Why use multimedia?
Video, audio and multimedia offer powerful means of communication.
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They are very good for
- showing what things look like, how they move and how they change
- keeping an audience's interest,
- establishing personal contact
- establishing the identity and academic credibility of a speaker
- communicating the speaker's enthusiasm for the subject
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Moving pictures are excellent for showing how things change or how something is done, for establishing a context for information (such as a landscape or a working environment) to make it easier for an audience to relate to what you are saying.
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In education they are useful for:
- recorded or broadcast lectures
- bringing in an expert speaker from a distant location
- demonstrating processes that learners may not otherwise have the opportunity to see (such as a rare surgical technique)
- demonstrating techniques that learners will have to try themselves later (such as setting up laboratory equipment)
- recording students' performances to enable feedback and promote reflection
- bringing the real world into the classroom
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For research they are useful for:
- dissemination of results through:
- recorded or broadcast conference presentations and discussions
- demonstrating new techniques to colleagues,
- publicising and promoting research outcomes to related professionals and to the general public
- and for capturing data - such as focus groups, interviews, behavioural observations.
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| Creating video/audio teaching material can be quick to do, especially if it uses a recording of an event that is already taking place. However there are 2 main difficulties with using multimedia:
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1) it is relatively complex technically
2) it involves large amounts of data, and so needs fast, powerful computers with a lot of storage capacity and fast networks for transmitting.
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