How Multimedia Supports Learning
The use of multimedia allows us access to some things that we otherwise would not be able to do/have in the classroom. Some examples that were discussed in class and I experienced in high school are bill nye the science guy, the magic school bus, and different YouTube videos. This provides students with a fun and engaging way to learn the information that may otherwise just be given in a lecture form. Another characteristic of using videos to portray information in the classroom is the ability for students to access it outside of the classroom, rewatch it, slow it down, speed it up, and/or add subtitles.
Image from: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/rewind-play-pause-fast-forward-icons
Video recordings specifically, as what you could access from YouTube, can give you an opportunity to see things that we are unable to see in real time or with the naked eye. In class we talked about the possibility to find videos that can show a slow motion video of a horse running, allowing us to see if there is a section in their stride that they are not touching the ground. We also talked about a Timelapse video allowing us to show something that would generally take a a long period of time being put into a 5 minute video that can be shown in class. I remember watching a video of the cycle of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, which would not be possible to do in class if you had to watch it happen in real time. Lastly, we discussed the use of PowerPoint, canva, word cloud, and AI generated imagery, all helpful in our everyday classes. These are common tools that are used, which the class made me realize we rely on for much of our teaching. Without PowerPoint, and other similar tools, how would we be able to easily present information in a class? Very interesting to think about how our roles and teachers and students would change significantly without having access to resources like this.