Enhancing Education with Multimedia

There are many ways for teachers to use multimedia objects (e.g., videos, sound clips, animations, simulations, etc.) to enhance their lessons. However, multimedia, like most forms of technology, can be a double-edged sword, and the teacher must always evaluate its effectiveness.

Here is an example of how a teacher might incorporate multimedia into a Grade 7 Social Studies lesson. The multimedia object, in this case, is a Flash animation developed by Statistics Canada, and it can be viewed at http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/analysis/popdwell/vignettes/prairies.html. The animation uses a map of the prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), along with a series of images, to explain how the construction of railway lines through these provinces encouraged European immigrants and settlers to move westward and form large settlements along these railway lines. Showing students this animation provides students (particularly visual learners, but also auditory ones, as the animation is accompanied by a voice-over) with an idea of where major railway lines were constructed and what effects they have had on contemporary Canada.


The use of this multimedia object in the classroom would contribute to the completion of Outcome 7.2.7 in the Social Studies curriculum: Students will assess, critically, the impact of urbanization and technology on individual and collective identities in Canada. At the same time, it would contribute to the following ICT Outcomes: students will evaluate the relevance of electronically accessed information to a particular topic (C.3.3.2), and students will demonstrate an understanding that information can be transmitted through a variety of media (F.1.3.1). Finally, the content of this learning object would provide students with an example of how, generally speaking, technology (in this case, the railroad) can have a tremendous impact on our lives and societies.