Pedagogical Uses of Multimedia Annotators and Players

Abstract

Multimedia materials form an increasingly important part of technology-enhanced learning (TEL). We present two kinds of related computer programs, multimedia annotators and multimedia players, which provide greatly improved control over how the user navigates, searches, and displays multimedia materials. Our main focus will be on MannX (Multimedia Annotator—XML). The objective of this chapter is to familiarize the reader with multimedia annotators and players, explain why and how they should be used for learning and especially for foreign language learning, present the best practices for their design, and outline the future directions for developing this new technology and its pedagogical applications. We believe that for many fields of study annotated and searchable multimedia materials are the best vehicle for instruction and learning.