Reflection on Multimedia Information

Multimedia enhanced simple, text-only computer interface and production acquisition and holding of attention and interest in measurable benefits. In short, is to improve multimedia information retention. When it's properly constructed, can be profound and useful multimedia entertainment. Multimedia can be use in many way are business, school, home, public places and virtual reality.

Multimedia has permeated every part of our society. As the 21st century progresses further, it will be even more important that students understand multimedia and transition from passive consumers to active, thinking users. As a teacher, you have the opportunity to engage your students like never before. Through interactive games, video clips, and podcasts, you can help meet the needs of your students.

So what are some reasons for using multimedia resources in the classroom? If you have any ideas, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to add to the list in the comments section.

Mobility: We are a world on the go. Cell phones, iPads, and laptops are in the hands of the vast majority of adults and are increasingly in the hands of most students. It’s becoming apparent that these devices are quickly becoming the primary means by which we communicate. In fact, for cell phones, most of the communication among students happens not with the actual phone but rather with text messaging. Learning can happen anytime and anywhere with these devices. For homework, rather than having your students complete a worksheet, have them watch a video revolving around a specific lesson and come prepared to discuss it the next day in class.

Individualized: Multimedia resources can help you meet the needs of your students. Your visual learners may learn best with a short video, while your auditory learners may prefer an audio clip or podcast, and your bodily-kinesthetic learner may succeed with an online interactive. In each case, the same topic could be covered, but each student would work with his or her strengths to maximize learning.

Collaborative:  Blogs, social networking sites, and wikis allow students to interact with and teach each other, not only within their own school but with learners across the country and the world, as well. On top of that, sites like Twitter can be an invaluable professional development tool. Follow other teachers and experts to gain insights into the latest trends, lesson plans, and ways to integrate technology into your curriculum.

Flexibility: Back in the day, you were married to your textbook, and if there was something you thought would help elaborate a specific concept or lesson, it could be extremely difficult to find a way to implement it into your class. Today, the world is at your fingertips: you can have your students research online; bring experts into your classroom with podcasts or ICN sessions; display interactive models; find apps relevant to your lesson on a smart phone; and have your students design something that is real and meaningful.

Global: Making schools globally competitive was a theme that was explored in great detail at the Iowa Education Summit this past July. By connecting your students to a global community, they can learn about new cultures and countries in authentic ways. Additionally, multimedia will help broaden your students’ view of the world, preparing them to interact with a broader community in an increasingly collaborative global market.

Reflection on Manipulative Interactive Media

Manipulative Interactive media is a broad category that encompasses everything from iPads to implants for disabled people to choosing your own adventure books. Some of these technologies do not have all that much in common, but there are some general things that can be said about them and the direction that interactive media as a field is going.

Intuitive

One definite advantage of many forms of interactive media is that they make technology more intuitive to use. Many smartphones, for instance, are easy to use; users are often encouraged to experiment with their products rather than reading detailed instruction manuals for their proper use, the thinking being that users are able to sense how the product is used. Designers often create their interactive media products with intuitive use in mind.

Intrusive

One potential disadvantage of interactive media is that it can be intrusive. In some countries and cities, for instance, stores use computer-generated voices projected out in to the street to try to lure customers into the store, which some people classify as noise pollution and a nuisance.

Augmentation

Another advantage of interactive media is the possible medical uses that it has as an augmentation for handicapped people. Computer chips implanted in a quadriplegic's body, for instance, have been able to take the movement signals sent by his brain and interpret those as directions for a cursor on a computer screen. This is one area where the interactivity of media could have huge positive impacts on many lives.

Delicate Interfaces

One possible criticism of many forms of interactive media is that they are delicate and prone to breaking. For example, many touchscreen products break down or become scratched and scuffed from users constantly touching the screens. Interactivity is desirable, but the act of constantly touching and manipulating an interaction interface can quickly wear those interfaces down.

Reflection on Assistive media

Assistive Media was founded by David Erdody in 1996 and was the first Internet-based spoken-word audio reading service for persons with print reading barriers thereby opening a unique avenue of accessibility for many individuals with cognitive, physical, and communication disabilities. Used in a variety of environmental settings (home, school, community, work place), Assistive Media provides a solution that allows individuals with disabilities access to previously inaccessible literary materials leading to greater independence and integration into the mainstream of society and community life.

What are some types of assistive devices & how are they used?

Some examples of assistive technologies are 1:

• People with physical disabilities that affect movement can use mobility aids, such as wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, canes, crutches, prosthetic devices, and orthotic devices, to enhance their mobility.
• Hearing aids can improve hearing ability in persons with hearing problems.
• Cognitive assistance, including computer or electrical assistive devices, can help people function following brain injury.
• Computer software and hardware, such as voice recognition programs, screen readers, and screen enlargement applications, help people with mobility and sensory impairments use computer technology.
• In the classroom and elsewhere, assistive devices, such as automatic page-turners, book holders, and adapted pencil grips, allow learners with disabilities to participate in educational activities.
• Closed captioning allows people with hearing impairments to enjoy movies and television programs.
• Barriers in community buildings, businesses, and workplaces can be removed or modified to improve accessibility. Such modifications include ramps, automatic door openers, grab bars, and wider doorways.
• Lightweight, high-performance wheelchairs have been designed for organized sports, such as basketball, tennis, and racing.
• Adaptive switches make it possible for a child with limited motor skills to play with toys and games.
• Many types of devices help people with disabilities perform such tasks as cooking, dressing, and grooming. Kitchen implements are available with large, cushioned grips to help people with weakness or arthritis in their hands. Medication dispensers with alarms can help people remember to take their medicine on time. People who use wheelchairs for mobility can use extendable reaching devices to reach items on shelves.

Reflection on Content Management Information

A web content management system (WCMS) is a program that provides organizations with a way tomanage digital information on a website without prior knowledge of web programming and can include components for a specific industry, such as a content management application (CMA) that automates the production of HTML.

Content management practices and processes can vary by purpose and organization. This can lead to differences in steps or terminology.

The stages of the content management lifecycle are:

1. Organization: The first stage where categories are created, taxonomiesdesigned and classification schemes developed.
2. Creation: Content is classified into architectural categories.
3. Storage: Content format and storage decisions are made based on ease of access, delivery, security and other factors dependent on the organization’s needs.
4. Workflow: Rules are designed to keep content moving through various roles while maintaining consistency with the organization’s policies.
5. Editing/Versioning: This step involves managing multiple content versions and presentation changes.
6. Publishing: The stage where content is delivered to users, which can be defined as website visitors or internal publishing via the intranet for employees.
7. Removal/Archives: The final stage where content is deleted or moved to an archive when it is infrequently accessed or obsolete.

Content governance

Content governance provides content creators with structure and guidelines. Digital content management governance can help determine priorities, provide detailed standards, assign ownership for content and provide access control. This helps to create a consistent user experience, minimize content bloat and create internal controls.

Common governance tools that organizations use include content workflows, taxonomies and style guides, along with records management tools which include audit trails for compliance.

Types of digital content management

For just about every category of digital content, there is a corresponding tool or process for managing it.

• Social media content management: Social media content management tools help to create an organized social media marketing strategy with defined goals and to analyze engagement. Some social media content management systems include Sprout Social, Google Analytics and BuzzSumo.
• Web content management: Web content management is used to create, manage and display webpages. A web content management system (WCMS) is a program that provides organizations with a way to manage digital information on a website without prior knowledge of web programming and can include components for a specific industry, such as a content management application (CMA) that automates the production of HTML.
• Mobile content management: Mobile content management (MCM) provides secure access to corporate data on smartphones, tablets and other devices. The main components of MCM are file storage and file sharing.
• Enterprise content management: An enterprise content management (ECM) system has components that help enterprises manage data effectively. ECM components are geared to goals such as streamlining access, eliminating bottlenecks and minimizing overhead, along with version control, routing, archiving, content governance and security.

Content management systems and tools

In addition to content management platforms for specific content types, there are also general content management systems (CMS) which provide automated processes for collaborative digital content management and creation.

A CMS commonly includes features such as format management, publishing functionality and the ability to update content. A CMS can allow a user to create a unified look and have version control, but a downside is that it often can require specific training for content creators. A digital asset management (DAM) system is another type of CMS that manages documents, movies and other rich media assets. A few examples of notable CMSes are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. 

Reflection on Motion Media and Information

Motion Media

There is no universally adopted definition for motion media.

- Motion media in essence is visual media that gives the appearance of movement.

- Motion media can be a collection of graphics, footage, videos. It is combined with audio, text, and/or interactive content to create multimedia.

Examples: animation, videos, live streaming, presentation, flash mob.

In motion media:

- each picture is a frame and that motion is created by rendering or showing consecutively several frames per second.

- 24 frames (pictures) or more per second makes for a smooth animation.; videos, film, slides also make use of frames.

- the series of graphics or images follow a sequence to create a story. This sequence is often called a storyboard which shows a set of components (audio, visual, videos, etc) changing in time to create a story or a message.

Motion media can be produced formally and informally.

Informally produced motion media are created by individuals often for personal use. Formally produced motion media are created by professionals who follow industry standards in creating, editing and producing motion media. Formal production of animations involve the following steps:

- writing the story  - writers and directors create the story board

- script is written and dialogue is recorded

- animators sketch major scenes; inbetweeners fill in the gaps

- background music and background details are added

- drawings are rendered

Videos are produced in the same manner except that instead of drawing the scenes they are acted out and shot. Once the scenes have been shot, all clips are edited and put together in a final product.

Motion Media Formats, Types and Sources

There are widely accepted formats, types and sources of motion media. These are selected by creators and users of motion media and information.

1.  According to format:

- Animations - animated gifs (Graphic Interchange Format), Flash, Shockwave, Dynamic HTML

- Video formats/Video Codecs - motion media use large resources. Codecs compresses and decompresses videofiles. Examples are H.26N series, Quicktime, DivX, MPG, MP4

2.  According to purpose: education, entertainment, advertising

3.  According to source: personal, social media, media companies

4.  According to audience: private or public; directed or general

In some of these, media convergence can be observed with one artifact falling into several categories.   

Reflection on People Media

People media is all about the involvement of people in media. They are being used as media and as a media.
People media refers to the persons that are involved in the use, analysis, evaluation and production of Media and Information. There are two types of people media. The people as media and the people in media. People as media are people who are well-oriented to media sources and messages and able to provide information as reliable and accurate as possible. People in media are media practitioners who provide information coming from their expert knowledge or first-hand experience of event. People media acts as media itself. They are the people who give and/or share information to other people for them to have new knowledge. Example of people as media are opinion leaders, citizen journalism, social journalism and crowd sourcing. People in media are those who control media. These are people behind any forms of media—such as ads, videos, etc—that access information and acquire new knowledge. They provide information coming from their expert knowledge or first-hand experience of events. Example of people in media are print journalists, photo journalists, broadcast journalists and media journalists.

Reflection on Text media and Information

Text media and information is all about text; how text is being used; the media of text and types of texts and file formats which is really important in our daily lives, more especially in media. Similar to visual media and information, the purpose of this is not just to attract readers, but in broaden the use of texts and its capabilities.
Text is a simple and flexible format of presenting information or conveying ideas whether handwritten, printed or displayed on screen. Text is being used in media as form of communication, to convey information, tells us about something and is used for signs.
There are types of texts and file formats. Hypertext served to link different electronic documents and enables users to jump from one to other in a non-linear way. Plain text are fixed sized characters having essentially the same type of appearance. Formatted text’s appearance ca be changed using font parameters such as bold, italic, underline, font size, font color, etc.
Typeface also called font, font type or type refers to the representation of a text in the digital format which is usually comprised of alphabets, numbers, punctuation marks, symbols and other special characters. The types of typefaces are serif, sans serif, slab serif, script and decorative. Serif connotes formality and readability in large amount of texts. Sans serif brings a clean or minimalistic look to the text. Slab serif carries solid or heavy look to text. Script draws much attention to its self because of its brush-like strokes. Lastly, decorative texts caters to a wide variety of emotions or themes. 
There are some common file formats that are usually being used. The text, document, rich text format, portable document format and post script. Text is an unformatted text document by an editor as notepad on windows platform. Document is a narrative format for storing documents created by Microsoft word package. Rich text format is a cross platform document exchange; default format for Mac OS X’s default editor. Portable document format was developed by Adobe systems for cross platform exchange of documents, supports image and graphics. Post script is a page description language used mainly for desktop publishing.