Multimedia a powerful tool in education information, business communication and Leasure

What is multimedia?

In everyday life, multimedia is everything you hear or see, e.g. text in books, sound in music, and graphics in pictures. In computing multimedia is the presentation of information by a computer system using text, sound and graphics (Tiley L. & Park D. 2005).

Education

In education, multimedia can be used as a source of information. Students can search encyclopedias such as Encarta, which provide facts on a variety of different topics using multimedia presentations. Teachers can use multimedia presentations to make lessons more interesting by using animations to highlight or demonstrate key points. A multimedia presentation can also make it easier for pupils to read text rather than trying to read a teacher’s writing on the board. Programs which show pictures and text whilst children are reading a story can help them learn to read; these too are a form of multimedia presentation (Tiley L. & Park D. 2005).

Business

Multimedia is used for advertising and selling products on the internet. Some businesses use multimedia for training where CD-ROMs or online tutorials allow staff to learn at their own speed, and at a suitable time to the staff and the company. Another benefit is that this form of training saves the company money, as they do not have to pay the additional expenses of an employee attending a course away from the workplace (Tiley L. & Park D. 2005).

Leisure

People use the Internet for a wide range of reasons, including shopping and finding out about their hobbies. The Internet has many multimedia elements embedded in web pages and web browsers support a variety of multimedia formats. Many computer games use sound tracks, 3D graphics and video clips (Tiley L. & Park D. 2005).