“RESEARCH ON MULTIMEDIA IN POWERPOINT®: Why Bother?”

MULTIMEDIA IS DISCOURAGED BY EXPERTS
Beyond the basics of PowerPoint®, how can multimedia be utilized effectively with PowerPoint® in the classroom? Other than posting “dead words” on a screen, do movement, music, and videos in PowerPoint® facilitate learning or impede it? To date, those elements have been virtually disregarded, dismissed, dissed, and even discouraged by PowerPoint® gurus (in business and industry) when the technology to embed or stream those media is readily available? For example, Duarte (2008) and Reynolds (2008) give them miniscule attention, yet acknowledge the powerful active cognitive processing effects they can have. They usually caution users to integrate them either sparingly or not at all or to “not overdo it.” But most teachers and presenters under do it or don’t do it at all. To engage Net Generation students, in particular, who are bored with traditional PowerPoints®, faculty may need “to do” and, maybe, “over do.”

WHERE’S THE LOVE AND SUPPORT?
With FREE software readily accessible, such as Audacity (music) and Movie Maker (videos), why do so few faculty and presenters incorporate media into their presentations? Even a study of presentations by CEOs of technology companies indicated that multimedia was incorporated typically in the form of photographs and graphics, but no music and very few animations, videos, and online links were used (Kammeyer, 2007).

Granted, in-house IT staff may not have the time or want to be bothered to assist faculty to do the animations or actual media extractions and conversions. They may have other more pressing demands. By default, then, teachers are forced either to learn it themselves or to outsource it to techies who know how to do it; otherwise, it won’t get done. With time becoming a scarcer commodity and job tasks and responsibilities increasing, multimedia in PowerPoint® may be a luxury many professionals cannot afford.

WHY RESEARCH ON MULTIMEDIA?
Do any of those PowerPoint® add-ons, such as movement, music, visuals, and videos, contribute to the effectiveness of instruction? Do they increase attention, engagement, or understanding of the content? Should faculty move literally and figuratively beyond dead words on the screen? They may already have slides with bright, high-contrast, saturated colors, flashy templates, and loads of graphics. That’s great, but what are the words doing? If they’re still cadaver-like, teachers will immediately shift their Net Geners from boring to snoring. Say it with me: “DEAD WORDS ARE BORING!” Got it? Did you actually say those words?

WHAT’S NEXT? The next few blogs will review the research on movement, music, visuals, and videos in PowerPoint®.

COPYRIGHT © 2011 Ronald A. Berk, LLC