The Benefits of Multimedia Education in Middle School Students
Advisor: Mr. Arthur Wirth
The idea of using multimedia sources for learning has been tried in the past. As early as 1953, USC professor Frank Baxter was able to get a Saturday morning TV show where he lectured about Shakespeare. Drawing a course size of 900 and a viewing audience of 400,000 in its first year alone, the show helped teach people about Shakespeare without being in class in person. And, since the early days of the Internet, it has been used to facilitate educational collaboration through mediums such as online bulletin boards. My plan is to give children standardized tests after being led through a series of lessons. Each lesson will be taught in various ways, using different forms of multimedia (as well as a control group). From there, I will use the results and T-tests to determine if there's a statistically significant difference between the grades on the exams compared to the control group.
Project Blog
Post 1: A Quick Update from P.J.
Just a quick notice, I've met with Mr. Wirth and discussed the project plan. I haven't started any actual work yet; I'm still working out a few details with my outside organization. Will update you once I've got more stuff.
Post 2: More Information
Just here to inform you how things are going this week. I talked with Mr. Wirth briefly and he's cool with it. The outside organization has told me that they're looking for dates, and I'm currently checking out websites to use. Will update you when I have more.
Post 3: Major Update
The senior project is going on ahead. I've finalized the details with Gaynor and the project is going on ahead.
From May 6 to May 15, one of the teachers will be teaching about Pre-Civil war topics. The three big things he will teach about are:
Missouri Compromise
Compromise of 1850
Kansas-Nebraska Act
He will assign one night of homework on each of those during the time period. 1/2 the class will do your kahoot (or other multimedia) and half the class will do a reading. All students will come in the next day and answer five questions as a do-now.
Those pages will be checked and sent to me (labeled by which group)
The next time, we will mix up the groups.
He'll send me the reading/information so you can craft/find a suitable multimedia tool for the students to use.
Things are rolling on ahead.
Post 4: New, and Good, Updates
I've finished 2 out of the 3 multimedia tools, and the third is almost done
I've been given the assignment readings that the students will also be given so I can know what's ahead
I've decided I'm going to Carnegie Mellon, so now all my focus can be on this.
It's going great. I'll start work the week after this.
Post 5: A Minor Update
I've finished all 3 of my multimedia projects, and will begin work next week. Will update you with the info then.
Post 6: The First Week of Work
This has been the first week of actually putting the Senior Project into place. We've run through one of the Kahoots, and have the packets in place for testing. I think it went well, but we'll have to wait and see.
Post 7: An Update on the Lack of Things to Update You On
Week 2 of the actual project, and it's not that much different than the first week. Still the same general vibe and sense that it's going well, but nothing much to update you on. The only thing is that in the last week, all the kids will be doing the assignment for a sense of a better comparison. Looking forward to bigger things.
Post 8: Waiting on the Results
With this week's work done, we've officially completed the interactive phase of the project. I'm waiting for the results to come in, and once they do, I'll be able to do more high-level analysis. Until then, all I can really do is wait. I'll update you again soon.
Post 9: The Results Are In
I've gotten the results back from the testing, and they seem somewhat interesting. Right now, I'm working on incorporating them into my presentation. So far, things are going well, and it looks like I'm nearing the end of things.
Post 10: The Presentation is Complete
I've completed my presentation, and am ready for Tuesday's practice. I suspect it'll be around 20 minutes, barring a lack of questions or any other disaster. Looking forward to presentation day, and I hope that things go well.