Multimedia Scaffolding™
In Learning Units Of Work

Embedding learning technologies into Outcomes based, learner-centred curriculum is at the heart of connective learning paradigm.

A connective leader recognises that the textual environment has changed in the 20^th century and will continue to evolve in the new millennium in which students will spend their adult lives. One of the major changes is that print is, in a sense, being realigned alongside other kinds of texts — mostly visual.

We as professionals in our organisation need to adapt to the changing textual landscape — bringing both print and visual texts together in our classrooms. To broaden learning for our young people, we need to make them engage consciously with a range of media texts. This does not mean less reading for our students, as some of us may assume, in a conventional sense. On the contrary, it means both more reading and more intelligent reading in relation to each other.

As scaffolders of learning, we need to recognise that the students will need support and stimulation as they struggle to make meaning of the wide range of texts. The learning programs, therefore, need to offer, what we call, ‘multimedia scaffolding™’ in order for our students to be able to personally engage with the texts and recognise a range of meanings into these texts — print or visual.

We have included a sample from our innovative, learner-centred unit of work on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The unit draws upon an integrated hyper-linked world of a wide range of media texts — such as music, video clips, illustrations, written text, audio recording, web based animations — and invites the reader to make meaning of the texts in relation to each other.

For more details on developing multimedia scaffolding™ in your learning units of work across the curriculum, contact us.