Unit 2-2 Education

After completing this unit, you will be able to:

• Describe how multimedia computers provide a powerful environment for achieving the goals of the cognitive movement in education
• Understand how multimedia computers are being used across the curriculum in a wide range of subjects
• Sample demonstrations of state-of-the-art applications linked to the Multilit Web Site
• Assess how up-to-date your local schools are in adopting multimedia technologies for teaching and learning
• Question whether technology will make any major difference in the structure of schooling

Reading

Read chapter 4 of the Multimedia Literacy textbook to study the concepts covered by this unit.

Online Activities

The following online activities reinforce these concepts and bring the reading to life:

• As articulated by Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989), skills and knowledge are too often taught out of context, as ends in and of themselves. To overcome this, teachers are using multimedia to bring into the classroom real-life examples of situations that provide the contextual framework so important for learning. Brown calls this use of multimedia situated learning. Follow the Multilit Web site link to read the paper entitled Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning by Brown, John Seely, A. Collins, and P. Duguid, Educational Researcher, 1989, 18, pp. 32-42.
• Much of what happens in the traditional classroom was influenced heavily by the behaviorist movement, which dominated American psychology from about 1920 to 1970. Although Skinnerian methods have been effective in learning how to train animals and helping human beings modify their behavior, the behaviorists fell short of what is most important in education for most educators. To educate, you must do more than modify behavior. To educate, you must help the student learn how to develop strategies for learning. On your Multilit CD is a presentation about how emerging technology can help achieve the goals of the cognitive movement in education. To view the presentation, use My Computer, the Windows Explorer, or the Macintosh Finder to go to the Necc folder on your Multilit CD, where you will find the Keynote.ppt show.
• Vygotsky (1978) emphasized the role of social interactions in knowledge construction. Social constructivism turns attention to children’s interactions with parents, peers, and teachers in homes, neighborhoods, and schools. Vygotsky introduced the concept of the zone of proximal development, which is the difference between the difficulty level of a problem a student can cope with independently and the level that can be accomplished with help from others. In the zone of proximal development, a student and an expert work together on problems that the student alone could not work on successfully. A challenge for software designers is to create programs that can function as the expert in the zone where learning and development take place. Software that succeeds can help transform the traditional teacher-centered classroom into a more learner-centered environment.
• The Multilit Web site links to examples and demonstrations of multimedia teaching materials in art, biology, chemistry, civics, economics, foreign languages, geography, history, mathematics, music, physics, science, elementary education, reading, and writing. Follow the links to materials in subjects that interest you and explore what multimedia has to offer in these fields.
• If you would like to learn more about cognitive psychology and the constructivist movement in education, see Bruning’s textbook Cognitive Psychology and Instruction (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Merrill/Prentice-Hall). The introduction provides an excellent overview, history, and comparison of the behavioral and constructivist movements in education. Another excellent text is Mark and Cindy Grabe's Integrating Technology for Meaningful Teaching (Boston: Houghton Mifflin). Chapter 2 is devoted to cognitive learning and technology tools. You can order both of these books from amazon.com.

Assignments

One of the major assignments in this course is the term paper that you will write on a topic of your choosing related to a multimedia trend or issue in your chosen field. The other large assignment in this course is the multimedia application that you will develop and publish to the Web, again on a topic of your choosing. If education is your field, it is possible that the readings in this unit will help you decide upon one of these topics. After you choose your topics, remember to respond to the assignments that ask you to tell your instructor what topics you have chosen:

• A major part of your grade in this course is determined by a term paper that you write on a topic of your choosing related to a multimedia trend or issue in the field of education or communications. Your paper must be about six pages long and contain at least six bibliographic references if you are taking this course for undergraduate credit, or about twelve pages long with at least twelve references for graduate credit. Before you write the paper, you need to have your topic approved. Please tell what your paper is going to be about. Say why you have chosen this topic, tell how you plan to research it, and indicate how the writing of this paper will help you achieve the goals you had for taking this course. Your instructor will respond by writing a comment on this assignment to let you know if your topic is approved.
• The largest part of your grade in this course is determined by the multimedia application that you will create. Your application must have at least seven screens if you are taking this course for undergraduate credit, or at least fourteen screens for graduate credit. Before you develop the application, you need to have your topic approved. Please tell what your application is going to be about. Say why you have chosen this topic, and tell how you plan to design it. Describe your intended audience, tell how they will use your application, and indicate how developing this app will help you achieve the goals you had for taking this course.