Multimedia in the classroom

Diana Oblinger's presentation focused on multimedia in the classroom. The conference attendees learned through Oblinger's demonstration how professors use multimedia in teaching subjects such as French, chemistry, and American history. She stated that multimedia is important to libraries because "a lot of the work that is being done with multimedia assumes that the library is the central distribution point, training point, and conveyer of services. Many involved in the library community are going to find themselves very much involved in multimedia." Oblinger began by illustrating the transition to multimedia technology over the past three to four years. She stated that in the past chemistry was taught in a text-based mode. The text for cell division is "not terribly motivating," which makes it hard to teach and even harder to learn. But, beginning a few years ago, professors using a chemistry graphics software package could show the students the cell; how the nucleous begins to disappear; how the spindle fibers form; and how the chromatin continues to condense. Better yet, during the last year, full-motion video has been added to the course content. Oblinger demonstrated how by "taking the same piece of information about cell division, the student can now watch full motion video that explains about mitosis and cell division while the student watches the mitosis and cell division." The video can also be stopped at any point so that the student can examine the cell in different processes. This lesson can be kept at the library for future reference. Before Oblinger showed the participants examples of the kinds of courses being taught using multimedia, she asked them to think about whether multimedia had an impact on the instructional effectiveness of each of her examples. The first example she chose was an introductory American history course, which, she said, was a good example because this course was taken by a large percentage of students attending college. Oblinger explained that teaching the American civil rights movement to an average nineteen- or twenty-year-old student is hard because they don't remember it, and they don't know any of the people who were involved. Using the review, which is a standard teaching tool, a professor may talk about Martin Luther King's speech, or to get a better effect, the professor may have someone else read the speech. But, as Oblinger demonstrated, students who have seen Martin Luther King on the screen giving the speech himself will feel more emotionally involved in what was happening during the time period. Consequently, they will retain more of what they see and hear. Again, the lesson may be kept in the library and used as a resource tool for students. In another example, Oblinger showed how the professor who teaches chemistry could use multimedia to teach students the periodic chart. Instead of copying the periodic chart and asking students to memorize it, the student could see a picture of bismuth and pictures of products that use bismuth. A further application shows the student the similarities and differences between chemicals and the reactions of combining different chemicals with acid, water, and other things. Oblinger said, "students will begin to take a tool like this and explore things and come back to the classroom with many questions for the professor." She indicated that America's higher education institutions have been criticized for not teaching students to think for themselves. Multimedia instruction will help students think for themselves because their dwell time is much longer. She said students don't want to study periodic charts, but they do like to experiment, and using multimedia instruction is the closest thing to experimenting in the laboratory. Keeping a laboratory fully stocked and accessible to the students is very expensive for any institution. Access to multimedia databases for courses such as chemistry will help cut down on laboratory expenses and, therefore, pay for the investment. …