Welcome

Why this Unit?
Recommended time: 2 hours
In this lesson we will explore the important principles of multimedia learning and their application in designing effective educational content. We'll explore how people learn from words and pictures, examining the reasoning processes involved and the research-backed strategies that improve learning.
Study the resources below and then attempt the assignment,
Having watched the video “Mayer’s Principles of Multimedia Learning” complete the tasks below. Your submission should be 150–200 words, include examples, and show clear connection between theory and practice.
Introduction
The future of education in Tanzania is increasingly digital. To truly support the national vision and enhance student mastery of complex topics, we must move beyond static text and into dynamic digital content—including videos, animations, interactive simulations, and audio lessons.
First, we will look at "pillar 3" of the Digital National Strategy (pages 31-32). This will help us understand its plan for creating and using multimedia content, and how it plans to put the digital curriculum into action.
Because we explore effective content design, it's essential that we connect our work directly to the national framework.
The Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) relies heavily on engaging methods, making multimedia a key element in successful teaching and learning. To ensure that your use of digital tools (like videos, animations, and interactive content) meets the country's educational objectives, we encourage you to familiarize yourself with the official guidelines.
This document—the ICT Competency Standards for Teachers—will clarify the precise ways digital integration, and thus multimedia content, is expected to enhance our curriculum delivery.
Now that we've introduced the lesson, and you are aware of Core Pillar (3) Digital Content Development. This pillar is dedicated to ensuring the education system has the necessary digital and multimedia resources to teach the curriculum effectively. You may also have found that it focuses on the development of high-quality "Digital Contents," which are defined broadly to include audio, video, and images for teaching and learning purposes. Let's examine how to review the curriculum when preparing lesson media. Please open this page.
Discussion
Watch the video below and then answer the following questions.
Let us see if you have retained any of the information shared here. Take the short quiz below.
Introduction
In teaching, there are many multimedia tools you can use — such as videos, audio recordings, and interactive slides. However, the best tool depends on your goal and what you want learners to do or experience. Always start by asking yourself:
“What do I want my learners to learn, do, or experience?”
Lesson outcomes
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Instructions
Attempt the questions on selecting appropriate tools
Introduction
Dear teacher, this lesson will guide you through the main steps in creating, editing, and using multimedia for teaching. It includes short explanations, embedded videos, and self-check activities to help you apply what you learn.
Lesson outcomes
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Assignment
This assignment helps you reflect on how you have developed the knowledge, skills, and attitudes from the unit Creating Multimedia for Teaching and Learning.
You will demonstrate evidence that you can select, create, and integrate multimedia tools effectively in teaching and learning.
Before you complete this unit, take the short quiz below to check how well you have understood the key ideas and to confirm that you can apply them in classroom practice.
This unit equipped you with essential concepts and skills for creating, selecting, and integrating multimedia in teaching. You learned core multimedia principles such as coherence, modality, contiguity and redundancy, and how these principles help design learner-centred lessons without cognitive overload. You also explored how to align multimedia with Tanzanian curriculum goals by identifying learning outcomes first and ensuring that materials are age-appropriate, culturally relevant, and educationally purposeful.
You further examined how to choose appropriate formats depending on lesson goals — using video for demonstrations, audio for listening practice, and interactive slides for structuring information. In the practical section, you practiced creating multimedia content with tools like Microsoft PowerPoint and Audacity, and learned how to edit and integrate it through digital classrooms, such as Google Classroom and Kahoot. The key message is that multimedia strengthens learning when it is intentional, curriculum-aligned, and designed with a clear instructional purpose — requiring thoughtful planning, creativity, and ongoing reflection.
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Creating Multimedia Teaching Resources by Tanzanian Ministry of Education Science, and Technology is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Learning Designers:
Adapted OER: