The malleability of new media presents unparalleled opportunities for interactivity.

The malleability of information stored electronically allows easy editing of sounds, images, text, or video. With desktop computers, teachers and students can compose and edit with a variety of media. In the collaborating research schools of the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), elementary students frequently work with multimedia. One fifth grader's multimedia report on music included sound clips, images, and video clips, all used much as a slide show might be to support an oral report. Some screens contained only sound clips to illustrate a musical point, others combined digitized photographs. Digitized clips from videos of singing groups were also included.

Figure 4 shows a kindergarten group project in which each student drew a picture, scanned the picture into the story, and recorded a personal message that is played back by clicking on the speech balloon. Teachers assisted students in entering text to match the spoken messages.