Selecting The Most Appropriate Multimedia Authoring Tool – An Essay Written in the Format of a Blog Entry
This book devotes a considerable amount of attention to student authoring to learn, but there are many issues in such a topic that cannot be covered in the book.The nice thing about having a web site is that it is possible to add a little detail and not worry about page length. Our views on involving students in multimedia authoring have become more nuanced since we began writing about this topic years ago. We feel we now have a better handle on issues teachers must consider and questions they might ask when making decisions for their classrooms.
We try to offer advice based on empirical evidence, but this is difficult to do. Like so many educational topics, the research evidence related to multiple media authoring is very limited and confusing. Even the positions of the “so called” experts are all over the place. What follows is pieced together from the work of others (Cuban’s observations in Oversold and Underused, the meta-analysis of writing to learn referenced in chapter 9) and our own observations.
Efficiency must be considered in educational practice. The school day and the school year are of fixed length and time must be allocated carefully to meet all of the expectations that teachers and their students face. There are a variety of reasons such constraints may generate outcomes inconsistent with theoretical benefits or consequences observed under other circumsances. Educators may not give projects enough time to play out and accomplish intended purpsoes. Educators may set aside time for a single project and students may spend a significant proportion of the time learning the tools necessary to accomplish the project.
Factors limiting the efficiency of student behavior when authoring:
- The amount of time for student to learn skills not central to content area learning goals.
- e.g., Time to learn how to author a product in a specific software application.
- “New toy” effect – students play with interesting capabilities rather than fit most appropriate capability of that tool to the specific task at hand.
- e.g., over use of interesting fonts, slide transitions, unnecessary graphics
- There may also be a variant of the “new toy” effect – students seem to forget what they know about quality writing, logical arguments, etc. when authoring with a new software application.
- Inefficient use of time because of limited authoring resources.
- e.g., Students share computer, video camera, etc.
- Multimedia learning setting may be more chaotic/messy/unpredictable than reception environments (listening to presentation, individual reading) reducing time on task.
- students distracted by interest in what others are doing
- failure rate of technology (e.g., Internet down, web link not working) results in personal down time and opportunity to distract others
Factors limiting the effectiveness with which educators can involve students in multimedia authoring:
- Limited educator experience with the authoring tools causing delays when students need assistance.
- Limited educator experience in orchestrating learning by authoring
- e.g., what to do when more students than machines
- e.g., how to make certain each individual contributes to a group project
- “Dazzle factor” – wow look what my students made resulting less rigorous evaluation that would be focused on more traditional projects (would the message have been impressive as a term paper)
Solutions:
- Multiple experiences to increase efficiency of learning the tool
- Do more than one project with any given tool
- High expectations for demonstration of understanding, thinking, etc.
- Tool selection issues:
- Possible efficiency vs. power/flexibility trade-off
Perhaps tool selection should be more carefully related to intended goals. Experiences with the technology could be the goal, but our assumptions here are that the goals are focused on some type of content-area skills. Here is a proposal based on the writing to learn literature (summarized in the chapter) which we interpret to be focused on writing as a way to acquire basic knowledge and speculation about the flexibility that may be important in acquiring higher order skills (creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking).
Perhaps "template-based" or limited option authoring options (e.g., blogs) should be the tool of choice when the goal is contant "understanding" and more flexible authoring tools should be the tool of choice for "big projects" assuming higher order cognitive goals.
What we are proposing is that educators think through the different possible combinations of tool capabiltiy, time availability, and learning goals and consider the costs and benefits that might follow from different combinations.
How would you position tools along this continuum?
