Multimedia?

When I first read that we needed to embed a piece of multimedia that we created ourselves, I instantly thought of using Windows Movie Maker to create a video clip. Then I read a little further and went to look at some of the Web 2.0 applications that were provided on the sites listed in our learning contract. Then I became confused. Given the examples that were provided I began to wonder if my understanding of the term multimedia was incorrect. I had never thought about it too much before, and I certainly never looked at a definition. It seemed intuitive to me that multimedia would mean a format that provided more than one type of media, such as a video clip with audio included. So, I went to good old dictionary.com and found a several different definitions:

• the combined use of several media, as sound and full-motion video in computer applications.
• Computer Science Of or relating to an application that can combine text, graphics, full-motion video, and sound into an intergrated package.
• Human-computer interaction involving text, graphics, voice and video. Often also includes concepts from hypertext.

Aha! Although I was technically correct in my understanding of the term, I was missing one or two points as well. However, I was still correct in my assumption that a video made in Windows Movie Maker would count as an example of multimedia. Phew!

Windows Movie Maker is a program that comes free with Windows XP. I am not going to profess that it is a perfect program, but it does the job that we need it to do. One downside is that it can be slow, especially when running over a wireless network, and has a tendency to lock up the computers. However, my kids are pretty resilient when it comes to these things - when they spend their days in a wireless lab they tend to get used to slowness and freezing, unfortunately - so they just sigh, swear under their breath and keep plugging along.

I utilize Movie Maker in two ways in my classes. There are times when I create a video for my students to watch, usually to introduce a topic to them through a series of images. It is a fairly simple way to take a collection of images and video clips, put them together with snazzy special transitions and effects, and include text and music if you want. This is an example I created to use with an upcoming unit on wartime propaganda with our US History class.

Propaganda

I also have my students create videos on various topics that we are studying. For example, when doing a unit on Island Cultures, we watched the movie Whale Rider (fabulous movie by the way) and then they did some research on the Maori culture. As part of their research, they created a video which had images and video depicting various aspects of the Maori culture. They also included text to explain what each image represented. For the most part the students really enjoy using Movie Maker. It provides them with an interactive way to work with digital images and video clips, and they get to create something that they are proud of and want to show off.

I'm including two different examples of videos my students made. The first one is from a project they did when we were studying Greek Mythology. The second one is from the introductory lesson for Digital Photography. For this project, they went around the school and took pictures representing the numbers 1 through 12. This is a FABULOUS way to get kids of any age using digital cameras. They have so much fun with it! For my high school students, I just turn them loose on the school (and outside) with a pass and tell them they cannot interrupt any classes. It is usually their favorite project.

Greek Mythology




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