1.

18, Multimedia

1.18.1, Introduction, Multimedia in the education, entertainment, trainings

1.18.2, Office work and business, multimedia tools

18. THE MULTIMEDIA

18.1 Introduction to Multimedia:

Multimedia is a technology that is made by combining hypertext, still pictures and video
images, sound, animation and video using the computing power of pc. All these have been
made possible recently by the latest developments in computer software and hardware. Many
of us think that multimedia and CD-ROM are synonymous. But it is not true, CD-ROM is a
storage device. Multimedia is a technology. For example if you want to use multimedia
capabilities, your pc alone is not enough. You need additional set of hardware and software to
support multimedia elements.

Multimedia System:

As you know, people can run some special classes using the multimedia system. To run
such advanced class, they need a set of multimedia elements like a) Computer set b)
Compatible software c) CD-ROM Reading drive d) Sound card e) Sound blast f) Microphone g)
CD-ROM h) Head phone i) Digital camera, etc. With the help of these sets of multimedia system,
anybody can store, digitize, compress retrieve and decompress the information. To do this type
of the job, the collection of the above sets of hardware set is called multimedia system. Using
this system, anybody can do nice and advanced presentation.

Multimedia Technology:

Multimedia Technology is a special computerized technique, which helps the user by

providing techniques to combine texts, pictures, sound and video films including interactive
facilities. It also provides facilities to the user to create, store, edit, delete and copy those data
in the computer media. To store those types of data, CD-ROM can be a very useful storing
media. Such multimedia data stored CD is called multimedia CD. Now a day, instead of heavy
book a light multimedia CD is sufficient. Such CD is very cheap, light, simple, portable and easy
to carry. It also helps to provide colorful presentations. Therefore multimedia technology has
created more and move marketing in the world. Hence now in most of the books, video paper,
film reels floppy disks, super disks and zip disks are replaced by CD-ROM. Now a day you can see
multimedia CD everywhere.
18.2 Using the Multimedia Anywhere:

Due to invention of multimedia hardware and software, computer users are taking more
advantages at present. By combining the multimedia technology and multimedia system, users
are gaining entertainment, knowledge, education and profits. Due to invention of multimedia
technology, they are using it in the video game, film making, software training, education,
seminars, website, office work and even in the video conferencing etc. A multimedia application
uses technology for education, Business, entertainment etc.

Multimedia in Education, Entertainment, Trainings, Office work and

Business

Education:

Multimedia applications are used to teach students of all ages. Multimedia can be an extremely
effective tool for delivering educational materials to potential learners, making learning more
exciting and interesting. In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based
training courses (popularly called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia and almanacs.
There are several advantages of using multimedia in education. Some of the advantages are
given as follows:

 Provide students with opportunities to represent and express their prior knowledge.

 "Allow students to function as designers, using tools for analyzing the world,
accessing and interpreting information, organizing their personal knowledge, and
representing what they know to others."

 Multimedia applications engage students and provide valuable learning

opportunities.

 Empower students to create and design rather than "absorbing representations

created by others."

 "Encourages deep reflective thinking.

 Create personally meaningful learning opportunities. 

Giving students an opportunity to produce documents of their own provides several educational
advantages.
 Students that experience the technical steps needed to produce effective multimedia
documents become better consumers of multimedia documents produced by others.
 Students indicate they learn the material included in their presentation at a much greater
depth than in traditional writing projects.

Students work with the same information from four perspectives: 1) as researcher, they must
locate and select the information needed to understand the chosen topic; 2) as authors, they
must consider their intended audience and decide what amount of information is needed to
give their readers an understanding of the topic; 3) as designers, they must select the
appropriate media to share the concepts selected; and 4) as writers, they must find a way to fit
the information to the container including the manner of linking the information for others to
retrieve (Smith, 1993). All of these contribute to student learning and help to explain the
improved student learning that is often associated with IT-assisted PBL.

Besides student use, teachers should find multimedia of great use in delivering their lessons. For
example, a history teacher could use a multimedia CD to create a lecture on the non-violence
movement by using film clippings and audio tapes on Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King,
also by incorporating other audio visual information with text to make the subject come alive.
All this material would be. Similarly, a university professor might use a multimedia CD to prepare
or to update information or to teach so as to enliven and also add insight to his/her teaching,
thereby improving the quality of the course.

Entertainment:
Armed with images, sounds, full motion video and interactive capability, multimedia
become a dominant factor in today’s technological world, although it was considered one
of the entertaining games in the past. Multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment
industry, especially to develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia
games are a popular pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or
online. Some video games also use multimedia features. Multimedia applications that
allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of
information are called Interactive Multimedia. In the arts there are multimedia artists,
whose minds are able to blend techniques using different media that in some way
incorporates interaction with the viewer. Although multimedia display material may be
volatile, the survivability of the content is as strong as any traditional media.

Trainings:
In education and training settings, interactive multimedia packages have been found to be
used as library-based multimedia resources for teachers and students; as supplementary
curricular material for a specific course; as a tool for teaching and reinforcing analytic
and reading skills and for building an entire course around the use and creation of
multimedia materials. In the modern society, where computer and Net technologies are
becoming indispensable, the learning technologies are found to be deployed in all sectors:
schools, colleges, universities, and industries. The emergence of the knowledge and
educational content industry, the emergence of virtual campuses of learning, the
availability of new learning and training tools, and the deployment of such tools to meet
the diverse needs of learners have greatly influenced education and training systems. The
needs for lifelong learning, just-in-time training and retraining led to the development of
widely accessible and reusable digital multimedia content and learning repositories. The
advantages of multimedia are multifarious: increased interoperability, reusability, and
individualization of digital learning materials. The learners are benefited in terms of
increased quality, relevance, and contextualization of their learning.

Office work:

Business:
In the business sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to
shareholders, superiors and coworkers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing
employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via virtually
unlimited web-based technology. Exciting presentations are used to grab and keep
attention in advertising. Business to business and interoffice communications are often
developed by creative services firms for advanced multimedia presentations beyond
simple slide shows to sell ideas or liven-up training. Commercial multimedia developers
may be hired to design for governmental services and nonprofit services applications as
well.

Software (tools) Used In the Multimedia:

To design and write multimedia software, the programmer has to use different utilities and
programming languages, which are as follows.

(i) Java (Programming Language).

(ii) Windows media player (Utilities).

(iii) Real Judie or Shock wave (Utilities).

(iv) Active-x of open Dock.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Multimedia:

Advantages:

(i) It helps to use in the nice video presentation for all subjects.

(ii) At anytime, anywhere and anybody can use it.

 (iii) Very easy to use, handle, carry, copy and store.

(iv) Usable in interactive web page, Internet, video conferencing open University and
distance education and seminars

(v) Powerful presenting tool with colored pictures, motion pictures and graphical
pictures with multiple facilities.

Disadvantages:

(i) Very costly at the beginning during multimedia production

(ii) (ii) Requires very skilled manpower to use it.
(iii) (iii) Requires very costly hardware set to use it.
(iv) Poor people cannot use it due to high cost.