something unusual during a nature walk. Then I shared a video of something that I think is fast. Finally, I attempted to make the “most boring video ever” by reading a instruction pamphlet aloud. After completing the Daily Creates, I wrote a reflection on how I believe this could align with multimedia learning.

Daily Creates

Something Unusual During Your Walk

For this Daily Create, I was instructed to go on a nature walk and look for something unusual in an obscure place. This weekend, I went on a hike up Spion Kop trail. Along the way, I came across this moth that was sitting in the middle of the trail on a rock. An interesting and unexpected place to sit in the way of the path, but a nice warm sunny spot to rest indeed. It did not move an inch until I got way too close for comfort, then it flew away, revealing its blue wings.

It’s Fast

This Daily Create asked me to share a video of something speedy. I thought of everything from cars to cheetahs, but eventually my mind came to the idea of this video (see below). The video follows an iguana as it races across the sand on the Galapagos Islands, as it is chased by dozens of racer snakes, snakes that are well known to be fast. The iguana was so fast it was able to escape the racer snakes.

Make the Dullest Video Evah

Finally, I attempted to make the dullest video ever. Surprisingly, it was harder to think of how to make this video than I thought. It took a bit of brainstorming to find something boring enough! I eventually came to the decision to read something like terms and conditions, as I think most people can agree that they are boring to read. I found a pamphlet for a cardmember agreement with other important information and saw the first page was a table of contents. I thought to myself, “This is perfect! Not only do people not want to read something like this, but they would not want to hear the table of contents written out loud in full.” I made sure to read it in a monotonous voice for better effect. It made for the perfect boring video − so boring that I started feeling drowsy while reading it out loud.

Reflection

The Daily Creates from this week indicate how information, emotions, and stories can be shared and communicated. Not only do these videos share these contexts, but they also can support information communicated through text. For example, the first Daily Create about the moth shares a story through text about how I came across a moth on the Spion Kop trail, while the video supports this text with visualization of the moth. This allows viewers and readers to better understand and visualize the context. It also relates to the course concept of storytelling. Looking at the video alone does not make the context clear. It simply just looks like a moth on a rock. But this video can turn into a story when accompanied by text. This aligns with the idea that “[s]tories can engage us on a deeper level than simple facts” (Granchelli, 2025b).

The “It’s Fast” Daily Create relates to storytelling in another way. It would be pretty difficult and lengthy to explain the story of how the iguana escaped the snakes, what direction it ran, and every event that happened leading up to it. It would also be less engaging if it were not recorded, unless written very dramatically, nor would it be as believable. This aligns with storytelling in which storytelling helps learners to “imagine situations that they haven’t yet encountered, put information in context and hold on to key messages longer” (Granchelli, 2025b).

Finally, the dullest video ever Daily Create aligned with other concepts. I had to consider several ideas before I finally made a decision on what to record in my video. In this case, I used divergent thinking as it involves exploring and considering multiple options or possibilities in order to think of ideas (Granchelli, 2025a). Also reading through the pamphlet reminded me of extraneous cognitive load. The video of the pamphlet goes against the extraneous cognitive load principle of redundancy, as it is involves word-for-word narration of text. As Granchelli (2025c) states, repeating information in more than one multimedia form should be avoided in order to avoid extraneous load. For example, presenting slides with paragraphs of text and reading that text aloud causes extraneous load and therefore, slides should be simplified while narration provides details (Granchelli, 2025c). I think this is the main reason that the video is considered boring, as it requires high cognitive load to stay focused on what is being presented, with the text-heavy page and the narration which provides no added information that may be more interesting or engaging for the listener.

References

Granchelli, A. (2025a, October 6). Design process. EDCI 337: Interactive & Multimedia Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/10/06/design-process/

Granchelli, A. (2025b, September 14). Storytelling. EDCI 337: Interactive & Multimedia Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/09/14/storytelling/

Granchelli, A. (2025c, September 5). Theories of multimedia learning. EDCI 337: Interactive & Multimedia Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/09/05/theories-of-multimedia-learning/