3.5 Implication of Multimedia in teaching learning.

3.4 Implication of Multimedia in Teaching and Learning

The revolution in the information and communication technology arena has produced a techno-savvy and media-hungry generation, which uses digital media as a way to learn and share with each other. It is affecting communication strategies in the education environment and influencing the ways teachers teach and students learn.

Multimedia, or the use of multiple digital media elements in an interactive learning application, is becoming an emerging trend in the communication of educational information.
Multimedia offers an excellent alternative to traditional teaching by allowing students to explore and learn at different paces where every student has the opportunity to learn at his or her own potential. People enjoy multimedia, and they prefer multimedia learning materials because the multiple media help them to learn. Many educators now consider multimedia a burning topic in education because it represents the topic through various media elements and introduces new ways of thinking in the classroom. Studies have shown that multimedia-based instruction increases effectiveness at least 30% more than traditional or any other form of instruction.

Multimedia, with its capability to present information using multiple media, is being increasingly used worldwide in e-learning.
E-learning is the use of new multimedia technologies and the internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration. Multimedia is used in distance learning through stored presentations, live teaching, and participation by the students.

In India, multimedia is used in different ways for teaching and learning, i.e., e-learning, distance learning, virtual learning, etc. The Virtual Lab Project is a multimedia-based e-learning program for technical education for technical training centers and engineering colleges in West Bengal, India (Chaudhury, Bhattacharyya & Akuli, 2003). EDUSAT (Education Satellite) was launched by India to serve the educational sector of the country, emulating virtual classrooms in an effective manner. It is specially configured for the audiovisual medium, employing digital interactive classrooms and multimedia multi-centric systems.
The Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), an autonomous body of the University Grants Commission (UGC), started regular transmission through EDUSAT from 2005 (Behera, n.d.). UGC has established Educational Multimedia Resource Centres (EMMRCs) in different parts of the country for the production of multimedia resources for educational purposes.

The University Grants Commission (UGC), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), and several state institutions of education continued to broadcast educational programs through national and regional channels of Doordarshan. The Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), together with UGC, had initiated the setting up of four satellite television channels for educational purposes named Gyan Darshan 1, 2, 3, and 4. An FM radio channel named Gyan Vahini, operating through FM stations from various parts of the country, was initiated in 2001, now having more than 40 stations.
Each Gyan Vahini station operates as media cooperatives, with multimedia products produced by various ministries, educational institutions, autonomous bodies, and national-level institutions such as UGC, NCERT, IGNOU, IITs, and open universities. IGNOU has developed many multimedia programs for teaching various subjects like chemistry, language, biology, etc., to its students.

Multimedia is a fertile ground for both research and the development of new products, because of the breadth of possible usage, the dependency on a wide range of technologies, and the value of reducing cost by improving technology. The technology is being used in developing many applications for primary as well as higher education, entertainment, health services, public places, and many more. With the advent of low-cost computers and easy-to-use word processing software, computer-based image processing techniques paved the way for digitized information comprising textual to multimedia data consisting of text, images along with digitized voice and video. Thus, the information stored in libraries has taken a major shift from volume-limiting printed to limitless multimedia digital form. The libraries and information centers instigate the production of multimedia resources in various forms. However, archival collections of libraries also have audiovisual and multimedia resources. All these resources are either organized on shelves in the multimedia library or in a digital multimedia library having different content forms, i.e., text, music, videos, images, which can be accessed simultaneously from geographically distributed areas through the internet