Our greatest commission as educators is to challenge our students to consume as much content as possible. Without access to the content, it is impossible to instill and reinforce rigor, relevance, note taking and critical thinking skills. Many of this author’s students have gaps in essential learning sequences because they have failed to master previously taught material. If one combines the sequential nature of pacing guides with the severe attendance issues of students the problem is exasperated. Multimedia appears to be more effective for learners with low prior knowledge or aptitude (Najjar, 1996). Multimedia is a very logical approach to teaching the students that this author teaches. Multimedia, such as film and audio, help build prior knowledge and connections (Najjar, 1996).
According to the US Department of Labor, only 47% of Americans are presently fully employed. The average length of employment for someone in their twenties is 13 months. Americans from age of 18 to 42 have had an average of 10.8 jobs. The average length of employment overall is 3.2 years. Four to six million people now work in web based businesses. Of American companies, 58% have only 1 to 4 employees (Miller, 2011). If we don't teach our students skills, and how to apply them, they are destined for the unemployment line.
We now live in a world beyond the nine to five stereotypical jobs that were pervasive throughout the 1950’s. The workplace that students will enter will be a land of projects and self-starting workers. A time and place where workers collaborate on projects half a world away with people they’ve never meet in person is the world they will be forced to embrace. Workers will move from project to project instead of spending 30 years working for a company or organization. How do we bridge the gap? How do we honor and be true to our roots and move forward to the future at the same time? We teach them project management skills and develop their workflow skills through media resources. We offer up the most content rich materials that we can provide and multimedia is a giant part of that equation.
The author has used audio programs in many ways. The program the author has used extensively is Audacity to prerecord directions and instructions so that I could place them on my class website at school. I've recorded directions using Audacity for my ESL students. I taught my students how to record and edit audio using audacity. My students used Audacity in my curriculum project to record themselves reading the poem as well as their backgrounds on. Then they inserted the MP3 that made into their movie. I have taught other teachers how to use audacity to help in the instruction of their students.
The author has used several screen recording options, such as Screencast-O-Matic, JING, as well as CamStudio and have found Camtasia to be my preferred choice. The author has made a detailed screen casts of the basic layout of Audacity and its functions. The autthor also made similar video tutorials about MixCraft and a very detailed screencast about making a movie with MovieMaker.
The culmination of the authors curriculum project was for the students to make a movie. The students first wrote background music then they recorded it with Audacity. Then the students recorded themselves reading a poem with the background music using Audacity. The next step was to make a Power Point and save it as JPEGS and then insert the JPEGS into Movie Maker. Students can then add the MP3 that they made with audacity and edit the timings of their video and music to create their final project.
The author tried desperately to do my final project on Prezi and attempted no fewer than a dozen attempts. Each time Prezi would log the author out. And the author would lose the entire project he had been working. The author has hit his thumb repeatedly but knows better than to keep hitting it. So the author decided to do his final presentation using Camtasisa. The author found Camtasia easy to use with limitless features. The author is very disappointed that his file presentation performance was less than ideal.
Online presentations are great if you have good connectivity. If you are like the author and live in the middle of nowhere, and do not have good connectivity there not so great. The author was able to begin his video presentation. A few minutes in the presentation it was evident that the participants could not hear the audio from the author’s video then the author began to hear feedback and the author’s connection was terminated. After restarting my computer I was able to log back in to the online presentation of this time without sound. So, the author spent the rest of the meeting watching the video stream and attempting to figure out what was going on. The author can only compare this experience to riding in a car facing backwards through the mountains.
The thing that is most important to emphasize is that multimedia can bring a higher level of literacy to every classroom using video, text, sound and anything else that's only limited by your imagination. Far too often we take for granted that failure and greatness are two companions that court each other walking hand in hand. If we are afraid to take chances and try new things we will be unable to offer our students the greatest educational opportunities we can. I've tried a lot of things in this multimedia class some of work well some of them flopped. We learn from as young children that winners never quit. This is a myth, winners quit often. Winners quit the right things sooner than later to assure greater success in long run. And as educators it is our commission to abandon things that are working to and seek those activities that will assure that our students will be lifelong learners and productive citizens. Multimedia is an invaluable tool to achieve that goal.
References
Miller, D. (Performer). (2011, March 5). 48 day [Audio podcast]. Should I Give Up My Dreams For My Kids?. Retrieved from 48days.net
Lawrence, N. J. (1996). Multimedia information and
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