MULTIMEDIA EDUCATIONAL CONTENTS TO ENHANCE KNOWLEDGE

This paper aims to present one of the most important services available to the teachers of University of Porto (U.PORTO): multimedia development offered by the Unit of New Technologies in Education (GATIUP). Since 2003 the U.PORTO have been aware of the growing importance of digital contents and Learning Management Systems (LMS) and initiated a pilot project aiming to implement the use of blended-learning methodology and digital contents in the classes. Implementing such a project in a traditional and large university as U.PORTO demands a great effort and dedication from all the academic community. The primary strategy was to give direct support to all teachers who were interested on new technologies for educational improvement. Among the available services were included not only the technical and pedagogical support concerning the use of LMS but also the development of educational multimedia contents as an important way to enhance students knowledge. During this “individual” work with the teachers in order to demonstrate them the advantages of using e-learning platforms one of the major concerns was to motivate them to also create digital materials. The first step was the development of screenplays about some educational topic that could be a significant multimedia learning object to be used in the on-line courses as a study and training tool. This paper intends to describe and shortly present some of the products made and its prominence on students learning process.