Multimedia Learning in the Age of Interruption (2009)
This presentation will focus on the emergent cognitive style of "continuous partial attention." Coined by former Microsoft executive Linda Stone, the term describes the fragmentation of attention characteristic of many computer users today, whose minds, as they use the computer to perform tasks, are perpetually alert to the possibility of incoming e-mail, instant messages, and other communications and contacts. According to Stone, this constant pinging "makes us feel alive. It's what makes us feel important. We just want to connect, connect, connect." As an expression of the contemporary zeitgeist, continuous partial attention is capturing the same kind of attention in the popular press that "multi-tasking" did in the 1990s, but academic interest in the phenomenon is slow in coming. This is particularly the case in the field of education, where little if any research has been done on the potential implications of continuous partial attention for computer-based learning. This presentation describes the phenomenon and offers a new direction for the design and research of multimedia learning in the age of interruption.
Ellen Rose is a Professor of Education at the University of New Brunswick, where she held the McCain-Aliant Chair of Multimedia and Instructional Design from 2001 to 2010. She is the author of two books and numerous articles on educational computing, the social effects of technology, and instructional design. Her current research includes a SSHRC-funded study which uses hermeneutic phenomenology and media ecology as lenses through which to explore professors’ and students’ experiences of teaching and learning within Blackboard and other Learning Management Systems.