Refection - Activity 4.1 - creating multimedia components

This Unit got under my skin a bit ... so I let loose on the FCC message board with the following to my group. It started out for me as a pretty simple rant "Multimedia beware" ... then grew into a bit of a reflection piece for me. A confrontation with myself between the academic reasons for using multimedia and the real "fears" or "concerns" for perhaps avoiding them.

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I'm going to go "out on a limb" here and say that I'd like to challenge the use of multimedia. I also want to say that I'm even a bit disappointed by the resources that I've read in Unit 4.1. I say this because I haven't read anything on the appropriate selection of multimedia (perhaps I've missed something on the topic and I'd love to read about it if its there - do tell) From my experience the use of voice and video really only serve a purpose if the affective qualities that they communicate are important to supporting / enhancing the message or are part of the message (ie.. emotion, enthusiasm, body language, visual cues etc.) If these elements are not seen as important..or are not thought of carefully they can even become a distraction from the message or undermine the message. I've seen my share of poorly made TV shows (available on almost 90% of the channels available to us in the UAE) that have only served to reinforce the point.

Now I realize that the opposite can be said about email or text messaging .. and people sometimes go to great lengths to add that emotional quality via "emoticons". I'd argue that email or text messaging works great until there is a need to convey emotion .. to communicate the message with nuances.. or to minimize the risk of an email message sounding too "turse" or "harsh". Then I might consider using audio or video to communicate my message.

This then begs the question. When might I want to use multimedia as part of an eportfolio? Are there situations when I might want to use audio or video? I've been reflecting on this .. and have managed to come up with the following. By "honestly" conveying my message through multimedia.. by "honestly" conveying my message along with all of its non verbal cues .. I may be granting more authenticity to my presentation. I stressed the word "honestly" because I can't help but think that if it isn't done honestly .. then its likely scripted instead .. then the authenticity of the message "goes out the window" - the reader / viewer may not buy it.

Then there's the other side of the issue. Even if I'm trying to be honest and sincere, I know that I'm confronting my own sorted of "performance" anxiety - asking myself all sorts of questions.

• "How did I come across?"
• "Should I repeat this?"
• "I didn't like that part".
• "Let's do it over again".

So while it can seem fun to some.. it can also be work too - creating a slew of anxieties in my quest to realize some sort of "carefully crafted identity".

I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm incredibly conscious of these affective qualities and perhaps how difficult it can be to either confront them (to make the choice to do them), surrender to them (accept the fact that any such performance will not be perfect) or control them (trying to shape the final product through scripting or rehearsing).

Leading me to conclude, how I confront the use of multimedia and when I use it, is always likely to be a display of not only my technical expertise / skill in using them but my level of confidence in confronting how and when I think I can use them effectively.