Christie Rickert

EDTC 6340: Advanced Applications of Technology in K-12

Publishing Multimedia Online

Project Description:

Utilizing multimedia is proven to be an effective way to deliver instruction and facilitate student centered performance based activities. This project provides an overview of a variety of ways to use the Web 2.0 tool, Slideshare, to publish multimedia online and collaborate with others. Slideshare is an online file sharing tool that not only allows users to publish their work online but also has features similar to popular social networking sites like Twitter and You Tube. The value of using multimedia in education is also presented throughout this project.

Responsibilities Met:

Responsibility 1: Leadership and Professional Development. The candidate will demonstrate leadership and continued improvement of professional practice that requires critical inquiry, professional development, and reflective practice (e.g., membership in professional organizations, submission of a paper for publication, attendance at a local, state, regional, or national conferences). The candidate demonstrates knowledge of past, present and future trends in instructional technologies.

1.1 Attends minimum of one regional, state or national conference that directly supports professional growth in instructional technologies.

The overall topic of this project is publishing multimedia online. Although this performance indicator may not seem like an obvious connection, this is an example of applying what I've learned in my professional life. As a member of the Texas Distance Learning Association (TxDLA), I was invited to present at the annual conference about the Hays CISD Distance Learning program. My multimedia presentation was published online on Slideshare and is available by clicking here. The presentation has had over 200 views and is an example of my leadership in the area of distance learning. This exhibits that not only do I attend conferences for professional development, but I am also actively involved in the organization.

Responsibility 2: Design. The candidate will design instruction (or human performance strategies) to meet the needs of learners. Design documents and projects must show evidence of analysis of problem situation, awareness of unique characteristics of intended audience and implications for instruction, selection and implementation instructional strategies consistent with analysis of the learning situation and intended learners, selection and justification of appropriate medias, and evidence of both formative and summative evaluation strategies.

Using multimedia in the classroom is beneficial to our 21st century learners. As explained in the presentation I created, Unwrap The Potential of Multimedia, our digital learners are immersed with technology at a young age and therefore many of our students respond well to technology infused lessons. In this presentation, I analyzed and presented the need to include multimedia resources in instruction. Through this presentation and the accompanying technology snapshot, I was able to justify the need for integrating technology to an audience of school district administrators. The presentation gives examples and non examples of quality multimedia instructional materials and why they are important, and necessary for our digital learners. The presentation exhibits my ability to analyze the instructional needs of an audience, in this case K-12 students, and recommend an appropriate instructional tool to promote student achievement.

Responsibility 3: Development, Utilization and Management. The candidate will develop, utilize and manage a variety of media and instructional technologies to deliver instruction to students.

3.1 Demonstrates ability to develop instruction using a minimum of three different medias.

In the presentation, What's The Big Deal With Slideshare, several types of media were utilized to develop this presentation. The presentation, intended for teachers or administrators, included slides of text and graphics originally developed in Power Point. I also created a screencast using Jing, which was then converted and uploaded to You Tube. This video demonstration was embedded into the presentation.

3.2 Applies research-based rationale for the selection and utilization of technologies for learning.

Responsibility 5: Research. The candidate collects, evaluates, and synthesizes research from a variety of appropriate sources in order to support decision-making in design, development, implementation and evaluation of instructional systems.

5.2 Uses research in instructional technology to justify academic decisions in course work projects and professional work-related responsibilities.

In the words of Mark Prensky, "Our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language"(Prensky, 2001, p.2). Although this statement is 10 years old, we are still facing the same problem. The research in Instructional Technology clearly shows that our digital natives need to be instructed with multimedia and other technologies. There is also significant brain research that states that words alone are not as powerful as words with images or audio. As a result of this research, I believe it is critical for our schools to begin transforming into digital-friendly environments. In the culminating project, What's The Big Deal With Slideshare, I advocate the use of multimedia in the classroom and also demonstrate an ability to speak the "digital language" myself. By showing teachers that developing and publishing multimedia can be easy and quick, it is my hope that they will utilize multimedia in their instruction.

Responsibility 6: Collaboration. The candidate demonstrates the ability to form electronic teams in order to identify and solve problems and opportunities in the field of instructional technology. The candidate demonstrates effective team building skills in a distributed collaboration environment, and demonstrates how candidate's own students or colleagues can take advantage of electronic collaboration for distributed team building.

6.2 Identifies trends in distributed instruction.

Modifications Made

This project actually started as two isolated assignments. The first, "Unwrap The Potential" intended to justify the use of multimedia in the classroom and emphasized the importance of utilizing proper multimedia design rules. The second assignment was to explore and present a Web 2.0 tool. I thought it was a natural choice to choose a Web 2.0 tool that allowed users to publish their multimedia presentations that I previously advocated using. In the end, I linked the two projects together by uploading them both to Slideshare. The end result was a comprehensive presentation which not only emphasized the importance of utilizing and publishing multimedia in instructional settings, but also suggested a tool to do so. The presentation was improved by embedding a You Tube video at the end of the final presentation that gives a brief video demonstration of how to upload to Slideshare.