Multimedia in Education

The world in which we live is changing rapidly and the field of education is experiencing these changes in particular as it applies to Media Services. The old days of an educational institution having an isolated audio-visual department are long gone! The growth in use of multimedia within the education sector has accelerated in recent years, and looks set for continued expansion in the future.
Teachers primarily require access to learning resources, which can support concept development by learners in a variety of ways to meet individual learning needs. The development of multimedia technologies for learning offers new ways in which learning can take place in schools and the home. Enabling teachers to have access to multimedia learning resources, which support constructive concept development, allows the teacher to focus more on being a facilitator of learning while working with individual students. Extending the use of multimedia learning resources to the home represents an educational opportunity with the potential to improve student learning.
The elements used in multimedia have all existed before. Multimedia simply combines these elements into a powerful new tool, especially in the hands of teachers and students. Interactive multimedia weaves five basic types of media into the learning environment: text, video, sound, graphics and animation. Since the mode of learning is interactive and not linear, a student or teacher can choose what to investigate next. For example, one does not start on the first page of a linear document and read to the end. Interactive multimedia learning mode is more like constructing a spider’s web, with one idea linked to another, allowing choices in the learner’s path.
The multimedia technologies that have had the greatest impact in education are those that augment the existing curriculum, allowing both immediate enhancement and encouraging further curriculum development. For example, the WWW serves as a storehouse of information