Overview

The Metamedia project provides students and faculty with a flexible online environment to create, annotate and share media-rich documents for the teaching and learning of core humanistic subjects. Using the open standards-based Metamedia framework, faculty members further pedagogical innovation by building subject-specific mini-archives that extend the use of multimedia materials in the classroom and enable the formation of learner communities across disciplines and distances. Drawing on Metamedia applications as they research, develop, and collaborate on multimedia essays or in-class presentations, students improve their media literacy skills and gain a better understanding of how media influences their lives and shapes their interpretations. The result is increased skill at communicating effectively in today’s increasingly global world of education and business. Specific learning outcomes stated by Metamedia include enhanced ability to:

• Think across traditional boundaries between disciplines
• See connections across multiple disciplines
• Build and share knowledge through collaboration
• Look at problems from unfamiliar perspectives
• Express their ideas more vividly
• Collaborate more effectively
• Understand not just what we know, but how we know it

These outcomes, in turn, more generally improve students’ abilities to:
• Think critically
• Communicate effectively
• Develop a deeper understanding of complex problems
• Build learner and instructor communities