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Defining Multimeda
Multimedia refers to images (such as drawings, photos, and illustrations), audio clips (such as short audio lectures), and video clips (such as narrated PowerPoint lectures or simple animations that demonstrate a process). Multimedia can be made interactive, meaning it responds to students’ clicking and typing. Examples of interactive multimedia activities range from hotspots on images to videos that contain embedded questions to full-blown educational video games.
Figure 1. Using hotspots, you present an image to students. Students then interact with the image by mousing over it (to get information about different parts of the image) or by clicking specific parts of the image (to answer questions, as in this example).
Overall, multimedia is time-intensive to produce and sometimes time-intensive just to source, and therefore for practical considerations must be incorporated into an online course thoughtfully and sparingly.
How Much—and What Kind—of Multimedia Makes Sense for Your Course?
To answer this question, you’ll need to consider three things:
- What visuals do you typically present when you teach the face-to-face version of this course? Do you draw on the whiteboard? Perform demonstrations? Lecture using PowerPoint slides or photo slideshows? Require students to give presentations to the class?
- Of these, which pieces of these visuals absolutely must be presented visually? Incorporating visuals into an online course is extremely time intensive, and therefore needs to be considered judiciously. Ask yourself how much of the visual material you present in a face-to-face course has to be presented visually to online students. For example, if 40 minutes of your face-to-face lecture faithfully covers the text and 10 minutes consists of additional, unique, highly visual demonstrations that amplify and support the text, only the latter 10 minutes would be a good candidate for a video. (There are other, less time-intensive ways to incorporate the first 40 minutes.)
Figure 2. If a concept can be conveyed via text, use text! The most effective choices for multimedia are those concepts that require highly visual materials to explain.
- How much time can you spend to create (or source) the absolutely necessary visuals?
- Depending on the textbook you’ve chosen for your course,you may be able to incorporate pre-made images, videos, and even interactive activities created by your textbook publisher. This is the quickest approach, and may make sense if your course is tied tightly to a specific text. A quick email to your textbook publisher will let you know your options.
- Depending on the subject and grade level you teach, you may be able to source images, videos, and multimedia activities through the Boise State Library, or through free online multimedia repositories. This will be easier if you teach a common, highly visual subject like history (for which there are abundant online resources). Contact your Instructional Design Cons