Week 4: Multimedia and Creativity

Multimedia is not only helpful in a learning context but also in fostering creativity. As defined by Mayer (2014), 'multimedia' is a form of communication which utilises more than one medium, such as communicating with both printed text and pictures. In using multimedia in the classroom, it can help enhance students' learning experience since it allows educators to demonstrate complex ideas through different learning channels (i.e. visual and auditory). By simplifying the learning content into different mediums, students would use other sensory channels to receive and process information (University at Buffalo, n.d.). This not only allows active learning for students but also prevents students from experiencing cognitive overload. Given that students' working memory is limited, it is vital that teachers do not stress and overload one particular sensory channel. Instead, teachers should illustrate their instructional material through different mediums so that students are able to divide their cognitive load with other sensory channels.

One example of incorporating multimedia into teaching pedagogy is making a website for students to learn content. While a website can offer students the opportunity to actively engage and interact with the learning content, the implementation of images and text allows students to easily digest novel information (see Image 1). This can be contrasted to Image 2, which only contains factual information in text. Without the usage of images or other mediums to direct or simplify new learning content, students would struggle to retain knowledge in their long-term memory. By utilising both texts and images as seen in Image 1, students would not only build both a verbal and pictorial model but can also make connections between them. However, it is important that educators do not add extraneous material or overload their teaching content with too much text or images as this might divert students' attention from important learning material.

Screenshot: Image 1. Googlesite created by Evelyn Chan.

Screenshot: Image 2. Googlesite created by Evelyn Chan.

Additionally, encouraging students to use multimedia is also significant in fostering their creativity and engagement within the classroom. By instructing students to create a website, for example, they are given the opportunity to creatively apply their talent and skills to the project. Through offering students the ability to take ownership over their own learning and incorporating a multitude of mediums into their projects, students are able to retain the learning material in their long-term memory (Jackob, 2022). The video below demonstrates how creating a website can assist students in developing their multi-modal skills.

Video: Screen-recording of Googlesite. By Evelyn Chan.

Reference List

Jakob, E. (2022). Fostering student interest, creativity, and joy through multimedia projects. University of Massachusetts Amherst. https://www.umass.edu/ctl/resources/success/fostering-student-interest-creativity-and-joy-through-multimedia-projects

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Introduction to multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 1–24). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369.002

University at Buffalo. (n.d.). Multimedia Learning. https://www.buffalo.edu/catt/develop/theory/multimedia-learning.html#:~:text=Multimedia%20learning%20describes%20learning%20through,or%20reading%20a%20physics%20textbook