Using Multi-media

Using multimedia in your curriculum.

I’ve said a fair amount about the growing audio-visual medium, so it makes sense that I should write about using multimedia.

Unless you’re the rare and estimable person who is incredibly bright and loves the study of facts and figures, you will perhaps be like the rest of us who like something unexpected in our studies to brighten things up a bit. Even dry documentaries brought a smile to my face when I was in school a little while ago. (Ok, it was decades ago.) Today’s options are far more numerable and of a wider variety, and the photography in documentaries is absolutely incredible!

multi mediaWe use videos in our studies, and we also do reports on movies, books and comparisons between them. For example, in our study of John Smith, we read about Pocahontas. Three of the children used this Indian princess for their biography study, so we watched the movie after the biographies were all done, and the children all had comments on differences between the movie, the books that had been read, and that which was presented in the oral biographies. The movie was watched at the end, after the research had been done and presented.

We encountered Shakespeare in the same book, so we watched Much Ado About Nothing as an example of one of his comedies, and Romeo & Juliet to show a tragedy. Then, for good measure and to appeal to the children, we watched Gnomeo & Juliet and did a movie to movie comparison between the two.

In our coming study of George Washington we will watch National Treasure 1 when we cover the Declaration of Independence, Daniel Boone and many of the Liberty’s Kids episodes. We also include documentaries in our year, and enjoy going to reenactments at historical museums.

Multi media camera use
Placing a camera in the hands of a child provides surprising angles and shots.

An unexpected use of multimedia turned up this summer. We visited Historic Jamestowne to see the place we had studied 3 months before, and I put into the hands of my children our two cameras and told them to take photos. I am certain that they saw and observed more because they looked through the lens of a camera than had they just walked around the historic site.

At each place thereafter I let them use the cameras, and then had them use the photos to create a report by using Microsoft’s Publisher, on a favored museum or historic site we had visited. This accomplished a use of a camera, as well as an introduction to using computer programs. They did not really know that they were putting together a report because it was hidden among learning to use multi-media. I enjoy it when I find things for them to learn and they are not aware that this is schoolwork!

Multimedia is real, and doesn’t appear to be going away. So be creative and figure out ways to include it into your school day, year and studies. You can all learn while enjoying doing so! Do you have any favorites to share?

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