A learner watches an animation of rain moving across a landscape. The sequence is clear, the colours are attractive and the controls work. When the teacher asks why one part of the landscape behaves differently from another, however, the learner describes what moved on the screen rather than explaining the relationship.
That gap is a useful starting point for thinking about the EdMedia World Conference 2027. Digital media can make a process visible. The educational task is to help learners interpret what they see, connect the parts and use the representation to answer a worthwhile question.
For university teaching teams, media producers and teacher educators, the question is therefore specific: what should a learner become able to explain with this resource?
This article previews the next announced EdMedia edition and examines that design question. It is based on information checked on 28 October 2026, not on attendance or sessions already delivered.
EdMedia 2027: the next announced edition
AACE, the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, lists EdMedia 2027 for 7–11 June in The Hague, Netherlands. The organiser’s future-conferences page and association homepage agree on those dates and location.
The updated introduction to the conference FAQ identifies a partnership with the Open University of the Netherlands in The Hague. The wider conference description presents EdMedia as a forum for research, development and educational applications.
Some practical pages are still being updated. The FAQ contains references to earlier editions, while the deadlines page combines a 2027 heading with dates from 2026. Readers should verify the edition attached to any timetable, submission deadline or venue instruction before acting on it.
This preview does not treat older speaker lists or session schedules as a confirmed 2027 programme. Its focus is the educational question that the conference’s media and learning remit makes worth discussing.
A moving picture is still a representation
An educational animation selects what the learner sees. Its designer chooses which objects appear, which changes are shown, what the arrows mean and what the narration leaves implicit.
Those choices can clarify a relationship. They can also conceal assumptions. A smoothly moving arrow may represent a process, a quantity, a direction or simply the designer’s suggested reading order. If its meaning is unclear, following it across the screen is not the same as understanding the explanation.
A productive starting point is to identify the relationship the resource is meant to communicate. Is the learner comparing two states, explaining a sequence, distinguishing a cause from a consequence or examining how one variable relates to another?
The visual design should serve that intellectual purpose. A resource does not need to display everything at once to be useful. It needs to make the relevant distinctions available for examination.
What research on pacing contributes
Richard E. Mayer and Paul Chandler’s 2001 paper examined simple learner control in two experiments involving college students with limited familiarity with meteorology. Learners received narrated animations explaining lightning formation.
The comparisons concerned the order of segmented and continuous presentations, or segmented learner-paced presentations versus continuous ones. The authors reported advantages on transfer tests, but not retention tests, in the specified comparisons. The original paper’s abstract and methods were consulted for this article.
The finding concerns a particular explanation, population and set of presentation conditions. It does not establish a universal video length or show that adding a pause button guarantees understanding.
It does invite educators to examine pacing as an instructional choice. What opportunity does a learner gain between one meaningful part of an explanation and the next?
Give a pause something useful to accomplish
Return to the hypothetical rainfall animation. A teacher might pause it after the first visible change and ask students to identify what has changed and what has stayed the same.
The question matters more than the interruption itself. A pause that only asks learners to click “continue” may offer control over timing without making their interpretation visible. A pause that asks for an explanation can expose what they think the representation means.
For example, students could compare two still frames and describe the relationship the sequence is trying to communicate. They might identify an arrow they cannot interpret, ask what has been omitted or state what further information would be needed to explain the difference.
These are proposed teaching options, not reported EdMedia practices or tested outcomes from the pacing study. Their value would need examining in the actual lesson.
The teacher’s response also matters. If several learners interpret a visual cue differently, the appropriate next step may be to clarify the cue or revisit the explanation. Replaying the same sequence without addressing the uncertainty may leave the original problem intact.
Match the representation to the question
A useful media review can begin by comparing what different formats make available.
An animation can show a sequence unfolding. A still image can hold several elements in view for comparison. A short written explanation can state a relationship that a visual leaves ambiguous. A physical model can offer another way to inspect an arrangement.
These are design possibilities, not a ranking of formats. The appropriate choice depends on the subject, the learning question and the learners who will use the resource.
In the rainfall example, a team might decide that motion is essential for one part of the explanation but unnecessary for another. Two still frames could be more convenient when students need to compare states. A brief animation could then show the transition the comparison leaves unexplained.
Combining formats also creates responsibilities. The teacher needs to help learners connect them. If the same symbol changes meaning between a diagram and an animation, students may be asked to resolve an avoidable puzzle before they can examine the intended concept.
Ask what the interface makes easy
An interface guides attention through its arrangement and available actions. It may make replaying easy while making comparison difficult. It may keep an explanation beside the visual, or require the learner to leave one screen to consult the other.
A design team can inspect these choices through a concrete task. Ask a learner to locate the part of the resource that supports an explanation. Observe which controls they use and where they become uncertain.
A learner who replays a segment repeatedly might be inspecting an important detail. They might also be searching unsuccessfully for something the resource never explains. The same interaction record can therefore raise several possible questions.
Clicks and viewing time are useful descriptions of use. Interpreting their educational meaning requires additional information about the task and the learner’s reasoning.
This is where an educator’s question can be more informative than another usage chart: what were you trying to find, and what did this part of the resource help you understand?
Design for access to the idea
Educational media need to be usable by the intended audience. A team should examine whether the resource depends on hearing a narration, distinguishing particular colours, reading small labels or operating controls within a short time.
These are practical review questions. They do not establish compliance with an accessibility standard, which requires a separate, appropriate assessment.
The learning question remains relevant during that review. If a colour distinction carries an essential meaning, how else can that distinction be communicated? If a learner cannot access the narration, where can they obtain the explanation? If an activity requires comparing two states, can both be examined without relying on a fleeting transition?
An alternative format should preserve the intellectual work wherever possible. Providing access to a description of the task is only a beginning if the relationships needed to answer it remain unavailable.
For institutions, this makes media design a shared conversation between subject specialists, educators, accessibility colleagues and production teams.
Review an explanation before expanding a media library
A university or school network may already own many videos, slides and interactive resources. Before commissioning more, it can choose one important explanation and examine it closely.
First, specify what a learner should be able to explain afterwards. Then ask a small group of intended users to work with the resource and discuss their interpretations.
The purpose of this exploratory review is to locate questions worth investigating: an unclear symbol, a missing connection, an inaccessible control or a mismatch between the resource and the task. It does not by itself demonstrate that a revised version improves learning.
The team can then make a focused revision and decide what evidence would help assess it. That might include comparing explanations produced with different representations or examining whether learners can reason about a related example. The method should fit the question rather than merely confirm that the new version is preferred.
A clear record of what changed and why can make the work useful to other teachers. It gives colleagues something more specific than a recommendation to “use more multimedia”.
Bring a learning question to the conference
For an EdMedia participant, a useful professional question could be: which part of this representation is the learner expected to interpret, and how will the educator know whether that interpretation is sound?
That question can connect conversations about media production, research and classroom practice. It also leaves room for disagreement about the appropriate format, pacing and degree of support.
For organisers planning their own education event, the topic lends itself to a shared presentation followed by close examination of a resource. Learning Coach’s guide to choosing between a keynote and a workshop explains why the intended work should shape the format.
The account of ideas, audiences and outcomes in a Learning Coach keynote offers further context for framing that discussion.
To bring a conversation about learning, educational media and human capabilities to your institution, explore Learning Coach’s keynote offer.
Research scope and limits
This is an independent preview of the announced June 2027 event. Official pages were checked on 28 October 2026. Mixed references to earlier editions limit the practical information that can responsibly be treated as current; no individual 2027 session programme is asserted here.
The research discussion uses one older experimental paper’s abstract and methods, not a systematic review or a full statistical audit. The rainfall scenario and proposed review activities are original illustrations, not evidence of an intervention’s effectiveness. No Learning Coach participation in or endorsement by EdMedia or AACE is implied.
References
AACE. Association homepage: upcoming conferences. Accessed 28 October 2026.
AACE. EdMedia future and past conferences. Accessed 28 October 2026.
AACE. About EdMedia. Accessed 28 October 2026.
AACE. EdMedia FAQs and deadlines. Accessed 28 October 2026; these pages contain mixed edition information, as explained above.
Mayer, R. E., & Chandler, P. (2001). When learning is just a click away: Does simple user interaction foster deeper understanding of multimedia messages?. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2), 390–397. DOI: 10.1037/0022-0663.93.2.390. Original paper archived by the University of Geneva; abstract and methods consulted 28 October 2026.
