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Recently there is an app I use daily to learn. I don't use it every day because I am obligated to use it but it is simply because I love to use the app. It is no other than Duolingo! Using Duolingo can help us to form a good learning habit that we can apply to general learning.
What is Duolingo?
Duolingo is a language learning application using gamification. Duolingo has a fun interface because basically, it is just like you're playing a game when learning. Duolingo also has cute graphics and interactive animations. In Duolingo, we can learn a lot of languages such as English, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and many more.
I have been using it for more than 90 days and I observed the several multimedia learning principles that Duolingo applies in the app.
Coherence Principle
Coherence principle means people learn better if unnecessary things (images, words, sound) are excluded from the content. Even though Duolingo is a fun app with cute graphics and animation, it doesn't include complex animation or other unnecessary things in the learning content.
You can see the example on one of the lesson screenshots:
you will only see the sentence you are trying to understand and the option you have to choose. In the options, the app is only showing the image related to each option. It's pretty simple, so we can minimize the cognitive load needed and focus on important things.
Signaling Principle
Signaling principle means that we learn better if the multimedia content gives a signal or highlights the important part. Duolingo applies this principle when we are learning new words in a language. For example:
As you can see, there is a word that has a different color (purple) to other (grey). That is the new word that hasn't been introduced to us in the previous lesson. By implementing that, Duolingo highlights the most important thing for us in that lesson; a new vocab. We can learn how to use it in a sentence. Moreover, we can interact with that word so we can know the meaning directly.
Spatial Contiguity Principle
The spatial contiguity principle means that we can learn better if the picture is located close to the corresponding text rather far. We can see how Duolingo applies this principle using the same example in the coherence principle explanation.
As we can see it is really easy to understand what is the meaning of each option because the picture related to the options are located in the same box of the option. We know exactly which picture has the meaning of which option. It's a simple principle, but it is really important. Imagine if we didn't use a box and the picture was far from the option text. It would be really confusing, wouldn't it?
Segmenting Principle
Segmenting means people learn better from a multimedia lesson is presented in
user-paced segments rather than as a continuous unit. Duolingo breakdowns its language lessons into topic lessons that start from the easier like the basics of alphabet, basic phrases, family vocab, and so on. The topic lessons also breakdowns into star levels from 1 to 5 and the additional legendary level.
Pre-training Principle
The pre-training principle means people learn better from a multimedia lesson when they know
the basics of the main concepts. It enables people to learn the more complex problems, makes the user familiar with the lesson, user can learn how to solve the problem better.
For this principle, Duolingo applies it by providing the "Tips" section before we jump into practice. The tips section contains the introduction of the lesson we want to practice, important characteristics or other things we have to know to be able to practice better.
Personalization Principle
The personalization principle means that people learn better from multimedia lessons when words are
personalized. Duolingo uses daily conversation to make it easier for us to understand. Actually, Duolingo doesn't aim for those who want to take the professional tests but to make language learning affordable for everyone. So applying this principle is very useful for the targeted user to learn. Duolingo also uses a virtual character, an owl who always accompanies us in every lesson, and also a customized character for each quiz. It engages us with the learning process.
Deliberate Practice Principle
Deliberate practice principle means we learn better if we practice not only the easy ones but also in which part we made mistakes or in part which we're still weak. Duolingo applies this principle with features of hard exercise and learns from past mistakes. In learning we can't just stay in our comfort zone, just to enjoy the process. Sometimes we have to feel challenged and strive for improvement.
Explanatory Feedback Principle
Imagine if you are having a test confidently but turns out you got bad marks? You must be wondering in which part you make a mistake and what the right answer is, don't you? That's why we need explanatory feedback in multimedia learning. Multimedia learning has to provide explanatory feedback for the user because it's not simply a test, but a learning platform. Duolingo already applied it by giving the correct answer whenever we submit the wrong answer. By that, we can learn from our mistakes and better about the subject.
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Actually there are other principles that I haven't covered in this post. Yes I think Duolingo is very considerate with our learning experience. So it is worth it to invest your time at least 5 minutes or less to play Duolingo. I personally don't want to loose that 90 days streak that I have so that I don't loose that much of my language skill. Because once you stop practice you will be tempted to not doing it again for the next day.
There is one quote of duolingo that I like. I can relate to the quote because I often end up wasting my time scrolling social media mindlessly.
"15 minutes a day can teach you a language. What can 15 minutes of social media can do?"
References:
-Multimedia Learning
(Cambridge Press, 2001), Richard E. Mayer
https://www.hartford.edu/facultystaff/faculty/fcld/_files/12%20Principles%20of%20Multimedia%20Learning.pdf
