The following sections will interpret the definitions of multimedia. The relationship between multimedia and learning will also be discussed in order to have the basis of video l learning in multimedia context.
2.1.1The Definition of Multimedia
Scientific research with regard to multimedia learning are mature at a rapid pace, so it requires interpreting of multimedia in practical from definition of the term to the related researches. Multimedia technology has changed our way in communication, learning, and socialization. But, the question is, what is multimedia? (Richard E. Mayer, 2001; Carol Anderer,Paul Hyde & Jean Neff, 2007)
As a Professor of Psychology and author of book Multimedia Learning, Richard E. Mayer stated the term “multimedia” included various meanings. For example, one who is sitting in a room watching the pictures drawing on the blackboard and hearing the commentary or narration about the pictures through speaker, multimedia environment includes. For another example, one is sitting in front of the screen which presents the images about online learning courses, meanwhile, he or she is listening music as the course background form the earphone, the one is also immersed in multimedia.
8 Multimedia is a live performance which includes words and pictures presenting. Words, for sure, consist of the spoken texts which are spoken by people and the printed texts which are showed on the papers or the screens. Pictures are the visual elements such as illustrators, photos, animations, and videos. Mayer also mentioned that one possible condition of multimedia is watching a video while listening to the corresponding words, music, and sounds or reading the captions on the screen. It indicates that video is a part of members of multimedia. In the discussion of visual literacy, Janet Collins, Michael Hammond and Jerry J.
Wellington (1997) pointed out that we were not moving away from verbal knowledge towards visual literacy, but to a "world of multimodality" where images and words work together. (Beth Snoke Harris, 2006)
2.1.2The Rationale for Multimedia Learning
We have already known that multimedia combines the words and the pictures.
Multimedia learning first came to our mind while one is learning from words and pictures at the same time. That is, while people building mental representations from words and pictures, the multimedia learning occurs. Mayer (2001) stated that learners will be able to learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone. The original definition of multimedia learning is based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning of Mayer, Sweller’s cognitive load theory and Schonotz’s intergrative model of text and picture comprehension. (Richard E. Mayer, 2005)
In the book, The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, Mayer has proposed many principles to construct the theory of multimedia learning with the perspective of cognition in the field of psychology. He suggested the thoughts to approach multimedia learning. One of them in to find the right time to add verbal words into a pure picture or to insert the instructional messages into an audio-visual material for a better learning mode. However, Mayer said that we have known from previous researches that presenting words and pictures once, no matter how they are static or dynamic, is presenting the material twice and giving learners twice as much exposure to explanation. The repeated interpretations certainly benefit people to learn more. Next section will discuss the influences of different
9 media. (Richard E. Mayer, 2005)
2.1.3 Different Medium or Vehicle as a Learning Tool
While discussing about how to support learners’ learning activity through medium, the thoughts should go back to the earlier stage to see the vehicles that learners used to use.
Humankind has the flexible abilities to learn through the changes of environment. Although in the real world, technology continuously brings people different impacts and restrictions, humankind can still live well as usual by adjusting their behaviors. As for learning books, the vehicles to deliver a large amount of information, have been used for learning for hundreds years. The advent of technology, in recent decades, has made media become a quicker tool to convey information. Media was then positively used to teach and learn. The term of
“media” in Oxford Online Dictionary (2012) is “the main ways that large numbers of people receive information and entertainment, that is, television, radio, newspapers and the Internet”. People were familiar with different media and get used to learning something through media no matter in class or out of class. Mass media and multimedia then came out followed by the trend of media.
In this thesis, we try to remind readers that the differences between media and learning vehicle according to the descriptions of the Oxford Dictionary. Learning vehicle here included the books printed on papers, and of course from the perspectives of technology. It includes videos, blogs, vlogs, television, radio, e-newspapers online. The definition of learning media is normally in the scope of learning vehicle. But for interpretations convenience in this thesis, media will be used in all descriptions to indicate the tools or vehicles which convey information with multiple modalities like words, images or videos. Multimedia itself is a narrow meaning of media, focusing on multiple presentations simultaneously. On the other hand, videos can be a part of multimedia representation; or a multimedia itself.
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