Week 1 – Overview of Multimedia
Objectives:
- Define Multimedia
- List elements of multimedia
- Analyze learning theories and multimedia
- Evaluate the role of planning in creating multimedia projects
Reading
Section One – Applications of Multimedia and Web Page Design
Selected Readings Page - you will be assigned one of these articles to read and write a 1 – 2 paragraph summary. Please see details and schedule under this week’s discussion questions.
Training
NETg:Units 1 – 5 in NETg’s Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 Proficient User (if you are having trouble accessing NetG, call tech support)
Multimedia Defined
As we begin this course in Applications of Multimedia and Web Page Design, let’s begin with clearly defining what we mean by multimedia.
Webster’s New World dictionary defines it as:
- A combination of media, as film, tape recordings, slides, and special lighting effects, used for entertainment or education
- A combination of communication media, such as television, newspapers, and radio, used in an advertising or publicity campaign
- A combination of text, data, pictures, sound, video, etc., as on a CD-ROM compact disc, for interactive access through electronic computers
Media can be defined as different channels of communication. A single form is a medium. Over the past few decades, multimedia has expanded to usually mean computer-based technology that incorporates multiple media segments.
Elements of Multimedia
When we think of the traditional classroom, we can generally think of quite a few methods of communication:
- Textbooks and other print materials
- PowerPoint presentations
- Video tapes
- Audio tapes
- Illustrations draw on chalkboards or whiteboards
- Graphics
- Tutorials
- Hypermedia
- Drills
- Simulations
- Games
- Tools and open-ended learning environments
- Tests
Even though all of these types of media can be used in the face-to-face classroom, it is important to note that these very same media can also be used in computer-based learning environments. The important distinction is that some of these types are much more interactive than others, meaning that the student can interact with the medium in a meaningful way that may increase understanding and comprehension.
Can you determine which types might be included in this group of interactive media?
Learning Theories and Multimedia
Whether you are designing instruction for the classroom or for computer-based learning, the starting point is the same. You must first understand the underlying principles of how people learn. But this is not an exact science; in fact, there is no universal agreement on how learning occurs. The field of education psychology changed drastically throughout the 20th century. Even though Behavioral, Cognitive, and Constructivist psychology are the three main theories that have been developed, many learning psychologists, educators, and instructional designers today use a combination of all three.
Regardless of which theory is subscribed to, successful instruction consists of specific steps:
Instruction is presented and/or skills are modeled.
The learner is guided through the first stages of new skills or new information.
The learner practices the new skills in order to retain information.
Learning is assessed.
When designing multimedia instruction, we can take from each of these theories and build in programmed instruction with observable behaviors as outcomes, interactions that engage the learner in active learning and knowledge construction, learner-controlled activities, instructional strategies that allow for individual needs, and emphasis on computer-based tools such as word-processors and spreadsheets among other.
How do you begin? Probably the best way is to start with the simple concepts and move to the more complex. You also want to consider all possible approaches that best meet the needs of the learner.
If you want to read more about learning theory and instructional design, I suggest the two following websites:
- Instructional Design and Learning Theory - paper by Brenda Mergel from May, 1998.
- Instructional Design Models - details theory and practice for a variety of models, particularly the three mentioned in this section.
Planning as an Important Starting Point
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of planning before you start designing any project. Our tendency is to ‘jump in’ and get started, but without planning you will soon find you have a mess on your hands and it will take much more time to work yourself out of it and try to organize it after the fact than it would if you had taken the time to plan first.
Here is a series of questions to use in guiding you through the planning process:
- Scope – what needs to be learned?
- Audience – what are the important learner characteristics?
- Age
- Educational level
- Skill level in prerequisite areas
- Specific considerations for each project
- Resources - What are the constraints?
- Hardware platform
- Software
- Budget
- Timeline
- Client and product developer responsibilities
- Cost – what is the cost of the project?
- Specifications – what is the written plan for the project?
- May include a functional spec (what is the software supposed to do?)
- And/or technical spec (how is it going to do it?)
- What is the standards manual or style guide for the project?
- What other resources are needed?
- What legal considerations need to be considered (such a client sign-off, etc)
I’ll give you an example of a poorly planned project that I witnessed. The developer group was given a project to create six modules of self-paced software training for high school teachers who just received laptops from their district. The original details of the project were:
They were to develop all six modules in one year. The desired skill level to be attained was beginning to intermediate. They wanted it self-paced and self-served so that the individual teachers could proceed through the modules on their own time and at their own speed, but they would be externally tested by the school district.
The actual project took 2 ½ years to develop and ended up covering not only basic skills but also advanced skills (possibly why it took more time to develop) and they decided to put it on a CD to be self-serving.
Besides missing their deliverable date, one of the biggest problems they discovered is that the laptops only had 64 Mb of RAM and the media they used to develop the modules tied up all of the available RAM a quarter of the way through any given module. Essentially it would freeze and then crash the machine.
Why this mess?
- They failed to properly identify their audience, only consulting the technology coordinator and not any of the teachers themselves.
- They failed to jointly identify exactly what were basic, intermediate and advanced level skills, so what they thought were intermediate skills (because they are all technically advanced users) actually were determined to be advanced skills. Ultimately they ended up spending 30 – 45% of the development time creating lessons for skills that didn’t need to be taught.
- They failed to test out a prototype section of a lesson on a laptop with the same hardware and software configuration as the teachers’ laptops, so they never discovered that their modules used up the entire RAM so quickly. This was discovered after they had already burned AND distributed over 100 CDs.
There were other small details but needless to say the time and cost overruns on this project were enormous. It took them almost as much time to redo everything as it did for them to create it in the first place.
This development group most likely never got another project of this type again, which is unfortunate because the quality of the actual modules that they built was excellent! They all had superb interactions with high quality graphics and audio. It was unfortunate that no one could watch an entire lesson all the way through. This was a huge failure, just because they didn’t take the time and initiative to do a good job of planning up front.
Planning first makes for a better project with better outcomes.
References:
University of Phoenix (Ed.). (2003). Applications of Multimedia and Web Page Design [University of Phoenix Custom Edition]. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Mergel, Brenda (1998) Instructional Design and Learning Theory. Retrieved October 11, 2003, from
Ryder, Martin (2003) Instructional Design Models. Retrieved October 11, 2003, from
Discussion questions:
- From the reading assignment in the textbook:
- What types of multimedia do you use in your workplace? Describe the type of media and the situation in which it is employed.
- What are the benefits of following a systemic planning guide when planning for multimedia projects?
- Which steps in the planning process do you think are the most critical? What other steps do you currently use or do you feel are important to consider?
- From the Selected Readings Page for Week One:
Following the following schedule, please read your assigned articles and summarize in 1 – 2 paragraphs. Point out the benefits or challenges pointed out in the article that are relevant to your situation (if any). You may have to go through the rEsource module to access these articles.
Student / ArticleAckley, T. E.(1999, January/February). Amazing educational possibilities.Instructor-Primary, 108(5),70.
Anonymous(2000, Winter). I made this!Fortune, 229-230.
Anonymous(1999, Summer). Let it stream.Fortune, 190-197.
Gallagher, L.(2000, March 20). Feel me.Forbes, 278.
Liaw, S. S.(2001). Designing the hypermedia-based learning environment.International Journal of Instructional Media, 28(1),43.
Mosbarger, M.(1999, August). Multimedia defined.Satellite Communications, 23(8),30-31.
Multimedia matters: Highlights Of 2002--Few And far between.(2002, December).Via Satellite, 1.
Nielan, C.(2001, September). Introduction to powerpoint.Intercom, 48(8),23-25.
Plummer, A.(2001, September). How you say it.On Wall Street, 11(9),73.
Wei, R. P. C.(2002, May 2). Elements of multimedia technology.Computimes Malaysia, 1.