Final Exam
Media Technologies
Megan Endicott
Central Michigan University
Abstract
Instructional
education has transformed tremendously throughout the years due to the
incorporation of technologies in the classroom.
One increasingly popular form included in today’s classroom is multimedia
technology. Through the evolution of
technology, we have now encompassed an impressive list of instructional multimedia
options including, but not limited to, photography, animation, narrated
lecture, music or sound effects, digital stories, movies or TV, webcasts, and
glogs. Focusing on animation and music
in the classroom, we find that in comparison to the traditional approach to
teaching through text and textbook images, these two technologies, like others,
contain more benefits to classroom instruction than they do weaknesses;
however, there are few constraints. These
strengths are confirmed through powerful research that focuses on key points
supported by various empirical research and psychological studies. Looking at two multimedia projects incorporating
animation and music multimedia products, we see that students have the opportunity
to gain authentic meaningful learning allowing them to fully grasp the concept
that is proven through connections to Blooms Taxonomy. There is also support for use of animation
and music in instruction to aid in student learning, from multiple intelligence
studies by Gardner to student dual coding theories and cognitive research. Through
multimedia technologies, we find that we are teaching the whole student and
providing multiple ways to reach out to the students in an engaging
manner. With such tools at hand,
educators would be remiss if they were to overlook such powerful teaching tools
in the classroom.
Final Exam
Media Technologies
As educators, we are always striving for excellence
in the classroom and hoping to ensure an actively engaged classroom with learners
who are excited about obtaining knowledge through authentic hands-on tasks. With the aid of multimedia in the classroom,
teachers have the tools needed to provide innovative lessons, enable students
with the tools in which to better understand concepts that are unable to be
grasped through text, and provide students with the needed demonstrations that
may not be readily available in the classroom.
Students are “wired” differently in today’s world due to the evolution of
technologies and social media. In order
to reach students and make authentic connections, educators need to adjust
their teaching styles in order to ensure student success. As defined by the Pinellas School District
and the Florida Center for Instructional Technology at USF, multimedia is “the
integration of text, graphics, animation, sound, and / or video” focusing on
“engaging students in the use of multimedia to construct and convey
knowledge”. (Pinellas School District
& Florida Center for Instructional Technology at USF) They go on to discuss
the effects of the addition of multimedia in the classroom and list several key
components of learning in today’s student centered classroom, such as;
increased motivation, collaboration, attention to audience, and use of outside
resources that wouldn’t normally be obtained.
As we have studied, there are several examples of multimedia
technologies used to enhance education, some of which include: photography,
animation, narrated lecture, music or sound effects, digital stories, movies or
TV, webcasts, and glogs. Let’s focus on
animation and music in the classroom.
According to Richard E. Mayer and
Roxana Moreno, animation refers to “a simulated motion picture depicting
movement of drawn (or simulated) objects.”
(Mayer & Roxana, 2002) They believe that for a multimedia technology
to be deemed animation it must contain three components: picture, motion, and simulation or
artificially created objects. The simulation factor is the key feature that
sets it apart from a traditional video and again from an illustration and
picture as these do not contain movement.
There are several exciting ways of creating animations for educational
uses in the classroom through internet websites such as GoAnimate or Xtranormal
to name a few. These sites offer ways in
which you merely drag and drop features on a storyboard to create a video. Even still, you could create your very own
animation from scratch through the use of artists or computer graphic designers
as mentioned by Matt Koschmann in Steph Hayden’s article on Teaching with
Technology. (Hayden, 2012) There are several wonderful uses for animation in
instruction. One instructional example
could be using animation to introduce a new concept through the use of animated
graphics that would show diagrams and connections in logical sequencing. What is unique about this creation is the
accessibility online. If published to a
blog or website, students would then be able to use this as reference for
review for assessments or to aid in keeping up with tasks when absent.
Music and sound effects too hold an
important place in the classroom. Not
only the music classroom where music naturally finds a home, but in all
classrooms as well. As Chris Brewer from
Johns Hopkins School of Education discusses in greater detail, music can be
tied to, but not limited to enhancing the classroom through mood setting, enriching history
lessons with music connections, adding music and movement to static lessons
rich with content and of course aid in making learning fun and enjoyable. (Brewer,
1995) One would be remiss if they did not mention also the importance of Gardner’s
Multiple Intelligences and how the use of music throughout the day increases
musical intelligence and reaches out to those students who are auditory
learners. (Brown & Liepolt, 2004) Music
can be added to the classroom in various ways whether you are using it to make
a connection between history or enhance a visual representation. An example of an instructional strategy using
music in a general education classroom was presented by Brewer in his article,
in which students learn about the flow of electricity. Brewer suggests that
upbeat music is added to the lesson and students act as stationary neutrons and
protons while other move like electrons. (Brewer, 1995) He suggests that the
music keeps them moving and engaged in a full emersion of the activity creating
a student-centered authentic learning activity.
You could follow this up with a fun song that incorporates important
vocabulary and its meaning to aid in later retrieval of information.
To best explain the two
technologies, we will focus on possible multimedia projects using each in the
music classroom. Looking a traditional
fourth grade classroom, Georgia Professional Standard strand M4GM.6, listening to,
analyzing, and describing music, students will distinguish between repeating
and contrasting sections, phrases, and simple formal structures. To reach the
final product of this standard and ensure student success at accomplishing this
task, students will need to complete several tasks each traveling through
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning. The final
step will include students creating their very own music track and animation
through an interactive website, Quaver’s Marvelous World of Music. Looking at the steps we see the natural
progression of Bloom’s Taxonomy and are able to track student progress in
logical order. First students will need
to review patterns in music with auditory examples as well as tying in visual
pictures to aid in success starting us at the bottom of Blooms’ Taxonomy in the
Remember category. Then students will
discuss the form of the music through the use of both video and animation from
the Quaver team moving us into the Understanding tier. Next students will use laptop carts to play
interactive games including various styles of music with different examples of
form to aid in applying what they know, reaching the tier of applying. Following the interactive game, students will
then be asked to get into collaborative groups and listen to various stylez of
music and evaluate each for its form and discuss their reasoning for their
decisions moving us into the Evaluation tier.
And finally, students will create an authentic task that will be
presented to the classroom through QGrooves and QDancer on Quaver’s Marvelous
World of Music Website that will enable students to create their very own
animation demonstrating their ability to not only create an original piece of
music showing proper use of form, but a visual animated representation of the
form as well putting us into the Creating tier of Bloom’s taxonomy. Animation is key with this project not only
due to the final project required of the student, but also through use of
teaching strategies as well. Animation
often times provides students with a visual and audio representation that
provides students with resources that cannot be replicated in the classroom,
thus extending our educational world to endless opportunities for demonstration
and application.
Another instructional task using
music in the classroom, strictly for the sake of auditory learning, is through
the connection of music and history. In
Georgia Professional Standard M4GM.8, understanding relationships between
music, the arts, and disciplines outside of the arts and Georgia Professional
Standard (GPS) M4GM9, understanding music in relation to history and culture,
students will be able to describe relationships between music and history, listen,
move, and distinguish between music from various historical time periods, and
describe the role of music in various historical time periods. The final project would include a history
research project on the students time period of choice that includes how music
impacted history. Students would choose
from a list of presentation formats with attached rubric and would need to
include a music sample from that time period to include in their report to aid
in making the connection of music and history.
Again, in order to fully reach understanding of the importance of music
in history, steps are required that lend to following the tiers of Bloom’s
Taxonomy. First, as students enter the room,
play the song “Yankee Doodle” and ask questions to gain an understanding of
student’s prior knowledge of the Revolutionary War song, falling in lines with
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Remembering, hoping to find factual and conceptual
knowledge. Follow up their discussion on
the song “Yankee Doodle” with a discussion on the Revolutionary War which is
learned in the 4th grade curriculum, and search for knowledge
through proper questioning moving us to the next tier of Remembering. Then through stories of historical merit,
discuss with students the music’s impact on history and its importance during
the Revolutionary War.
(Understanding) Using their
knowledge about what they have learned about music and its impact on history,
think about other examples of musical impact on history or current life, for
example the Harlem Renaissance, or African American Spirituals. This higher order thinking falls in line with
Bloom’s Taxonomy tier Analyzing. Follow
up this discussion with the introduction of the class project and have students
in collaborative groups begin brainstorming ideas for the project. The project would fall in line with Creating,
as students will be creating a presentation that will incorporate music as a
multi-media technology.
Including multimedia in the
classroom, whether it is through educational instruction or student project
presentations, contains mostly advantages; however, there are a few
disadvantages as well as with any topic.
In comparison to traditional printed text and static images used in
textbooks, multimedia as a whole has many notable advantages as discussed in
article “Multimedia in the Classroom” written by members of the Pinellas School
District and the Florida Center for Instructional Technology at USF. These include examples such as:
“real-world skills related to technology, value of
teamwork, effective collaboration techniques, impact/importance of different
media, challenges of communicating to different audience, presenting
information in compelling ways, techniques for synthesizing and analyzing
complex content, importance of research, planning, and organization skills,
significance of presentation and speaking skills, accept and provide
constructive feedback, express their ideas creatively.” (Pinellas School
District and Florida Center for Instructional Technology at USF)
In addition to these advantages, as
well as “capturing attention, engaging learners, explaining difficult concepts,
inspiring creativity and fun”, educators are also tapping into Gardner’s
multiple intelligence theories through verbal-linguistic intelligences, musical
intelligence, visual-spacial intelligence, and especially through music,
interpersonal intelligence. (Pinellas
School District & Florida Center for Instructional Technology at USF) As
discussed in “11 Reasons Why Every Educator Needs a Video Strategy”, animations
reach out to the visual learners by combining short movies and lectures through
the use of such strategies as demonstrations, diagrams, and how-to videos
lessons. (Marquis & Rivas, 2012) Matt Koschman, is summarized by Steph
Hayden in “Teaching with Technology”, as presenting that animations are more
engaging and get students excited for learning.
(Hayden, 2012) Animations reach both the visual and audio learners,
which as we have learned from Mayer and Swisher, taps into dual coding which
aids in cognitive understanding. Kristin
Post, author of “Using Sound in the Classroom”, suggests that music has
advantages to learning in the classroom as it can “establish a positive
learning state, create a desired atmosphere, build a sense of anticipation, energize
learning activities, change brain wave states, focus concentration, increase
attention, improve memory, facilitate a multisensory learning experience,
release tension, enhance imagination, align groups, develop rapport, provide
inspiration and motivation, add an element of fun, and accentuate
theme-oriented units.” (Post, 2009) A
few obvious but important disadvantages or should we say, constraints, of these
uses of technology in the classroom would include availability of resources
such as hardware and software access, the skill of the teachers or students and
knowledge required to use such technologies, and time for educators to plan,
execute and assess instruction and projects required for such ideas heavy on
technology.
Regardless of how you choose to use multimedia in
your classroom, researchers have proven many profound reasons for the inclusion
of media in the classroom. Kristin Post found
supporting research that “humans rely more on their sight and hearing than on
any of the other sense”. (Post, 2009) Swisher’s
viewpoints which align with Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and
Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory suggest through empirical research various
principles that support multimedia in the classroom. Why wouldn’t educators tap
into a multimedia classroom to aid in teaching the whole class?
Works Cited
Pinellas School District. , & Florida
Center for Instructional Technology at USF (n.d.). Multimedia in the
classroom. Retrieved from http://fcit.usf.edu/multimedia/index.html
Mayer, R. E., & Roxana, M. (2002,
March). Animations as an aid to multimedia learning. Retrieved from
http://ydraw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Stop-Motion-Aids-Multimedia-Learning.pdf
Brewer, C. (1995). Music and
learning: Integrating music in the classroom. Retrieved from
http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts in
Education/brewer.htm
Schroeder, B. (2010, August 4). 10
reasons to use multimedia in the classroom. Retrieved from
http://www.globalgridforlearning.com/10-reasons-to-use-multimedia-in-the-classroom
Brown, J., & Liepolt, W. (2004).
Concept to classroom: Workshop: Tapping into Multiple Intelligences.
Retrieved from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/
Marquis, J. W., & Rivas, K.
(2012, September 23). 11 reasons every educator needs a video strategy.
Retrieved from http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/09/11-reasons-every-educator-needs-video-strategy/
Hayden, S. (2012). Teaching with
technology: Matt koschmann on animation. Retrieved from
http://assett.colorado.edu/teaching-with-technology-matt-koschmann-on-animation/
Post, K.
(2009). Using sound in the classroom. Retrieved from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/5524
References:
Forehand,
M. (2005). Bloom's taxonomy. Retrieved from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Bloom's_Taxonomy
Swisher, D. J. (2007, January 5). Does
multimedia truly enhance learning? moving beyond the visual media bandwagon
toward instructional effectiveness. Retrieved from
https://blackboard.cmich.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-2315674-dt-content-rid-23408690_1/courses/EDU642-13700-22240806/swisher_professionalday07_paper
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