Multimedia Technology Integration and Student Learning: Obstacle and Promise

Political and institutional support has enabled many institutions of learning to spend millions of dollars to acquire educational multimedia tools that have not been effectively integrated into the curriculum. While access to educational technology tools has remarkably improved in most schools, there is still concern about instructional integration of multimedia technology to support student learning. Appropriate integration of multimedia tools constitutes a major change in people´s lives; technology integration is a complex phenomenon that involves understanding teachers´ motivations, perceptions, and beliefs about learning and technology. Although multimedia technology has a great potential to reform or even transform education, obstacle come in the way of achieving success especially with student learning. This paper presents an overview of technology use in education with a focus on obstacles to multimedia technology integration. Further, this paper provides suggestions to maximize the benefits of learning with multimedia technology.