It is easy to have particular medium in mind when assigning a student project. You may, for example, envisage a PowerPoint or Keynote accompaniment to a student’s oral presentation. This line of thinking makes sense, in that as teachers, we have the end learning objective in mind. Opening it up a bit more, however, and even encouraging use of mixed media could yield some interesting and high end results. For example, a student may include scanned copies of hand-drawn or hand-enhanced visuals or a sound byte from an interview in the presentation.
Perhaps students are creating a creating a comic or digital story. Some student may prefer photographs or video clips, where others may prefer to hand illustrate part or all of the visual component. Manually created items can be scanned and included in any digital project.
Discussing or encouraging choice and use of mixed media allows students be creative in more ways and to have an opportunity to incorporate their own interests. Student who compose music can integrate their own work into a short documentary in history class for example. Not only is creativity and higher level thinking being facilitated but cross-curricular connections are being made naturally as well.
