Educational Multimedia Guide:

A multimedia classroom-based system encourages students to show their knowledge in multiple ways, collaborate with the broader community, and equip themselves with the digital skills needed for future personal and career success. Students with the ability to navigate and utilize technology effectively are better prepared for life outside their K-12 education (Go Guardian, 2019). Through their participation in multimedia activities in the classroom, students walk away with real-world skills such as presentation and planning, using creative means to express their ideas in compelling ways, techniques for analyzing and synthesizing challenging content, and understanding the value of teamwork and how to give and receive constructive feedback (University of South Florida, n.d.).

Currently, many teachers use multimedia ineffectively in their classrooms. According to Tannenbaum (1998), multimedia consists of the use of at least two of the listed mediums: audio, text, still graphics, and visual motion graphics. Using this definition, PowerPoint or Google Slides is considered a form of multimedia however few educators and students utilize its other components to make it more interactive, therefore it would be considered a weaker form of multimedia (Krippel, et al., 2010). This is a common trend seen in classrooms where multimedia is used as a digital form of what already exists on paper.

We do not know what we do not know. “Changing our mindset and being open to ‘possibilities yet unknown’ is part of overcoming the ‘fear’ of taking kids…into a deeper understanding of the world, and this is the challenge set before us” (Hebern & Corippo, 2018, page 4). This is where the TPACK framework can assist educators in incorporating appropriate technology into their teaching practices because the goal of TPACK is to have students actively using technology as a learning tool for inquiry, sharing, and collaboration. Using the TPACK Learning Activity Types assists teachers in designing learning experiences to reach a broader range of learning needs, prevent overuse of particular methods, and encourage and maintain student engagement in the process (Harris & Hofer, n.d.).