Running head: MULTIMEDIA CRITIQUE #1 1

Multimedia Critique #1: Dirt Detectives

Leesa Parker

Coastal Carolina University

EDIT 720
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Multimedia Critique #1: Dirt Detectives

Multimedia instruction can be helpful to a teacher for a multitude of reasons. Not only

does it provide deeper learning (Mayer, 2014), but it can be motivating and novel for students at

the same time. Many times, reading or math sites allow for a multitude of tutorials, skill tests,

games, and practice. Those of us who teach in the area of science and social studies have a

difficult time finding quality web-based multimedia to offer students. This multimedia activity I

have chosen is a website sponsored by Colonial Williamsburg (https://www.history.org/). It is an

interactive, informative lesson on archaeology.

“Dirt Detective: Junior Archaeologist”

(https://www.history.org/kids/games/dirtDetective.cfm) is an activity that explains features and

artifacts archaeologists find in the field. While the peripheral part of the site is directly related to

Colonial Williamsburg, the activity is applicable to archaeology as a whole. It must be noted that

this is a Flash Player enabled activity, so it will not play on iPads. There is animation, text,

sound, and many interactive opportunities in this “game.” The game is geared toward elementary

students 2-5. Two moles show you around a cartoon archaeological site and teach students about

stratigraphy and features. Students read for understanding and answer questions based on the

understanding by clicking on various features on the screen.

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Figure 1: Click on the older feature of the dirt.

If students are incorrect, the moles will give an auditory cue and allow students to try again until

the choose the correct answer.

Figure 2: Try Again

One interesting piece of the activity is a “Field Journal.” Students take the information

that they learned and apply it to divergent questions directly related to the slides. There are four

of these types of questions. At the end of the activity, students can print out their individual

journals for the teacher as formative assessments (or to just take home for fun!).
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Figures 2 & 3: Field Journals

While this game may be engaging and novel for students, does is follow multimedia

principals and learning theories well? From a multimedia standpoint, it is good. The entire

activity is set up segmented—that is, students can read, learn, and answer at their own pace.

According to Mayer & Pilegard, (2014) this is important to avoid essential overload. The

information provided would be complex or new to elementary students. Not giving them the

opportunity to digest the information would most like result in cognitive overload. Each slide has

a button on it to move forward or backward if needed. The back button is particularly helpful for

those students who would need to go back and reread the information.

The pretraining happens within the game. The text explains the concept that follows the

illustration on the screen. This is minimal, however, and if students are unfamiliar with some of

the terms, they may be confused. But each concept is explained before students have to pick out

a section according to the question. If they do not understand, the mole gives them another

cue/hint to help them find the correct spot.

As far as the modality is concerned, there is text, pictures, and sound. One positive aspect

is the site only uses two of those three to present information. Sound is only used to signal a

question or a wrong answer. Animation does not interfere with the information, either, but only

as a transition. This helps “off-load some of the visual processing” (Mayer & Pilegard, 2014).
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When I think of this activity and relating it to the learning theories we have studied, I

tend to think of Driscoll’s (2005) chapter on Meaningful Learning and Schema Theory. The

success of the students answering the questions depends on several factors, what they know

before playing, and do they comprehend the new material being presented. This follows both

theories. The Field Journals seem to follow the Meaningful Learning conditions. It is well

organized and it seems to be a mix between reception (teaching) and discovery (open-ended

questions in the field journal. One concern is background knowledge, however. Being a teacher, I

am aware that archaeology is not specifically taught in elementary school. While students learn

about Native Americans, soil, colonial towns, etc., words such as stratigraphy, artifacts, features

excavation, foundation are not a part of instruction. Even though the topics are closely related to

each other, they are taught in other grades, and most likely teachers do not activate prior

knowledge on the subjects. Unless a teacher in a specialized class is teaching archaeology, like

mine, students will not have schemata associated with the “whys” of such digging. This may

affect comprehending the text, especially for younger students. For older students, the text is not

particularly complex for them to understand and complete the task without knowing specifically

about archaeology.

Conclusion

Dirt Detective: Junior Archaeologist is an entertaining site for elementary students. It

follows good multimedia practices in order to allow students to maximize their cognition. If I

could change anything about the site, I would have a narrator instead of text conveying the

information to the students. I would not suggest the moles doing the narration, as their cartoonish

voices are distracting (although they are fine for what the site uses them for currently). Young

students without background knowledge may struggle a bit, but it certainly is fitting for the older
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elementary students to be able to follow and complete. I would suggest this be an activity offered

to students after a unit of study that allows for the teacher to do some pretraining on archaeology.

Perhaps connect Native American lesson with archaeology through the use of an advance

organizer. I will continue to use this activity for early finishers and as a formative assessment.
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References

Driscoll, M. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and

Bacon.

Mayer, R.E. (2014) Introduction to Multimedia Learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge

Handbook of Multimedia Learning. (pp. 1-24). New York: Cambridge.

Mayer, R.E. & Pilegard C. (2014) Principles for managing essential processing in multimedia

learning: segmenting, pre-training, and modality principles. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The

Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. (pp. 316-344). New York: Cambridge.