THE PLACE AND ROLE OF MULTIMEDIA IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

Abstract

Multimedia comprise a combination of text, moving or still images, animation, sound, video signal which are merged by a computer into a whole. It is very important to differentiate between the terms educational media and media in general. Educational media are introduced in the educational process with the tendency to increase the efficiency of the process and learning, i.e. encourage developmental changes in students, while media in general are aimed at sublimating and mediating various pieces of information. In order to organise classes in a proper and quality manner, as well as to achieve specific educational goals, apart from material and technical equipment (i.e. modern multimedia and other information and technological equipment), it is important to ensure a professional, motivated and didactically and methodically trained teacher, whereas the success and the achievements he or she is going to attain in working with students depend not only ontheir abilities, motivation for work and the presence of media, but also on their capabilities to obtain the greatest and most efficient effects with the circumstances they work in.

The role, position and significance of teachers change greatly when multimedia comes into play – from instructing and examining they move onto planning, preparation, organisation and evaluation of the results achieved. Now, when a teacher acts and works in such new multimedia conditions, he or she is less and less an instructor and examiner, and increasingly more takes the position of an organiser, researcher, consultant, creator, coordinator and evaluator of the entire multimedia-backed educational process and the students’ acquisition of knowledge. In this regard, it should be noted that only if the teacher is well aware of the advantages, but also of the limitations of this form of teaching, will he or she be able to correctly choose the most adequate teaching programme, approach, method, media.

Within the contemporary educational process, emphasis is put on encouraging teamwork, establishing cooperation among students, developing critical and creative thinking, building proper student opinions and conclusions, developing independence. It needs to be pointed out that contemporary teaching is modifying the position of teachers and students. Today, the teacher does not direct students only towards the achievement of a certain goal, but he or she rather activates the students, motivates them to independently solve a problem, provides – through the application of information technology – virtual teaching, the receipt of a large quantity of information which encourages the students’ creativity, imagination, rationalisation, knowledge construction, abstraction, research. Therefore, the teacher, despite being “less and less an instructor”, is increasingly more in the position of a mediator in the process of transferring knowledge to students, an organiser, a consultant, and regardless of the high level of educational technology application in teaching, such technology will never render the teacher obsolete in the educational process.

Modern education will not be able to entirely meet the needs and requirements of the present, and especially not the needs and requirements of the future, without a well-designed, proper and efficient use of modern educational technology.