Response to "Techniques That Reduce Extraneous Cognitve Load and Manage Instrinsic Cognitive Load during Multimedia Learning"

I still remember back in elementary school, when the teacher would have us turn on our computers and learn through some kind of multimedia. To me there was no science to it, back then or now. After reading the article I realized that through research and effective way was established so that multimedia can be effective. There is a specific way our brain works and through research these methods where compacted into a effective way. A lot of the things mentioned in the article surprised me: 

• The Coherence Principle
• I was surprised to learn that adding a video or sounds to a specific lesson will not enhance students learning. Research showed that noise, environmental sound and music was a hindrance instead of an aid to the students learning. I asked myself, how can this be true? Then it was explained that the coherence principle works because cognitive processing is limited and the absence of  extraneous sound would be one less cognitive process, thus it would lead to a better learning experience.

• The Redundancy Principal

• I was also shocked to learn that on-screen text also creates extraneous processing. I would've thought that on-screen text, such as captions would aid in ones learning, but instead it doesn't. The reasoning behind The Redundancy Principal is that the caption and the voice provide two incoming verbal streams. When the text are removed it provides and frees up cognitive capacity. 

• The Signaling Principle
• After reading about the Redundancy Principal I figured that underlining things, putting tittles on things, or "signals" on things would also be a negative approach to multimedia learning.  Again I was proven wrong when I learned that through this signaling it would point learners towards essential material and lead to meaningful learning outcomes.