Teaching students how to use technology:

When the Teachers do not know enough to full educate their classes.

     In the field of Multimedia Education a designer is not highly regarded because little is known about the field itself.  With the rising necessity of teaching multimedia, and the increasing use of technology in education, one may ask: how are teachers being supported to keep abreast as to what their students should do, when they themselves are unaware of the available technology?

     Strategies are needed to support educators on teaching the new technologies as well as updating their own knowledge. How do you teach educators when they technically speaking should be keep up on the new technology?

     This problem stems from the fact that the field of Multimedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia )is vast, and that depth is because of the vast range of backgrounds of educators and supporters. 

      Above is a sample of the vast areas of Multimedia. (http://internetdblog.blogspot.com/)  A designer or instructor may ask: With this knowledge, how can an instructor competently teach each of areas? The answer is that an instructor should strive to learn what they are able to while including their own knowledge base from their own field in which they are learning.  This will allow for greater depth of the educator’s learning by making the content more meaningful. 

     When instructing educators about multimedia there is a problem; that there is an extreme need to better evaluate job opportunities, community acceptance, and develop common education guidelines. Research shows that an educator should incorporate the following information into their curriculum in order to appropriately teach multimedia to their students: 

• Implementing a video/career multimedia program to prepare students for real world jobs 

• Student Projects for classroom, school and community 

• Production continuity for quality student projects 

• Producing a school orientation for new students. 

• Lighting and audio basics 

• Video Production/Video editing (trimming, splitting, storyboard placing)

• Editing and production software selection 

• Script writing 

• Applying transitions, effects and titles 

• Recording and editing audio

                                (Chaney-Cullen, Tammy, and Thomas M. Duffy. 1999)

     In education it is assumed that, we as teachers, know everything there is to know about multimedia, but that is not the case, and there are few ways to fake it. So the question is: How can teachers then learn to integrate technology in their teaching practice?

     As Multimedia increases in it’s relevance of its knowledge for the new age of computer science and software engineering students. When teaching students it is a necessity to remember that we need to be better than the early days of teaching computer science; Teaching needs to not only be in the know of the new technology but teach the basic that may need revile the cool things of the present. 

Be an enlightened educator: http://eductechalogy.org/index/archives/285 

References:

Chaney-Cullen, Tammy, and Thomas M. Duffy. 1999. Strategic Teaching Framework: Multimedia to Support      Teacher Change. The Journal of the Learning Sciences 8(1): 1–40.

Dasher, Joan M. 1997. Teaching the Teacher: Technology Training in the Classroom. Journal of Instruction      Delivery Systems 11(3): 3–7.

What Teachers Need to Know for Effective Technology Integration: Teachers’ TPACK | Eductechalogy. N.d. http://eductechalogy.org/index/archives/276, accessed April 16, 2012.