Multimedia

Of late, we come across many modern electronic devices in classroom, like computer. Communication through these devices is done using images, animations, videos and graphics. Many media are used for concept formation, attainment as well as clarification. Multimedia are used on the premise that students learn better from well-designed multi-media materials in comparison to traditional modes of communication. The basic premise is that more the number of senses involved, the more efficacious is student learning.

Multimedia uses text, graphic, animation, video and sound in a unified and integrated manner so that the content is presented to students comprehensively. This comprehensibility would have been less if only one medium was used. Thus, we may say that Multimedia uses text, graphic art, sound, animation, and video in different combinations but in an integrated and holistic manner.

Elements of Multimedia

Multimedia has six basic elements: Text, Images, Graphics, Audio, Video, and Animation. These are also referred to as building blocks of multimedia. Therefore, any multimedia consists of any or all of these elements.

i) Text: It is the simplest of the six elements both in creation and communication. It needs less space, and bandwidth. HTML, and Postscript, PDF are the types of text used in multimedia.

ii) Images: A picture says louder than thousand words. It can be digital picture, scanned image, slide, or painting. All of these are mostly used in multimedia. It can be easily used for clarification of concepts and also generation of student interest.

iii) Graphics: Graphics are visual representations to enhance or enable the representation of an idea or feeling to the user. Graphics may entertain, educate, or emotionally impact the user. They are crucial for strengthening clarity of illustration.

iv) Audio: It uses the strength of sound to facilitate learning of concepts. It is also used to reinforce ideas presented as text or graphics on the screen. Audio becomes very important in language education. Audio is used as voice over (narration), background sound or to create effects.

v) Video: It is very important element of multimedia with respect to clarification of concepts, generation of interest and motivation among students. It demonstrates different processes, equipment and the context among other things. The lengthy processes involved in a learning task can be demonstrated in less time. Minute details of the processes can be highlighted. It has a wide scope and should be judiciously used as downloading a video requires large bandwidth though it is very useful for transacting certain learning tasks.

vi) Animation: It is an interesting way of illustrating concepts with movements. This has the strength of video and at places is better than a video as one can focus only on important things. It involves graphics with movement. Flash is mostly used for creating animations. Simple 2D animations can be created using open source tools like pencil or tupi and more advance tools like blender.

Multimedia are broadly of two types: Linear and Non-linear.

• Linear Multimedia: In linear multimedia, the content is presented in linear way i.e. without any navigational control for the viewer. Here the sequence of content is pre-determined and learner is passive receiver and interacts with the multimedia application in which the content is sequentially presented. The viewer does not control the progress of the content. For example, in a video there is a combination of audio, graphics and animations, but the viewer has no control over the sequence of events presented in the video.

• Non-linear Multimedia: It uses learner interactivity to determine the progress in the content. The example is self-paced computer based programme, or a video game. The learner is able to progress as per his/her ability. Thus learner is not passive but is active in a two way communication. This communication can be controlled by using buttons, links and hypertext. Hypermedia is an example of non-linear content.

The multimedia, having so much potential for teaching and learning, will not be meaningful if the learner is not able to learn as per his/her ability and remains as a passive learner. Thus there is an important component of interactivity added to multimedia. Such multimedia is termed as Interactive Multimedia.