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Creating Multimedia Presentations in Social Studies
The tremendous growth of the World Wide Web, along with new formats of video and audio components have made multimedia projects a booming part of curricular design in social studies and many disciplines of education. Multimedia combines media objects such as text, graphics, video, animation, and sound to represent and convey information, allowing for the development of projects and presentations that are collaborative, enriching (as they go beyond the textbook, allowing students to acquire additional knowledge), encourage creative thinking, and, most of all, are enjoyable for students to watch and/or take part in.
Within the social studies curriculum, multimedia components can be integrated in a variety of ways. Photographs of geographic forms, famous landmarks or historical reproductions can be easily shot and stored through the use of digital cameras. Likewise, scanners can reproduce photos of people and places, historical documents, and artists renditions of social studies content. These images than can be manipulated or made clearer through the use of graphics software products (such as Photoshop) and published for use in presentations on the Web. Digital video cameras can be used to take video clips, which can then be transferred to a computer for use on websites or in multimedia presentations.
Perhaps the most often used form of multimedia in social studies classes, however, is the use of slide show presentations, such as PowerPoint. PowerPoint can combine text, images and sound to focus an audiences attention on a presentation. Using PowerPoint, therefore, can be a very effective means of delivering a lecture, making it a popular form of technology for social studies teachers who concentrate heavily on lecture presentations in their teaching. However, this has also made PowerPoint problematic in the context of a constructivist model of learning. It is too easy for teachers to monopolize this technology, making the curriculum teacher-centered – rather than the student centered approach that is rapidly becoming recognized as more effective in the learning environment.
An example of a multimedia presentation:
September 11th (must be downloaded and unziped)