| Home | Title | Introduction | Special Education | Digital Storytelling | English As a Second Language | Conclusion | References |
One of the most complex educational environments has already proved to be able to benefit from the integration of multimedia into the classroom. A high school Driver's Ed course for students with moderate disabilities employed multimedia in lectures and exams with drastically improved student performance (Lee & Keckley, 2006, 5). The teacher created a power point presentation for lectures and exams which included "digital pictures and video segments on road signs and speed limits taken from the students' communities" (Lee & Keckley, 2006,3). This made the experience more "meaningful" and memorable for the students, because it was not merely a picture of a sign, but a sign in a familiar context (Lee & Keckley, 2006,6). The exams were conducted in the same format as the lectures and the students' test scores improved from an average of 45.2% to 94% (Lee & Keckley, 2006,5). This kind of improved performance fosters self-confidence in the students, a key element of success in special education.
A classroom environment which might not obviously benefit from multimedia is physical education. In Greece, an elementary school utilized "multimedia and computer assisted instruction" in the health portion of the curriculum (Antoniou, Papaioannou, Laparidis, 2010, 1). The multimedia aspects included "colorful cartoons...digital narration and text, graphics (moving and static), digital audio and video" (Antoniou et al., 2010, 65). This is particularly useful in an elementary school setting, as "children are much more attentive to programs when animation and narration is used" (Antoniou et al., 2010, 62). The program's wide array of multimedia features creates a more individualized learning environment, which uses a student's own learning style to the best of its abilities, and because of this, can challenge the student more than "whole class or small group instruction in traditional approaches" (Antoniou et al., 2010, 71). The program's interactivity is also consequential because it "encourages children to take an active role in the learning process" (Antoniou et al., 2010, 62).