The case of ‘interactive multimedia’ in education: how do learners benefit?
The term ‘multimedia’ has become a catchall phrase to describe, in one word, many of the electronic technologies available today. What is multimedia, precisely? As the word indicates, multi meaning more than two and media meaning the various means of mass communication, multimedia is commonly thought to be any two electronic technologies used in conjunction and at the same time. The term media has traditionally included television, radio, magazines, newspapers and the like. Since the advent of the computer, however, the idea of media, particularly multimedia, has taken on a new meaning. In particular, in terms of education, multimedia is the use of media in teaching: the use of film, video, and music in addition to more traditional teaching materials and methods (Bloomsbury, 2003).
‘ Interactive’ is another word that has greatly changed in meaning with the advent of extended computer use. According to Encarta, the primary definition of interactive is ‘communicating or collaborating: involving the communication or collaboration of people or things.’ This definition in itself implies a change in behavior of the participants; collaboration and/or communication forces the participants to alter what would have been usual and customary behavior. One interacts with another, and changes. It is an active process; the participants are in control of their own responses and behaviors in the sense they chose when and how to participate. The second two definitions from Encarta state that interactive means 2) computing with user-machine communication: allowing or involving the exchange of information or instructions between a person and a machine such as a computer or a television; 3) computing operator-controlled: operating on instructions entered by somebody at a keyboard or other input device (Encarta, 2003). The idea of computers and computing dominates these last two definitions. No longer do we necessarily have any change in behavior, only an exchange of information, nor is it collaborative. The interactivity is, with respect to computers, one-directional. A computer cannot chose to participate in a given activity, but a computer user can choose to participate, and is thus engaging in interactive activity.
It is, therefore, somewhat perplexing to use interactive and multimedia together in one phrase, or to describe multimedia as interactive. Multimedia is, in fact, not interactive based on the above definitions. Regardless of the odd usage of the term, the idea of ‘interactive multimedia’ does have a huge potential for many elements of society--entertainment, business, law, and most importantly for this paper, education, and will here after be referred to as instructional technologies. This is in contrast to the term ‘instructional technology’ in the sense that instructional technologies focuses on the concrete forms of technology used for instruction.
The simultaneous use of multiple forms of media in education has unlimited potential benefits for today’s learners and teachers. These benefits are global; not just one educational activity, taken in isolation, can be said to have an advantage or disadvantage over a previous method of instruction. Instead, the entire educational system, and all individuals within it, benefit. The principal overriding advantage of instructional technologies is the ability to individualize education (Lucas, 2002). With the implementation of instructional technologies, students in the classroom are no longer required to “learn” at the same pace and in the same manner as every other student in the classroom. This idea has the capabilities to change educational methods than have been in place in America’s public and private schools for decades, if not centuries.
Many instructional technologies are considered interactive because the user, or learner, has the ability to change outcomes based on input. This means, essentially, that the learner can control the learning path. Instead of simply having an outcome of yes/no, right or wrong, as in many classrooms, with instructional technologies, the learner now has the ability to be lead to the correct answer through a series of steps, through a process. The potential for increased learning outcomes is immense.
Another advantage that instructional technologies have over traditional teaching methods is the fact that each and every student has a unique learning style. Like a fingerprint, a learning style is individual and exclusive. Some students learn better by being exposed to one instructional style, and another learns better with a different instructional style, or, even, a combination of styles. Likewise, each and every educator has a unique instructional style. The possibility of a single student in a single classroom having a learning style that matches the instructional style of the teacher is quite great. However, the possibility of all students in a single class having a learning style that matches the teacher’s instructional style is next to zero. What this means is that some, or even many, students lose out in the traditional classroom.
Instructional technologies can help resolve this problem by providing educational activities that more closely match the learning styles of the students. They have the capability to do this because they are not limited by traditional classroom restraints of space and time, and they are more easily able to combine different elements that reach different learning styles. An educator can take instructional technologies and, because of the very nature, will have at least two forms of technology, meaning that at least twice as many students are reached.
Like all good things, there is a side to instructional technologies that is not so positive. The most glaring disadvantage is that using instructional technologies requires a great quantity of resources, which, for some school districts, can be prohibitive. These resources involve time, effort and money. To use instructional technologies in education, an educator needs the means to produce the technologies. The learners need the means to view and use the technologies. The educator or school must invest a large amount of money to use these technologies. Educators need to have the time to develop the instructional technologies, and they need to have the knowledge to know how and why to develop them. All together, this can be a great strain on resources, and many still see the costs as outweighing the benefits.
After weighing the advantages and disadvantages (of which there are more than outlined in this paper), many can argue that now is not the time to implement instructional technologies, but few would deny the importance of instructional technologies for education in the (very) near future. Using instructional technologies is the path of the future for education. The ability to overhaul our current educational system, and to better serve the educators and the educated, is one of the most powerful aspects of using instructional technologies, and one that cannot be ignored.
References
Bloomsbury, P. P. (2003). Encarta World English Dictionary. Retrieved September 15, 2003, from http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx
Lucas, S. B. (2002). The Individualization of Education: WebCT and Learning Styles in Language Instruction. The IALLT Journal of Language Learning Technologies, 34(1), 77-81.