Stories and games for promoting student motivation: Making use of multimedia technology in learning science

Stories and games can be used to capture the attention of learners. With the large-scale availability of computers and related IT technology in schools, stories and games should be taken on added importance as teaching and learning techniques. As they encourage direct involvement of learners and independent choice, they can become excellent motivators in the classroom. They provide good stimulation compared to traditionally boring and repetitive tasks. Stories and games are found to be effective pedagogy for learning science, which is often treated as remote, cool and abstract. More importantly, keeping students motivated and engaged in the learning process is one of the best ways in preventing classroom discipline problems. In this paper, two CD-ROMs entitled “Stories and Science Teaching” (Nicholson & Ling, 1998) and “Learning Science with Fun – Rally of Riddles” (Nicholson, Ling & Pow, 2000) developed specifically to motivate the learning of science are introduced. These multimedia resources are designed to complement local classroom teaching and learning situations. They make use of the advantages of latest technology by creating a lively multimedia environment incorporating text, graphics, animation, audio and video. The materials, with built-in interactive exercises and learners’ self-assessment, encourage independent learning. The CD-ROMs use stories and challenging riddles with different levels of difficulties can be used to develop students’ higher cognitive ability including analysis and problem solving. These skills are essential for the development of their lifelong learning. The design of the CD-ROMs is teacher-friendly and the content is directly related to topics found in the current science syllabus for the junior secondary students in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2000 Association for the Advance of Computing in Education.