Introduction

Knowledge objectives

2. Describe instructional applications that are especially appropriate for multimedia kits.

3. Define hypermedia and describe three instructional applications.

4. Describe an instructional situation in which you could use hypermedia materials. Include the setting, topic, audience, objectives, content of interactive video materials, and rationale for using this media format.

5. Diagram and briefly describe the components of an interactive media system.

6. Define virtual reality and describe how it might be used in education.

7. Describe instructional applications that are especially appropriate for virtual reality.

8. Describe an instructional situation in which you might use an expert system. Include the setting, topic, audience, objectives, content of interactive video materials, and rationale for using this media format.

Professional vocabulary

Perface

Multimedia systems may consist of traditional media in combination or they may incorporate the computer as a display device for text, pictures, graphics, sound, and video. The term multimedia goes back to the 1950s and describes early attempts to combine various still and motion media for heightened educational effect. Multimedia involves more than simply integrating these formats into a structured program in which each element complements the others so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Today examples of multimedia in education and training include slides with synchronized audiotapes, videotapes, CD-ROMs, DVD, the World Wide Web, and virtual reality.

The goal of multimedia in education and training is to immerse the learner in a multisensory experience to promote learning. One can read about walking on a beach. Someone describing the experience orally along with the recorded sounds of the waves enhances the “experience”. The addition of motion video lets one “see” the sights. Running one’s hands or feet through a box of sand and handing sea shells lets the “experience” become more real. Multimedia makes one’s experience as realistic as possible without actually being there.

In the past the predominant mode of providing instructional experiences was the written and spoken word through textbooks and the lecture. As shown in Dale’s Cone of Experience, “verbal symbols” are the most abstract. A newer form of media, virtual reality, is near the bottom (more concrete) of Dale’s Cone. Virtual reality is very effective and efficient in recreating reality and approaches “direct purposeful experiences”---the most tangible mode of learning.

Instructional designers understand that individual learners respond differently to various information sources and instructional methods, so chances of reaching an individual are increased when a variety of media are used. Multimedia also attempts to simulate more closely the conditions of real-world learning, a world of multisensory, all-at-once experiences.

Multimedia addresses different learning styles. Auditory learners, and tactile learners all benefit from multimedia’s varied presentation forms. The redundancy or print, sound, visuals, and motion media allows learners to choose for themselves the most meaningful sensory mode. When you, the instructor, have a clear sense of objectives and the necessary student practice, you can decide what media will best facilitate the learning and how best to deliver it.

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Multimedia kits---a collection of materials involving more than one type of medium and organized around a single topic

Hypermedia---media that allow the composition and display of non-sequential materials

Interactive media---media that require learners to practice skills and receive feedback

Virtual reality---media in which users experience multisensory immersions and interact with phenomena as they would in the physical world

Expert systems---software package that teach learners how to solve a complex problem by applying the collective wisdom of experts in a given field