Lesson 7 - Choosing Media

Even those experienced in using media for teaching and learning would be wise to work with instructional designers and professional media producers when creating any of the media discussed in this lesson  (with the possible exception of social media). It is important for the choice of technology to be driven by educational goals, rather than starting with a particular medium or technology in mind.

There are several reasons for working with professionals:

• They understand the technology and as a result, will enable you to develop a better product more quickly than working alone.
• Two heads are better than one: working collaboratively will result in new and better ideas about how you could be using the medium.
• Instructional designers and professional media producers will usually be familiar with project management and budgeting for media production, enabling resources to be developed in time and on budget. This is important as it is easy for teachers or instructors to get sucked into spending far more time than necessary on producing media.

The key point here is that although it is now possible for teachers and instructors to produce reasonably good quality audio and video on their own, they will always benefit from the input of professionals in media production.