Multimedia

in Education Learning theory in the past decade has expanded dramatically because of the introduction of multimedia. Several lines of research have evolved such as Cognitive load and multimedia learning. The possibilities with multimedia for learning and instruction are vastly increasing. The idea of media convergence is also becoming a major factor in education, particularly higher education. Defined as separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video that now share resources and interact with each other, synergistically creating new efficiencies, media convergence is rapidly changing the curriculum in universities all over the world. Likewise, it is changing the availability, or lack thereof, of jobs requiring this savvy technological skill. When I say multimedia, what I am referring to is a combination of different content forms that include text, audio, images, video, animation, and interactivity. Now lets discuss several learning principles that come into play when developing a lesson plan with the integration of multimedia. Understanding these principles will influence how you develop your course and help you establish realistic learning goals for your students. The first is the Modality principle where the brain simultaneously encodes two different types of information, although it may appear that this may overwhelm the learner, research indicates that verbal information is remembered better when accompanied by a visual image. Next is temporal contiguity, which suggests thats students learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously. In the coherence principle, users learn better when extraneous material is excluded. The segmentation principle provides the learner with pacing control over the flow of information. Now lets discuss Cognitive theory as it pertains to multimedia learning. Cognitive load theory has been designed to provide guidelines intended to assist in the presentation of information in a manner that encourages learner activities that optimize intellectual performance" (Sweller, van Merrinboer, and Paas, 1998) The three types of cognitive load include: Intrinsic, where all instruction has an inherent difficulty associated with it. Extraneous, where large amounts of unnecessary information is provided, and Germane, where the load is devoted to the processing, construction and automation of specific learning structures. From these principles and theories we can ascertain that learning material should lend itself well to a multimedia format, promote student interaction with the content, and be student driven to adapt to different learning styles. Some sample tasks that would be

best suited for multimedia include role playing, concept acquisition, and visualization based skills. When choosing multimedia, be sure to select tools that help achieve your learning objectives. Do not accommodate your learning objectives to fit a specific tool. The best multimedia tools are easy to use, provide feedback, and encourage communication and collaboration. Likewise, multimedia implementation should be easy to use, flexible (provide pacing control), have a tiered material structure, and promote participation. When using multimedia for assessment and evaluation it is recommended practice to establish a learning baseline (pre-test), present self-contained modules, require activity from users, and to provide and collect feedback to and from the users. There are several means of integrating multimedia into your learning material. Some examples of this multimedia include: PowerPoints, images, audio (podcasts), video, animations, hypermedia, websites, computer based training, computer simulations, and interactive maps. Some of the authoring tools commonly used to produce these forms of media include: Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft PowerPoint, Audacity (Free mp3 creator) :, YouTube, and Flowchart.com. Some of the common delivery tools used to present these forms of multimedia include: LMSs such as Blackboard and Moodle, website like Google Sites and Weebly, Internet browsers such as IE, FireFox, and Safari, Podcasting services like PodBean, ProfCast, or PodOmatic, embedding video by way of YouTube or TeacherTube, creating Blogs on sites like Blogger and Wordpress, and establishing realtime web feeds viaRSS (real simple syndication).