MULTIMEDIA

The ability to combine audio, visual, and possibly other types of hardware into a presentation. For example, a "multimedia" classroom will typically have projection hardware and switching controls that make it easy for teachers to switch back and forth between computer projections, videotape projections, audio CDs, 35mm slides, videodiscs, CD-I players, etc. Although hypermedia presentations may require multimedia facilities, the two terms are not synonymous. Hardware and software options are discussed in considerable detail in Chapter 3. Career opportunities in authoring multimedia are discussed by Jerram (1994a) . Courses, trade shows, and literature on learning how to author multimedia works are summarized by Lindstrom (1994) . At the moment, multimedia hardware technology is in a greater state of change. For a discussion, see Document 7 at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen . Brickman and Manning (1995) discuss how student laboratories might be designed for multimedia technologies. (See also Video/audio networking and Hypermedia )

A form of communication combining media types on a single document, text with graphics,page layout,video,audio,animation,and so forth.

Documents or platforms that combine different kids of data (plain text, video, graphics, audio).

As the name implies, multimedia is the integration of multiple forms of media. This includes text, graphics, video, audio, etc. For example, a presentation involving audio and video clips would be considered a "multimedia presentation". Educational software that involves animations, sound, and text would be called "multimedia software". CDs and DVDs are often considered to be "multimedia formats" since they can store a lot of data and most forms of multimedia take up a lot of space. Since multimedia is so commonplace today, due to the advancements in computer speeds and storage, the term "multimedia" doesn't produce the same excitement is once did. This also means it isn't as overused as was it was back in the '90s. Thank goodness.