The contiguity principle refers to the use of visuals in any lesson. When incorporating a visual to a presentation the visual should be close to the correlating text. A picture should not be three slides away from the photo to back it up.
The multimedia principle refers to icluding both words and graphics. It is said that students learn better with text and graphics. Learning and understanding are enhanced by adding pictures to text rather than presenting text alone. Example: words+graphic= learning and understanding.
An example of this principle would be providing a worked exampled of a math formula with step by step instructions included in a graphic along with math lesson in e-learning format.
An example can be seen at
http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/webdesign/media/combinemediatext
In this example the text is above a map. The text describes teh possilbity that a meteor fell in the area shown on the map.
An example of this principle would be providing a worked exampled of a math formula with step by step instructions included in a graphic along with math lesson in e-learning format.