Creating Professional Looking Multimedia Presentations
Willard Ray Leatherman, The Heiskell School, Atlanta, GA

Each year I attend the GaETC conference looking for innovative ways to use technology in the classroom.  This year I was introduced to a software program by Dave Hamilton (Flash and Web Design Made Easy) that has the potential to change how my students create and present multimedia presentations.  The program is Mediator 8 Pro and is produced by MatchWare Inc.

Mediator 8 is designed to create professional looking multimedia presentations such as interactive websites, E-Yearbooks, classroom presentations, and much more.  I have been teaching my students to create multimedia presentations for many years using PowerPoint.  In my opinion Mediator 8 will allow students to do much more than they have been doing with PowerPoint.  With Mediator 8 it is easy to incorporate digital photos, videos, animation, text, sound bites, and sound effects into a presentation.  The program allows for a great deal of flexibility navigating through a presentation.  A presentation can be designed in such a way users can choose the content they wish to view as well as the sequence in which they view the material.  Presentations can easily be converted to HTML or saved to CD-ROM for distribution.  With Mediator 8 it is possible for students to work on projects individually or to work as a group in a network environment on the same project.

I purchased Mediator 8 Pro and have learned the basics of the program and have begun teaching students how to use Mediator 8 to create multimedia presentations.  I did need to refer to the user manual but was able to learn the basic operations without much difficulty.  With my help, the group of students I was working with found the mechanics of Mediator 8 easy to learn. They created a simple presentation incorporating text, photos of themselves, sound bites, a video clip, and simple backgrounds. They are now making plans to design and produce a class E-Yearbook.  Future projects will include both teacher and student designed multimedia presentations to teach concepts from our current curriculum.

Mediator 8 Pro has components that a user can learn to implement quickly and easily.  It also has components for more sophisticated presentations that require an in-depth understanding of the software program.  I know Mediator 8 will keep my students and me interested and challenged for a long time.  
 
I have limited experience with Mediator 8 Pro, but I would certainly encourage other teachers who are looking for innovative ways to incorporate multimedia presentation technology into their curriculum to consider researching this MatchWare software program.  As with most new software programs, it will require some time to learn how to use the software.  The MatchWare website lists the price for a single user license at $399; however, there were significant educator discounts for this software at the GaETC conference. 

More information about MatchWare and Mediator 8 Pro can be found on their website located at: http://www.matchware.com.

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