Bucks Mashup
Why Assign Multimedia Projects?
Several understandings inform our Media Lab mashup support. The back of a napkin outline is as follows:
- Different people learn in different ways.
- Further, the traditional educational emphasis on reading and writing both can leave out folks who have different strengths (math/music, visual, etc) and no longer comports well with the skills required to be successful in a changed society in which audio-visual materials are increasingly sources of information and entertainment.
- Accordingly, multimedia projects allow students who may be left out by the traditional educational paradigm to be successful, and therefore invested in their education, and to be motivated to strengthen their communication skills.
- Additionally, students today tend to be more consumers of media than producers despite rhetoric to the contrary (see the Pew Internet & American Life Project: this report and others). Becoming a producer allows students to see themselves as creators of content, and these messages as constructed and thus open to critique and analysis.