Multimedia

Multimedia refers to the capacity of computers to provide a representation of all media and sensory modes of instruction, media such as graphics, texts, and animation. It is the creation, storage, and experience through the use of digital technology. Multimedia is found in many different industries such as education, entertainment, business, and research. It is information that can and should be utilized as both visually and auditory. Visual and auditory forms of information can be provided by a variety of media whereas taste, smells, and texture are often hard to create. That is why students who use multimedia learn more through explanation of words and pictures rather than in words alone. Through the use of multi-access of multimedia specific factors can influence or fail to influence how effective instruction delivery can be. The various forms of multimedia consist of contiguity, coherence, modality, redundancy, personalization, segmenting, and pre-training.

In discussing the contiguity of multimedia, one has to have an understanding of the topic. Contiguity is using multimedia that students learn with corresponding words and pictures that are near to rather than far from each other on the page or screen (Mayer, 2003). There are two different forms of contiguity, spatial and temporal. The spatial contiguity principle asserts that when images and text are provided close together, connections linking the two types of information will be made more easily and mental models leading to meaningful learning will occur. Not only does the close proximity of images and text allow for connections to be readily made, but this design also lessens cognitive load creating by searching for supporting images that do not appear near the explanatory text. Unless both modalities are processes in working memory simultaneously, referential connections between them are less likely to be made, especially in inexperienced learners.

The temporal contiguity principle