Research on Multimedia in Education

Executive Summary: There is substantial research supporting the effectiveness of information technology-assisted project-based learning (IT-assisted PBL). When IT-assisted PBL is used in a constructivist, cooperative learning environment, students learn more and retain their knowledge better. Moreover, students learn the content area being studied, how to design and carry out a project, and uses of IT. Because this approach to teaching and learning is significantly different from the "stand and deliver" didactic approach used by many teachers, it tends to require a significant amount of professional development for its effective implementation.

As computer technology becomes more accessible, we increasingly encounter products classified as multimedia documents. These documents are used in electronic format and can include text, sound, graphics, animation, video, color, and interaction with the user. Some authors reserve the term multimedia for electronic documents that have an intrinsic linear design (e.g., PowerPoint or ClarisWorks slide shows) and use the term hypermedia to refer to documents that incorporate a planned non-linear organization (e.g., Digital Chisel, HyperStudio, or MicroWorlds projects). Most authors (and this document) make no distinction between the terms hypermedia and multimedia.

Multimedia documents provide a means of communicating and storing information. Since such documents are used in electronic format only, many variations in viewing result as each user controls the order and manner of interacting with each element in the document. In addition, multimedia documents can also be designed to receive information from the reader and process it to provide individualized responses. This interactivity adds a new dimension to the reading/writing process and the capabilities of reading and writing.

Standards Promote Multimedia Use in Education

Swan (1999) analyzes a number of sets of national standards in various disciplines. Her article contains a summary of the IT-related standards from a language perspective. She emphasizes that non-print literacy is a common component of many sets of national standards.

The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) profiles describe expectations of students completing various grade levels (International Society for Technology in Education). Here are a few multimedia examples:

(PreK-2). Use developmentally appropriate multimedia resources (e.g., interactive books, educational software, elementary multimedia encyclopedias) to support learning.

(PreK-2). Create developmentally appropriate multimedia products with support from teachers, family members, or student partners.

(Grades 3-5). Use technology tools (e.g., multimedia authoring, presentation, Web tools, digital cameras, scanners) for individual and collaborative writing, communication, and publishing activities to create knowledge products for audiences inside and outside the classroom.

(Grades 6-8). Design, develop, publish, and present products (e.g., Web pages, videotapes) using technology resources that demonstrate and communicate curriculum concepts to audiences inside and outside the classroom.

In summary, the ISTE NETS call for students to learn to read and write multimedia. Other standards include similar expectations (McREL). Often the standards call for students to develop substantial multimedia skills by the time they finish the eighth grade, and that they routinely use and extend these skills while in high school.

Developing Multimedia Documents

A report from the U.S. Department of Education (1999) contains several white papers focussing specifically on multimedia. In general, these papers indicate that the research reports support of the use of multimedia in IT-assisted Project Based Learning (PBL). In such PBL, the content and assessment tend to be authentic, and students learn both the subject area being studied and also how to create multimedia documents. However, the research points out that there tends to be a steep learning curve for teachers, so that professional development is very helpful. Moreover, initial use of multimedia in IT-assisted PBL tends to over emphasize IT and under emphasize the underlying subject areas being studied. This appears to be a standard transition that teachers and their students go through as they learn to use multimedia.

Creating multimedia documents is a rewarding, but complex and challenging task. The Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education [http://hi-ce.eecs.umich.edu/] provides some excellent examples of interactive, multimedia documents designed to be used by students and teachers.

Giving students an opportunity to produce documents of their own provides several educational advantages.

Students that experience the technical steps needed to produce effective multimedia documents become better consumers of multimedia documents produced by others.
Students indicate they learn the material included in their presentation at a much greater depth than in traditional writing projects.
Students work with the same information from four perspectives: 1) as researcher, they must locate and select the information needed to understand the chosen topic; 2) as authors, they must consider their intended audience and decide what amount of information is needed to give their readers an understanding of the topic; 3) as designers, they must select the appropriate media to share the concepts selected; and 4) as writers, they must find a way to fit the information to the container including the manner of linking the information for others to retrieve (Smith, 1993). All of these contribute to student learning and help to explain the improved student learning that is often associated with IT-assisted PBL.

There is another aspect to developing multimedia documents that empowers students. Students quickly recognize that their electronic documents can be easily shared. Because of this, students place a greater value on producing a product that is of high standard. An audience of one–the teacher–is less demanding than an audience of many–particularly one’s peers. Students quickly recognize that publishing a multimedia document that communicates effectively requires attention to both the content and the design of the document.

Information Retrieval Using Multimedia

The Web can be thought of as a digital global multimedia library. With the steadily increasing classroom use of multimedia resources, students are required to develop the skills needed to locate information contained in this format. Classroom instructors and students alike must learn the search skills previously considered the domain of library specialists.

Developing skills for locating and evaluating information found in multimedia documents requires the consideration of how the technology handles information. It requires learning to distinguish good multimedia (good content, good design) from poor multimedia materials. In addition, the ability to conduct searches using Boolean logic is required for effective use of multimedia documents.

Students that experience the challenge of creating multimedia documents are better prepared to make use of documents created by others. Through creating multimedia documents, students learn how to link ideas and how to establish good ways to navigate documents visible only in small pieces. The technical aspects of multimedia are no longer hidden to students. This combined knowledge and skills help them evaluate and use multimedia documents effectively.

Multimedia Project-based Learning

Multimedia brings a "two for the price of one" dimension to project-based learning. Students using multimedia in PBL learn both the IT and the disciplines being focused on in the PBL lesson. Project-based learning has long been a part of the repertoire of many teachers. Blumenfeld et al. (1991) provides an excellent summary of the research literature supporting PBL. Sandholtz et al. (1997) provides strong evidence of the success of IT-assisted PBL in the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow schools in which students had ready access to IT both at school and at home. In summary, there is strong research evidence that in the hands of an appropriately prepared teacher, IT-assisted PBL works (Presidents Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, 1997).

Multimedia tools provide a rich environment for conducting PBL with students. A multimedia based PBL lesson can easily include multiple goals. The following list of goals is extracted from Moursund (1999). The original list is much longer and is based on a survey of the literature in this field. A good IT-assisted PBL lesson is apt to include goals listed below.

Expertise. The project has a goal of students gaining increased knowledge and skill within a discipline or an interdisciplinary content area. Often students gain a high level of expertise within the specific area that they are studying.
Research. The project requires use of research skills and helps students to improve their research skills.
Higher order thinking skills. The project is challenging and has a focus on students improving their higher-order thinking skills.
Information technology. Students increase their knowledge and skill in making use of information technology to carry out the work in a project. A project may include a specific goal of students acquiring new knowledge and skills in information technology.
Engagement. Students are actively and appropriately engaged in carrying out the work of the project; the students are intrinsically motivated.
Community of scholars. The entire class-student, teacher, teaching assistants, and volunteers-becomes a community of scholars, working together and learning from each other. Often this community of scholars expands to include parents, students from outside the class, and others.

Multimedia and School Reform

Typically, multimedia plays two roles in school reform models:

Students learn to make use of multimedia as an aid to retrieving information from multiple sources. Students learn to learn from multimedia-based computer-assisted learning environments.
Students learn to develop multimedia materials, especially as a component of project-based learning that is rooted in constructivism and in cooperative learning.

Many school reform models focus on a significant restructuring of the classroom. They propose a shift from a teacher-centered didactic model to a learner-centered constructivist model (Moursund, 1999; Presidents Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, 1997; Sandholtz et al., 1997). While details of these constructivist models vary, they typically include an emphasis on cooperative learning and on the use of project-based learning. Most types of school reform models recognize that multimedia brings a new dimension to reading and writing, and that students need to develop basic skills in information retrieval in multimedia environments. There is substantial research supporting constructivism (Fosnot, 1996) and cooperative learning (Educational Resources Information Center). The ERIC Digests include a number of research summaries that provide strong evidence of the effectiveness of cooperative learning in a wide range of classroom settings. Abdal-Haqq (1998) explains how to make effective use of constructivism in preservice and inservice teacher education.

Final Remarks

Multimedia based PBL is an excellent vehicle for implementing a number of different research-supported approaches to improving education. The Web contains extensive resources for students who are doing PBL activities. For example, the Federal government maintains an excellent and steadily growing site of materials specifically designed for use in education and is quite useful to students doing PBL (FREE). Many teachers have embraced an IT-assisted PBL approach to teaching. Typically they report that professional development was essential to their learning to make effective use of IT-assisted PBL and that they would "never go back" to the way they had previously been teaching.

References

Abdal-Haqq, I. (1998). Constructivism in teacher education: Considerations for those who would link practice to theory. ERIC Digest [Online]. Available: http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed426986.html.

Blumenfeld, P.C., Soloway, S., Marx, R.W., Krajcik, J.S., Guzdial, M., and Palincsar, A. (1991). Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational Psychologist. 26(3 & 4), 369-398.

Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education [Online]. Available: http://hi-ce.eecs.umich.edu/.

Educational Resources Information Center Digests [Online]. Available: http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/index/.

Fosnot, C. T. (Ed). (1996). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. NY: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence [Online]. Available: http://www.ed.gov/free/.

International Society for Technology in Education Standards Projects[Online]. Available: http://www.iste.org/standards/.

International Society for Technology in Education (2000). National Educational Technology Standards for students: Connecting curriculum and technology. Eugene, OR: Author.

Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory. The McREL standards database [Online]. Available: http://198.17.205.11/standards-benchmarks/.

Moursund, D. (1999). Project-based learning using information technology. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

Moursund, D. (1999). Ten powerful ideas shaping the present and future of IT in education. Learning and Leading with Technology, 27 (1).

Presidents Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (March 1997). Report to the president on the use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. Washington DC: Author.

Sandholtz, J., Ringstaff, C., and Dwyer, D. (1997). Teaching with technology: Creating student-centered classrooms. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Smith, I. (1993). An investigation into students' perceptions of the learning environment provided by hypermedia tools in an interdisciplinary high school course of studies. PhD Dissertation, University of Oregon.

Swan, K. (1999). Nonprint literacy standards [Online]. Available: http://cela.albany.edu/newslet/fall99/standards.htm. Albany, NY: Center on English Learning and Achievement.

U.S. Department of Education (1999, July). The Secretary's conference on educational technology: Evaluating the effectiveness of educational technology [Online]. Available: http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/.