Development of Multimedia Resources - Essay Example

?Development of Multimedia Resources Introduction The report is on the development of learning multimedia resources for Key Stage 1 in English in the area of En3 for children aged between 5 and 6 years. The report will focus on the development of an iterative design and the various resources and activities that need to be employed to achieve the aims of the learning process. The use of ICT will not only develop the creativity for learning and to perform and develop novel things but also enhances learning by making ICT a part of the routine lessons (Learning Discovery Centre Team 2006). The learning resource will provide an integration of resources from different mediums. It will have activities aiming to achieve the learning objective via text, images and sounds. The report will cover the various aspects of the learning activity. The idea of the activity is to promote and polish the English language in children, focusing more on writing. According to the National Curriculum, students should be able to use wide-ranging vocabulary, structure and organize events, demonstrate the use of a coherent structure in writing, bring about variations in the text according to the situation illustrated, convert ideas into textual form. The learning resource will help the student to become better at creating imaginary worlds, understand text and use their background knowledge in relating the text with the older situation. Moreover it would encourage students to comprehend that texts having similar topics present information in various ways or may contain different information. The resources will also promote the concentration ability of the students (National Curriculum 2011). Design Specification Extent of the resource: It needs to be emphasized that these objectives are not represented individually in each activity; rather listening, reading and writing are integrated in the activity. Format: Powerpoint presentation Layout: The Powerpoint presentation is intended for students and hence needs to be colourful in order to appeal to them. The design of the template is Oriel from the themes provided by Powerpoint 2007. The font selected was Comic Sans MS since it has an informal look to it. Pictures are added to give more effect to the learning resource. Also, when I was making the report, I made a couple of changes to the presentation. On the title page I made a list of the activities and so that children could choose the activity that they wanted to do. This allowed for better navigation- a point that I thought of during the report. The activities are in a specific order- from relatively short activities to longer ones. The slides compromise of open questions mostly which are integral in providing guidelines to students to identify relevant information instead of pointing out exactly what information is required (Collins, Hammond & Wellington 1997). 1. Making Silly Sentences The students will be given a list of words and they are required to make funny sentences. The words can be displayed in attractive colours and in colourful frames. The words are going to include cry, flying, floating, soap, my, goals, load, try, coat, croak, sky, toast, boots, night and dry. Children are encouraged to use rhyming words in the sentences. An example can be given to illustrate the point e.g. “I've got a cat who sits on a mat and he wears a hat” (BBC Home 2011). There are 15 words in total. They can be divided into three groups since making 15 sentences can become tedious for the children. 2. Identifying sentences Students can be given a list of sentences and can be asked if it is a sentence or not. The slide will first explain what a sentence is: “A sentence is a group of words that makes sense on its own. It must have a verb and it must start with a capital letter and end in a full stop, exclamation mark or question mark” (BBC). The slide will also give an example of what a sentence should be like, highlighting the capital letter, verb and the full stop etc. E.g. He likes to study mathematics. Anne passed me the bowl. The next slides will have a header asking: Is this a sentence? Click on Yes or No. The slides will have different sentences and phrases. After clicking the option on the slide, the next slide will tell whether it was a sentence or not and will also give an explanation if it was not. Layout of slide: The subsequent slides will follow the same format. The activity will include ten sentences including the two mentioned above. The remaining sentences are given below. No! Christie has long brown hair. Mark enjoys playing cricket. Large hands and small feet. Ladies and Gentlemen! Peter’s mother makes the most delicious apple pie. Last Thursday I went to visit my grandmother. Yesterday was a rainy day in London. For clicking on the correct answer, sounds of clapping can be inserted. This can act as an encouragement for the children. 3. Writing lists This resource will aim at making children identify the items in a list and pick out the similarities between them. This will particularly focus on looking at similarities in a range of objects. The activity will also require that children make a list of their own. The slides are going to read as follows (KS1 Resources 2011): You all must have seen a list. Your mum makes one when she goes to the grocery store, your father makes them when he has to do a lot of things. Can you tell why people make lists? Lists are a way of writing down similar things. E.g. a list of the boys in the class. Mark, Anthony, Mark, Edward, Stephens, John, Harry, Tom Let’s see if you can tell what type of lists are these. List of girls’ names: Sarah, Jessica, Elizabeth, Jean, Maria, Angelica List of things to do before going to school: brush teeth, wash hands and face, change clothes, eat breakfast, take your schoolbag, sit on a school bus. Shopping list: strawberry jam, bottles of milk, grapes juice, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, bread, butter, toothpaste, toothbrush, toilet paper List of fairy tales: Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Ugly Duckling, Beauty and the Beast List of movies: The Lion King, Mulan, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Toy Story After the activity, a funny picture can be added such as this: Children can be asked to take a break. 4. Writing letters and postcards The activity will focus on the writing of the students but will also integrate the ability of the students to recall events and organize them. The format of the slides is given below (KS1 Resources 2011): What is this? (picture of a letter) Do you know what this is? (a postcard) Why do people write letters and postcards? People write letters and postcards to communicate. Do you know how to write a letter? You need to remember some things. This slide will tell the student about the format of the letter. On the envelop, write the address of the person you are sending the letter to. Now write a letter to someone. Now that you have learnt how to write a letter, let’s go to writing a postcard. Do you know how to write a postcard? Do you know why people write postcards? Postcards are written while you are away from some place. Postcards have a picture in the front. You can choose a postcard with a picture of the place you are visiting. On the back, there is space for you to write. Now write a postcard on your own. Evaluation The effectiveness of the report can be judged by comparing whether the objectives of the learning resources are being met or not (Rogers & Badham 2004). For every activity designed, the activity is compared with the objectives mentioned at the start of the report. The objectives are also very briefly stated at the start of each activity. The planning of the activities is to be reviewed and if the activity does not meet the required objective, it needs to be modified and improved such that it does (Foley & Janikoun 1996). Moreover, the ease of understanding of the activities needs to be judged. Reading the activities from the point of view of a key stage 1 child, the activities need to be made more clear and coherent. Effective planning requires that systematic assessment is part of the learning of the children. Also the planning should meet the needs, interests, attitudes and experiences of the students. The activities should capture the interest of the students and be meaningful (Browne 2009). The sentences that seem to be dreary can be modified to become more concise and interesting. The layout of the slides should be colourful and more pictures can be added to suit the purpose. Using interactive multimedia resources enables children to express and share their ideas in a creative way and buttresses and promotes the capabilities of the children (Leask & Meadows 2002). Using the multimedia as a source of learning can provide many advantages to the student. Multimedia encourages the students to work in different ways. These activities will also promote the student to adopt these approaches. The student works uses a more creative approach and the vibrant images and animations are going to capture the attention of the student; thereby increasing the interest put in by him or her. No matter what learning style the student is bestowed with, the learning resources incorporate a range of mediums including text and images. Working with multimedia resources will promote the usage of ICT tools from a very early age in KS1 students. On the other hand, one of the disadvantages if using powerpoint for making the learning resource is that powerpoint is not suited or optimized for working online. Moreover it requires that optimization is carried out and the size of the font is changed for certain features. In conclusion, one can see that the advantages of using multimedia resources override the downsides. Therefore, they can prove to be an effective and engaging tool for the children. The learning resources can further be enhanced by incorporating other mediums into them. The learning tools can also include videos and animations that guide the students step-by-step through the process. Also, another aspect that I realized could improve the resource for children is the addition of more sounds e.g. when a slide changes. This could further increase the long-term retention of the learning endeavour. I realized that one thing the resource was deficient in was good navigation. An arrow for moving from one slide to the next can facilitate the children in using it correctly. This navigation style should be incorporated in every slide in the resource. Another aspect that I did not consider and could have been improved is if the session will continue throughout or the child can exit it whenever he or she wants. In my opinion, given the activities, the child should be given a break and have the facility to exit the session. The activities can be divided on a span of four days, one activity being performed each day. This way the activity would not become tedious or boring for the children. Better feedback when the child chooses the correct answer (such as a smiley face along with a sound clip of clapping) can further improve the resource. Conclusion The resource is aimed for children in Key Stage 1 for En3. The resource is intended to develop and hone the writing skills of the children while encouraging their creativity. On comparison, the resource does meet the objectives it does seek to achieve. The apparent weakness that I can see in the report is less animation and graphics to make it more appealing to the children. Also, navigation around the resource needs to be improved so that even special children are able to use it. Strictly speaking, the resource cannot be used in other parts of the curriculum since its prime focus is on writing and has been made keeping this in mind. It could be used as a classroom resource as well as individually. Further testing can help to improve the resource. References BBC 2011, What is a sentence? BBC, viewed 6 March, 2011, BBC Home 2011, Silly Sentences, BBC Home, viewed 6 March, 2011, Brown, A 2009, Developing Language and Literacy 3-8, SAGE Publications Ltd. Collins, J, Hammond, M & Wellington, JJ 1997, Teaching and learning with multimedia, Routledge. Foley & Janikoun 1996, The really practical guide to primary geography, Nelson Thornes. KS1 Resources 2011, KS1 Literacy -- writing letters, postcards, invitations, lists, making posters and signs, viewed 6 March, 2011, Learning Discovery Centre Team 2006, Creative ICT in the Classroom: Using New Tools for Learning, Routledge. Leask, M & Meadows, J 2002, Teaching and learning with ICT in the primary school, Routledge. National Curriculum 2011, English Key Stage 1, National Curriculum, viewed 6 March, 2011, Rogers & Badham 2004, Evaluation in Schools: Getting Started with Training and Implementation, Routledge. Read More