Multimedia presentation

Draft

Definition

• A multimedia presentation is a message that uses multimedia.

• In education, “A multimedia instructional message is a presentation consisting of words and pictures that is designed to foster meaningful learning. Thus, there are two parts to the definition: (a) the presentation contains words and pictures, and (b) the presentation is designed to foster meaningful learning” (Mayer 2003: 128)

See also: multimedia animation which deals with a specific kind of multimedia presentation.

Why multimedia presentations ?

The promise of multimedia learning is that, by combining pictures with words, we will be able to foster deeper learning in students. First, multimedia instruction messages can be designed in ways that are consistent with how people learn, and thus can serve as aids to human learning (Mayer, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 2001). Second, there is a growing research base showing that students learn more deeply from welldesigned multimedia presentations than from traditional verbal-only messages, including improved performance on tests of problem-solving transfer (Mandl & Levin, 1989; Mayer, 2001; Najjar, 1998; Schnotz & Kulhavy, 1994; Sweller, 1999; Van Merrienboer, 1997). In short, the promise of multimedia learning is that teachers can tap the power of visual and verbal forms of expression in the service of promoting student understanding.

(Mayer 2003:127).

References

• Mayer, Richard E. , The promise of multimedia learning: using the same instructional design methods across different media, Learning and Instruction, Volume 13, Issue 2, , April 2003, Pages 125-139. Abstract/PDF (Access restricted). (Note: The same journal issue also contains other important articles on multimedia in education)