So, what is Multimedia and Interactive Learning?

Multimedia and Interactive learning are two methods of teaching that may sound unfamiliar, but really have been around for centuries.  The former is based on the belief that people learn better through the combined use of words and pictures rather than relying on one medium alone, while the later is the concept of getting students to apply what they have learned in order to gain a better understanding of the material.  These two concepts go hand in hand as often multimedia learning ends up being very interactive and hands on.  Together they can boost engagement, generate discussion, and create students who are involved in their learning.

My Own Experiences

I personally have had many positive experiences with both multimedia and interactive learning.  I like Rich’s son played the web-based game pandemic as a teen and while I enjoyed it greatly, it never occurred to me that it was teaching me something. This game uses visual aspects along with text to covey information, which in my opinion makes it a strong use of multimedia learning.  Thinking back on it now it is easy to see how knowledge can be gained through the game. While playing your goal is to act as a disease or virus and spread throughout as much of the world as possible which results in making choices about how your virus will transmit and what features it has.  All this information teaches the player a great deal about the transmission of viruses and disease as well as other factors such as how they mutate, which I must admit is particularly important right now given the state of the world.

One of my most impactful learning experiences took the form of non-digital interactive learning, a cooking and baking class.  If you have ever set foot in a kitchen then you know that cooking and baking involve a lot of different forms of measurement which makes it very mathematical and as a student I struggled greatly with this subject.  By cooking frequently, I was able to build a better relationship with math, particularly with my then nemesis fractions which are in every recipe.  This method of interactive learning not only gave me a life skill, but also made me less afraid of a subject I had unjustly disliked for years.  The video below shows how simple math equations are an important part of cooking.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes the way of the future is also they way of the past, and I think that is the case with multimedia and interactive learning.  Forms of these learning styles such as storytelling have been used by people to share information and engage their learners for as long as language has existed.  As well multimedia and interactive learning are more inclusive and can appeal to a wider range of learners than the more traditional, I talk, and you listen method of teaching.

Bibliography

Interactive Teaching Styles Used in the Classroom. (n.d.). https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/5-interactive-teaching-styles-2/

Juliani, AJ. (2014). The Hidden Importance of Teaching With Stories. http://ajjuliani.com/hidden-importance-teaching-stories/