Education Classroom Library

eZedia in the Classroom - Project Ideas

October 31, 2002
By Drs. Jane & Michael Madden
Francis Marion University

On one of our other pages, I have suggested some projects for the classroom and/or for staff development. What I want to do here is just put together a simple list of ideas that might act as a springboard for ways in which you can incorporate multimedia in your classroom. Please note that I said "incorporate," not "teach." If the focus is the notion that a teacher will have to stop everything to focus on teaching a software package alone for several weeks, it isn't going to happen. The list of "additional" items to be crammed into the curriculum seems to get longer. Let's shift that focus to where the multimedia authoring software becomes a tool for communicating - ideas, thoughts, learning, questions. Instead of thinking of eZediaMX as an "add-on," ponder for a moment what happens in the classroom when eZediaMX becomes the integrative environment.

Picture your students in your mind. With the opportunity to use a multimedia authoring environment, which of your students, that you've been trying so hard to reach, might suddenly become engaged in their own learning? What would it be like if the energy for learning came forth from them? What would the long-term implications be of a child who currently has no interest in school becoming involved and excited about their learning?

ASCD (http://www.ascd.org) has just published a new book for educators who are wondering what this new classroom experience might be like. The book, "Increasing Student Learning through Multimedia Projects," written by Michael Simkins, Karen Cole, Fern Travalin, and Barbara Means is a small, friendly volume that looks at this topic from a teacher perspective. They are sharing what has been learned from years of practical experience garnered by real teachers who decided to give it a try. Their advice is keep it simple, but what's great is they talk about how to do that. For those who haven't had a chance to see multimedia authoring in action in a classroom, this is a friendly place to start. There's also a cd of good information that was published previously - "Project-Based Learning with Multimedia" - that is also from ASCD.

Before I go to my "springboard" list, I want to share with you a conversation I had in a rural district a few months ago. While visiting the school, I had the opportunity to meet the principal for the first time. She knew I had been asked to pop-in to meet with one of the elementary teachers to talk about multimedia in the full-range of elementary grades, primary, on up. An intelligent, dedicated woman, she remarked that she had the chance to see eZediaMX being used with one of her classes. I made the normal social chit-chat of "that's nice" as I hadn't been aware that the teacher I was there to see had already been using eZediaMX as a tool. The principal came back at me with the statement that I didn't understand. She had seen it being used because one of the students had spotted her and dragged her in to see what he had done. I applauded the student's enthusiasm. She looked at me and said that I still didn't understand. The young boy who was so excited by what he had produced had a discipline referral file that was 3" thick by the time he was in grade five and this was the first time she had seen him proud of anything he had ever done. Now, I understood!

Just a few ideas in terms of how you can use eZedia in your classroom:
1. show the movement of troops across a map
2. demonstrate a process in science
3. improve public speaking by having the students record short audio or video segments to include in their projects - the short pieces don't overwhelm students and also provide an opportunity for them to grasp the key issues
4. create electronic yearbooks (eZedia has a real one on their cd that you can use as a template for your own)
5. digital scrapbooks of field trips
6. electronic books recording events at the school
7. "parent night" interactive presentations on your classroom that can run on a computer outside while individuals are waiting to meet with you
8. "meet your classmates" where students interview each other and produce an e-book of the class to encourage the concept that they're all unique and have ways to contribute to the class
9. digital story books - primary students can produce their own, as well as older classes adopting a primary grade and producing more elaborate pieces that might be their way of demonstrating knowledge of folk tales for an English class
10. interview seniors in the community and record their stories in a multimedia environment
11. tackle local neighborhood issues using eZedia to pull the pieces together to produce a more powerful story
12. use it to compare and contrast animals, places, events - the fact that you can set up interactive navigation means you aren't stuck with a linear approach
13. student portfolios demonstrating/displaying their best work
14. student portfolios pulling together their achievements for submission to a scholarship request or an employer
15. use eZedia as a practical demonstration of teamwork skills
16. teachers can use a template to pull together samples of student work and growth throughout the year to show parents 
17. record family events - weddings (an example is at the eZedia site), anniversaries, celebrations of all types
18. create a digital cookbook - how much more powerful to show how something is done than to simply provide written instructions
19. a hobby/craft e-newsletter that is available through cd - being able to demonstrate the steps makes it easier for others to grasp your message
20. use a project to involve students in the political process by having them follow different candidates at local, state, and national levels and collect speeches, stories, and news clips to see what ideas are being communicated and how they are being communicated. Students can compare and contrast different campaign styles.
21. compare and contrast international coverage of news events through the press of different countries so that students begin to be aware that news isn't pure reporting that there is a perspective brought to each segment that influences what is reported.
22. annotate a science graph
23. teacher portfolios (eZedia has an example at their site that we've modified and used with our students in our grad class in the past)
24. take people on a tour using a map as a background
25. create a history time line
26. create a pictorial autobiography for primary children

And the list will go on.

About the Authors
Dr. Jane Madden is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Francis Marion University and is the Director of the Grants Development Program on campus. Dr. Michael Madden is a Professor in the School of Education. No remuneration was received for the writing of this article.

eZediaMX in the Classroom