It is important to teach students critical word processing skills. In most universities and career paths, essays and other text documents are expected to be typed and formatted to specific guidelines. With the use of word processing programs, students will develop their typing skills, and will also learn the proper ways to format documents. Furthermore, the media center offers students the chance to become proficient with other media creation such as slideshows presentations, audio, video and photograph manipulation.
The Internet offers students the ability to easily and thoroughly research any subject. This allows students to expand on the knowledge learned in the classroom, such as literary studies and history. It is important to help students develop proper research skills so that they will be able to locate and cite reliable Internet sources in their studies. Furthermore, there is a substantial amount of current event information available online. The media center allows students to access this information efficiently. This way, news and current events can be incorporated more thoroughly into classroom discussion.
Software programs and various websites offer students interactive learning capabilities. Many students will retain information more efficiently when they are able to interact with the lesson. For example, math programs that allow students to solve or graph equations on the computer screen will help solidify the lectures given in the classroom. Many learning programs incorporate games and other fun methods of learning into the lesson. This will inspire many students to be more involved with the lesson plan, and thus they will better retain the knowledge presented.
Media centers give students and teachers the ability to efficiently interact through electronic communication. This gives students the ability to create and turn in assignments electronically. This makes it easier for teachers to organize and review students' documents, while also saving paper and other materials otherwise used for assignments. Furthermore, students are able to e-mail teachers for out-of-class instruction when needed. Teachers can e-mail additional learning material to students so they are able to access the documents outside of the classroom.