Education Development Center, Inc.
Center for Children and Technology
Looking at Multimedia:
Design Issues in Several Discovery-Oriented Programs
CTE Technical Report Issue No. 13
Kathleen Wlson & William Tally
Bank Street College of Education
Multimedia programs for education are becoming more numerous and diverse,
yet the universe of discourse about multi- media in education has not kept
pace with the rapid evolution of design ideas. Despite the variety of new
programs, the claims made for their utility and efficacy are often uniformly
positive, and tend to sound alike. As a result, educators now face a proliferation
of choices, often lacking the concepts and vocabulary that might form a
critical lens, helping them to distinguish, for example, between a well-designed
program that provides lasting opportunities for inquiry and engagement,
and one that does not. Educators need a critical lexicon that will be useful
to them in looking at and thinking about new programs. Such a lexicon seems
especially important now, when multimedia systems are still quite costly
and often difficult to manage.
As one contribution to the development of a critical vocabulary for multimedia
design, this paper presents a framework for reflecting on the design of
discovery-based multimedia programs, based on a review of several multimedia
design examples collected during the second year of work by Bank Street
College's Center for Technology in Education (CTE). Children, teachers,
and CTE staff reviewed the programs in the CTE multimedia lab, using and
discussing them from the standpoint of consumers as well as design critics.
This paper provides a synthesis of their different perspectives on the programs'
characteristic features, in the form of questions that we hope educators
can use to better understand and evaluate these and other new multimedia
materials. Our discussion of the design issues is organized according to
what appear to be the basic components of most discovery-oriented multimedia
programs: a database of information, a user interface for accessing the
information, and interactive tools for manipulating it.1
What Do We Mean by
"New Multimedia Programs"?
As we use it here, "multimedia" refers to an evolving set of teaching
and learning tools that, in their most sophisticated form, combine motion
video images, sounds, text, and graphics in a computer-driven environment
under the user's control. A single program on animal biology, for example,
might allow a teacher to illustrate cell division with a slow-motion sequence
from a videodisc, a team of students to manage a computer-simulated island
ecosystem, and an individual student to research and write an on-line report
comparing the mating sounds of different mammals, with examples. Our review,
however, was not an exhaustive look at the entire range of interactive multimedia
programs currently becoming available for education. Instead, it was an
attempt to sample a small number of programs that represent a particular
pedagogical and design focus on "discovery learning," to look
at them briefly with a critical eye, and to suggest a series of questions
that can be applied more widely to other programs.2
What do we mean when we say that the programs have in common a "discovery
orientation"? In large part, this means that all of them emphasize
the user's central role as an agent in ordering and discovering connections
between objects and ideas. Relative to many other technology-based approaches
to learning, such as tutorials, drill-and-practice, programming, or games,
discovery-oriented programs retain an open-endedness and flexibility that
encourage users to play a more active role in the learning enterprise. However,
since extreme open-endedness can risk the loss of continuity and coherence,
discovery-based environments incorporate a variety of subtle means by which
users can be guided and supported in navigating about and finding new connections.
In addition, many discovery-oriented programs are two-way, not one-way,
streets: Instead of simply receiving and manipulating information, learners
can use tools that allow them to develop and synthesize their own ideas
and insights along with or in response to the program material. An outline
of these and other distinguishing design components forms the main body
of this paper.
Despite their shared discovery orientation, however, the multimedia programs
we looked at were by no means uniform. The content and scope of the programs
differed widely, from an in-depth look at the 1988 presidential campaign
to an almanac with hundreds of brief entries in science, history, and culture.
We made an effort to include in our ten design examples programs that dealt
with a range of subject areas (art, biology, physics, history, social studies)
as well as programs that employed a variety of learning strategies (building
from a narrative drama, simulating field experiments, inviting multiple
means of browsing). The ten design examples we reviewed are:
1. Exploring the Moon (IRIS, Brown University, 1989).
2. Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders (WGBH-TV, Boston, Peace River
Films, Apple Computer Inc.'s Multimedia Lab, 1989 prototype).
3. In the Holy Land (ABC News Interactive, 1989).
4. Life Story (Apple Computer Inc.'s Multimedia Lab, Adrian Malone
Productions, Lucasfilm Ltd., and the Smithsonian Institution,1989 prototype).
5. Ludwig Van Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (London Records, a division
of Polygram Records,
Inc. and The Voyager Company, 1989).
6. National Gallery of Art (Videodisc Publishing, Inc., 1983; The
Voyager Company, 1987).
7. Ramos (Insights, 1989).
8. The '88 Vote (ABC News Interactive, 1989).
9. The Visual Almanac: An Interactive Multimedia Kit (Apple Computer
Inc.'s Multimedia Lab, 1989 pre-release version).
10. Van Gogh Revisited (Philips International, 1982, The Voyager
Based on a selective review of these programs, this paper offers a series
of questions that may be usefully asked of any new multimedia program. The
form of the paper owes something to the nature of the multimedia materials
themselves. We do not discuss individual programs in detail, but instead
abstract from reviewers' discussions those issues and features that seemed
most important and generalizable. This was a choice made necessary by the
sheer size and diversity of options in each individual program: A thorough
discussion of all the interesting and relevant design features in each program
would occupy several books. Unfortunately, this means that many important
and innovative aspects of each program go unremarked. We can only recommend
that educators who wish to apply some of the questions outlined here to
new multimedia programs begin with those referred to here. They can do no
How Were the Reviews
Our reviewers were a diverse group drawn from three different occupational
categories, each with its own special interests and concerns: students who,
as the ultimate consumers of new learning materials, are rightly concerned
with their interest and appeal; teachers, alert to the educational integrity
and usefulness of the materials; and Bank Street College researchers and
designers, who worry about such things as the program's clarity, consistency
and ease of use, and its developmental appropriateness. We hoped that a
frankly subjective sketch of the new medium's potential strengths and weaknesses
would be more reliable if we brought these different perspectives to bear
in a review.
Six New York City public high school students, ages 14 to 16, were our student
"expert reviewers." They worked in pairs in the lab, using six
of the ten programs for 1.5 to 3 hours each, followed by a half-hour discussion
of their reactions. Seventeen New York-area teachers from five junior high
and high schools, both public and private, served as our teacher reviewers.
Representing disciplines as diverse as social studies, art, science, math,
and English, they each used and discussed one of the ten programs along
with one or more colleagues for approximately one-and-a-half to two hours.
The program chosen was sometimes, but not always, closely related to the
teachers' area of expertise; choices were made according to interest, on
the basis of brief written descriptions.
We asked the reviewers, children and adults, to consider the following questions
while they used and discussed the programs: How useful and compelling do
the materials appear? How easy are they to understand and use? What unique
opportunities do they seem to present? What limitations or biases might
they have? From reviewers' discussions of these questions (videotaped and
informally analyzed by researchers), there emerged a clear sense that the
programs varied significantly in terms of several key design features and
In what follows, we discuss the major design features that emerged from
our reviews. Because the reviews focused on a small number of very specific
multimedia applications chosen for their open-ended, discovery orientation,
this list of design considerations looks quite different from the questions
that typically guide instructional design. For example, it does not rehearse
important preliminary considerations, such as identifying the overall goal
or purpose of the software, who is going to use it, or in what context.
We omit these issues not because they are unimportant, but because we believe
that new multimedia resources present designers and consumers with a wealth
of design options and opportunities, even after initial decisions about
audience needs and content, scope, and context of use have been made. It
is important to remember, however, that this is not a list of features that
are absolutely necessary for a piece of multimedia software to be considered
effective. Rather, it is an introductory framework for reflecting more critically
on the range of options and opportunities from which designers and educators
might choose as they create and use a new generation of discovery-based
At the core, each of the multimedia examples reviewed appears to be comprised
of three basic, and several complementary, design components:
1. A database of information, with a particular content
a. Depth vs Breadth
b. Media Formats
d. Point of View
e. Connection to Curricula
and a particular database structure
a. Nature of the Raw Materials
b. Browsing vs Direct Searching and Sorting
c. Use of Contextual Metaphors and Organizers
d. Structured Activities
2. A user interface for accessing the information, and
a. Contextualizing Overview
b. Locational Information
c. Visual/Spatial Access
d. Multiple Options
e. System Responsiveness and Consistency
3. Various interactive tools for manipulating the information.
b. Searching, Sorting, and Browsing Tools
c. Linking and Tracing
d. Editing and Authoring
e. Producing, Composing, and Programming
Important design considerations emerged under each of these categories.
These are outlined below via a series of questions, followed by references
to design examples which illustrate them.
In terms of the content of the database, one might ask the following
a. Depth vs Breadth. What is the content of the database? Does it
appear to be focused on one subject area or bounded by a central theme,
or is it perhaps comprised of an encyclopedic array of subjects or a potpourri
of themes? In other words, does it contain a narrow range of topics presented
in a deep way, or a broad a range of topics presented in an introductory
way, or some combination of both?
The content of Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders, for example,
is focused on a central theme--animal migration. The content of Life
Story is focused on a central storythe discovery of DNA. Because
the information in these design examples is bounded by a single theme or
narrow range of themes, it tends to be presented deeply rather than broadly.
On the other hand, the information in a design example such as The Visual
Almanac (which consists, as its name suggests, of a sampling of diverse
themes and categories of information) is presented broadly across the many
themes, rather than deeply in any one category.
b. Media Formats. Does the database contain information presented
in a variety of media formatstext, still images, moving images, sounds,
graphics? Does any one of these formats, such as motion video or text, predominate?
Are the different media integrated in interesting ways, or are they used
more or less discretely?
Multimedia, by definition, means a variety of media formats. Some programs,
however, integrate the media with a purpose. It may be using one medium
to illuminate another, such as the Ludwig Van Beethoven Ninth Symphony
accomplishes. Here, the listener's understanding and appreciation of
the Ninth Symphony is enhanced by reading and manipulating textual, graphic,
and musical annotations that appear on the computer screen as the symphony
progresses. In The Visual Almanac , the purpose of media integration
is often to provide representations of an abstract or complex idea. Teachers
found very compelling, for example, an activity in which conservation of
angular momentum could be explored through a combination of video footage
(of a merry-go-round) and graphing on the computer.
c. Realism. Is the content of the database perceived to be "realistic,"
perhaps because it is based, at least in part, on photographically realistic
films and videotapes, such as news clips, or "live" sound recordings
of people, places, and things? Or, perhaps, does it appear to be close to
"real life" in its content in another way, by containing, for
example, portrayals of current or historical human dilemmas or even situations
common to everyday life?
The '88 Vote and In The Holy Land both offer the compelling
realism of news footage,
despite the fact that one key component of news realismthe "this is
happening now, as you watch" sense of simultaneityis clearly missing.
Nor were the familiar faces of network news anchormen important to our reviewers.
Instead, the programs' compelling quality lay in their capacity to bring
aspects of the world that are difficult to represent in the classroom (fractious
political campaigns and arguments over the meaning of events in the Middle
East) into the grasp of teachers and students.
Two black girls using The '88 Vote for the first time, for example,
went immediately to footage of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a figure of clear
personal significance, and began a discussion that proceeded from his similarities
to their fathers to the components of his oratorial style, and then to speculations
about how Michael Dukakis' lack of such style may have hurt his chances.
For the teachers, the ability to treat video "documents" (for
example, video clips of campaign commercials, file footage of important
events in Mid-East history) as original source materials for study made
particular sense, since the media played an important role in shaping both
of the topics portrayed, and the power of the media is a "real-world"
fact that they seldom have an opportunity to confront directly.
d. Point of View. Is the content biased in some way? Does it present
a particular perspective? Or, does it attempt to include information from
multiple perspectives and disciplines? Does it include multiple and contrasting
ways of looking at and thinking about things? Is it emotional in some way,
or strictly factual?
Life Story is based on the story of the discovery of DNA's structure
and portrays the research pursuits of several scientists. By exploring information
about the progress of each of these scientists, the user of Life Story
begins to see this collective research effort from a variety of perspectives.
The program provides a framework of questions, historical facts, and competing
interpretations of events which, taken together, enable the user to evaluate
not only the issues of collegial collaboration, competition and sexism in
the scientific community that
are the subject of the television drama, but also how the biases of television
itself are reflected in the ways these issues are presented.
In a more literal way, a design example such as The Visual Almanac
presents information from different points of view in activities like Playground
Physics. For example, in the "Merry-Go-Round" activity, images
of a merry-go-round in motion are displayed, juxtaposed with graphical representations
and numerical charts of changes in various data associated with the motion
of the merry-go-round, such as velocity and time. In this way, users can
begin to see abstract principles via simulations with concrete examples.
Elsewhere, split-screen imagery is used to show users up to four different
views of the same complex physical motion.
e. Connection to Curricula. Is the content of the database explicitly
tied to any particular curriculum or grade level? Or is it perhaps multidisciplinary
and appropriate for a variety of age and skill levels, with more flexible
connections to a variety of curricula? Can it be used in nontraditional
learning environments, like homes and museums, as well as classrooms?
Among those programs dealing with a relatively focused content area, The
'88 Vote and In The Holy Land implied very strong curricular
connections to the teachers and students, but actually supplied few explicit
opportunities or models for such connections to be pursued. Questions and
activities were suggested in accompanying print materials, but were not
integrated into the materials themselves. In these and most other programs,
the grade levels for which the materials might be appropriate are not specified.
For the most part, however, the reading levels implied by the materials
indicate that the intended age groups are junior high to high school students.
Exceptions occur in both NOVA: Animal Pathfinders and The Visual
Almanac, where highly visual game-like activities are clearly appropriate
for much younger students. These were also the programs most likely to incorporate
elements of games and tightly focused activities that would be appropriate
to nontraditional learning environments like museums and homes.
The multidisciplinary, multi-perspective Life Story is a good example
of a program that offers explicit on-line links to curriculum ideas and
activities. In a section reviewing the discovery of DNA through a dramatized
TV narrative, users may call up questions that focus their attention on
details of of the drama's setting, character, and tone, as well as the historical
relationships portrayed. In a section on the structure of DNA, students
are given instructions for building their own model of DNA, including dotted-line
cutouts that can be printed out of the computer. In addition, the program
provides teacher-created lesson plans that convey not just a recipe for
using the materials, but also concrete stories of how individual teachers
came to grasp and use them.
In terms of the structure of the database, one might ask:
a. Nature of the Raw Materials. What is the basis for the particular
compilation of information in the database? How did it originate? For example,
is it based on an existing film archive or, perhaps, on a particular documentary
film, drama, or book? Is it, perhaps, a customized collection of information
acquired from a variety of sources, or a collection of new materials created
explicitly for the database? Was it compiled with a particular philosophical
or pedagogical ideal in mind? A particular learning goal? Some combination
For example, the design examples from ABC Interactive, such as The '88
Vote and In the Holy Land, are based largely on the extensive
archives of ABC News. The databases involved were created primarily from
existing news footage. As such, these design examples provide an ideal window
for considering the role of media in informing us of world events, and can
be used by teachers to illuminate various crucial issues related to media
literacy, in addition to their other content goals.
Life Story is based largely on a televised drama, Life Story:
The Race for the Double Helix, produced by BBC Television in association
with the Arts and Entertainment
Network. Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders is based largely on
a televised documentary produced by Peace River Films for WGBH-TV Boston's
NOVA series. Thus, these design examples involved the creation of multimedia
databases from preexisting linear video programs.
The National Gallery of Art and Van Gogh Revisited are based
largely on collections of works of art, one a museum collection and one
a compilation of works by one artist gathered from a number of museums around
the world. Both include original video created specifically as contextual
backgrounds for the various collections and works of art.
The Visual Almanac is based on both a customized collection of information
from a variety of sources and a collection of new materials created specifically
for the program. Ramos , created by Piagetian researchers in Geneva,
Switzerland, is an interactive story based on still photographs of life
in a Salvadoran city but, just as important, on a particular pedagogical
and philosophical outlook that emphasizes moral development, ethics, and
b. Browsing vs Direct Searching and Sorting. Is the structure of
the database designed so that novices, as well as other users, can browse
in an exploratory way and discover information in the course of their browsing?
Or is it structured so that, with some knowledge in hand, users can enter
key words or phrases to search directly and quickly through the database
to specific pieces of information? Or some combination of both?
Most of the design examples reviewed offer combinations of browsing and
direct searching capabilities. With those that use videodiscs, for example,
users can browse visually through the videodisc images via the remote controller
in scan, fast forward, play forward, play reverse, or step modes. With Interactive
NOVA: Animal Pathfinders users can, for example, browse through hierarchies
of information categories displayed graphically on the screen. With The
Visual Almanac, users can browse hierarchically from the collections
menu to chapter headings within each menu to individual "pages"
within chapters, as well as search directly by available key words and image
keys or by entering key words directly via the global "search"
or "find" feature.
c. Use of Contextual Metaphors and Organizers. Is a global metaphor
used to help organize the information and contextualize the experience for
users? Is it based on familiar environments or activities? Is the database
structured around a particular space or place or, perhaps, around the narrative
elements of theme, place, character, conflict, and/or plot sequence associated
with a particular story? Or does its structure draw from creating the illusion
of the functional conventions associated with using and navigating through
a familiar environment, such as a library, cafeteria, or city street? Or
using some familiar object, such as a camera, telephone, or ruler? Or some
combination of these?
For example, with Ramos, a global metaphor for the entire database
of information is used to help structure the interactive experience for
users. This includes the spatial, concrete metaphor of an urban neighborhood
and various narrative elements that might be related to it, including the
people who live in the neighborhood and the activities and dilemmas which
might characterize life there.
The Visual Almanac incorporates several local metaphors that are
specific to particular collections of information or activities. For example,
in thePlanetary Highway activity, the metaphor of a highway is used to help
instill in users an intuitive sense of the scale of the universe. Objects
of various sizes were selected to represent each planet in our solar system.
These objects were placed at various distances along a highway down which
the user can "travel" at different speeds to begin to experience
the relative size of the solar system and to begin to see the relationship
between time and distance.
d. Structured Activities. Does the database include learning activities
of some kind that are designed to illuminate the information contained in
it and provide springboards for association, reflection, and insight? For
example, are provocative study questions
provided? puzzles to solve? role-playing activities? exploratory "treasure
hunt" games? experiments that involve the manipulation of variables
(images, sounds, words, or data)? Is feedback of progress or "success"
provided to users who pursue these activities?
In Ramos, the entire program takes the form of a loosely structured
activity: Users play the role of a lawyer who must build a defense for a
Salvadoran street boy accused of selling drugs. For our student reviewers,
this role-playing structure lent coherence and continuity to the wide range
of intellectual tasks that the program presents. The Visual Almanac
includes a variety of more local activities that help to focus reviewers'
encounters with the material, to convey particularly abstract concepts,
and to demonstrate ways that teachers and students can structure the materials
for their own pedagogic and creative purposes.
But perhaps the most impressive and, with our reviewers, compelling and
fun use of structured activities was in Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders,
a program that presents three different activities, each of which models
a different aspect of scientific inquiry and demands a different level of
intellectual engagement. "Turtle Mystery" is an adventure game
in which the user becomes a reporter investigating reasons for the gradual
disappearance of sea turtles from the Florida coast. It calls for thorough
observation and attention to detail, and was easily accessible to our youngest
reviewers. "Bee Dances," an exercise in learning to "read"
the information conveyed by the movements of honey bees in their hives,
is somewhat more challenging, encouraging trial-and-error experimentation
and offering as tools several abstract drawings of the relationships involved.
The most sophisticated activity is "Monarch Migration," in which
users proceed step by step alongside real scientists in reenacting an actual
field investigation into the Monarch butterfly's migration patterns. With
its careful modelling of the different phases of the experimental method,
this activity provided over an hour of challenging work by high school and
adult reviewers, and led to interesting discussions among teachers about
pedagogy in science.
In terms of the user interface for accessing information in the database,
one might ask:
a. Contextualizing Overview. Does the interface include an introductory
overview of some sort that describes the nature of the multimedia application,
what information it contains, and how to use it?
For example, Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders has a linear video
overview that introduces the content of the database as well as the structureoverviews,
database, activities, and resources. Additional video overviews are available
that describe how to use the interactive program and introduce various themes
and concepts pertinent to the database.
It appeared that introductory overviews were more important for adult reviewers
than for kids, who tended to skip all top-down overviews and preferred to
develop a sense of the program's structure by jumping in and "messing
b. Locational Information. Does the interface always make information
available to users about where they are in the database, so that they never
feel "lost"? Locational information might be in the form of maps,
indexes, backtracking information, labels, highlights, you-are-here arrows,
The presence or absence of these cues, and their usefulness, often influenced
the duration, depth, and quality of reviewers' interactions with a particular
program. Where "maps" of the database content and the user's location
in it were not easily available, reviewers sometimes missed important parts
of the program or, momentarily unsure of how to reorient themselves, skipped
out of the program altogether. Especially helpful in this regard were schematic
maps that conveyed the scope of the program's content, as well as its structure.
In Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders , the user's location in
the database is displayed in a tree-diagram that also reinforces a key part
of the contentthe classification of plants and animals. In addition, the
program's designers correctly anticipated that users would find it convenient
to use the diagram as a navigational tool, and so allowed movement from
one part of the program to another via this "map."
c. Visual or Spatial Access. Does the interface provide familiar
images and/or spaces as navigational cues and menus to information? Visual
or spatial access might be provided in the form of maps, timelines, pictures,
charts, pictographic icons, simulated three-dimensional spaces, etc., in
addition to, or in place of, menus based only on words or lists of words.
All of the programs reviewed rely upon visual access of information; some,
however, choose creative means of representation that are not only intuitive,
but subtly reinforce the content being presented. For example, in a section
of The Visual Almanac titled "A Day in the Life...," a
world map is used to call up photos of cultures from around the globe. Field
photographs become menus for the study of life outdoors in the "Monarch
Migration" section of Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders.
And in both Ramos and NOVA's "Turtle Mystery" game, simulated
three-dimensional spaces are used as effective means of engaging students
in an imaginative role-playing exercise.
d. Multiple Options. Does the interface provide multiple options
to users for navigating through, accessing, and displaying the information
in the database? Are there multiple levels of information content? multiple
media formats used? multiple levels of experienceconcrete, experiential,
visual, and abstract? multiple navigational decision points and pathways?
All of the design examples reviewed include multiple navigational options,
due partly to the discovery orientation they all share. For example, the
use of pictographic icons as buttons, and images as menus are common to
most of the design examples reviewed and allow for multiple pathways, individualized
by the interests of each user, through each database. With the exception
of Ramos and Exploring the Moon, which do not include videodiscs,
all of the design examples reviewed use multiple media formatsmotion video,
slides, text, sounds, and graphics.
In terms of multiple levels of experience, Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders
provides some interesting examples. Its three activities, for example,
represent different levels of scientific investigation, from the "Turtle
Mystery" (which involves exploration and data collection), to the "Bee
Dance" activity (which involves observation and pattern matching),
to the "Monarch Migration" activity (which involves data collection
and manipulation, as well as pattern recognition). These activities also
represent a progression from concrete, experiential (Turtle Mystery) to
visual (Bee Dances) to abstract (Monarch Migration).
e. System Responsiveness and Consistency. Does the interface include
conventions that provide users with quick, explicit responses to their inputs
that operate in a consistent way? These might include auditory, visual,
and/or text-based responses. Does it allow for any action that has been
done to be undone? Is there a way to get help?
Our reviewers rarely used help. They preferred to try an option and see
what it would do rather than read about it first. This put a premium on
interface consistency and responsiveness. Nearly all the programs achieved
this, but more ambitious programs like The Visual Almanac sometimes
sacrificed consistency for breadth of choice in options. The importance
of responsiveness was underlined when a program became too large for the
computer it was running on, and so operated at less than its normal speed.
The resulting sluggishness of response frustrated users.
In terms of the various interactive tools for manipulating the information
in the multimedia database, one might ask:
a. Personalizing. Are tools provided that allow users to manipulate
the information in the database in a way that is meaningful to them? For
example, can users "bookmark" information that is interesting
to them? Can they store it somewhere and label it for later retrieval? Can
they take notes that are preserved on the system? Can they print out information
Local note-taking features, such as those provided in The Visual Almanac
and global notepads like those in the two ABC programs, are being incorporated
into more and more databases. Students were not likely to use either of
these features when they were simply browsing the database, but teachers
recognized the more local notepads as useful ways for them to pose questions
to students and have students record and compare their different responses.
The size of some of the notepads limited the scope of these interactions,
however. Most programs also offer options for printing individual screens,
but few do so as conveniently as The Visual Almanac or In the
Holy Land. The latter program offers the option of exporting text passages
directly into users' personal files, for use in reports, etc.
b. Searching, Sorting and Browsing Tools. Are different modes of
browsing the database provided? Do these allow for specific key-word searches,
as well as more relational modes of sorting?
The program that offered the most diverse and instructive modes of database
browsing was The Visual Almanac. From every database object users
can search via general or specific key words, or select a "wild-card"
option that searches randomly within the current stack. In between these
constrained and unconstrained modes, however, are two relational modes of
browsing. Every image-oriented object in the database is accompanied by
two lists of wordsone of the subjects the picture refers to, the other of
the pictorial elements it contains. Selecting any word initiates a search
to its next instance in the database. Users can thus browse along one conceptual
or pictorial dimension, or switch at any time and browse another path. Teachers
felt these options would be useful tools for developing students' abilities
to categorize and to think relationally.
c. Linking and Tracing. Are tools provided that allow users to connect
previously disconnected pieces of information together, to annotate these
links, and trace back through the links?
Every program that includes "authoring" tools for users to gather
and annotate images and text offers opportunities for students to link together
disparate images and information. The Visual Almanac is notable in
that it offers menus of all the sounds in the database as well as the images,
thus making linking of sounds possible. The most flexible environment for
linking information, however, was Exploring the Moon, a hypertext
application that allows users to create and follow any number of links within
and between text documents and scanned images. For children following premade
links, however, it appeared that the amount and form of the information
available to explain the links was often not sufficient to give them an
understanding of how one passage or picture related to another.
d. Editing and Authoring. Are tools provided that allow users to
edit the video, audio, and text information in the database; reconstruct
it; create new juxtapositions; enter new text; and thereby produce multimedia
"reports" or presentations (based largely on the rearrangement
of information in the database)?
For example, The '88 Vote and In the Holy Land, both by ABC
Interactive, include "documentary maker" tools with which users
can begin to compile their own sequences of news clips by "editing"
together clips that exist on the videodiscs. Likewise, Interactive NOVA:
Animal Pathfinders has a "video editor" that allows users
to edit together and customize the length and frame rate of any video clip
on the videodisc. The Visual Almanac has "composition tools"
and Interactive NOVA: Animal Pathfinders has a "report-maker"
that allows users to produce multimedia documents composed of video and
audio (from the videodisc) as well as text. Text can be imported from the
database or entered directly via the keyboard.
e. Producing, Composing, Programming. Are tools provided that allow
users to input new information (scanned images, digitized sound, graphics,
text) to create their own, original multimedia "productions,"
such as motion video sequences with accompanying text and audio narration?
None of the design examples reviewed had these functions available (with
the exception of text entry). Extra hardware (such as cameras, microphones,
video tapedecks, image scanners
and capture boards, and audio digitizers), as well as software tools, are
necessary to make this kind of production process available.
This paper has presented an introductory framework for reflecting on the
issues involved in the design of discovery-based, interactive multi- media
programs. It is based on reviews of ten multimedia design examples by small
groups of designer/researchers, teachers, and children. Through a synthesis
of these reviews, three basic design components were identified as central
to all of the multimedia design examples reviewed: (1) a database of information,
its content and structure; (2) a user interface for accessing the information;
and (3) interactive tools for manipulating the information. Design questions
and examples related to each of these components have been presented with
the hope that educators will begin to reflect more critically on design
issues relevant to discovery-based multimedia programs and thereby begin
to understand and choose more selectively multimedia materials appropriate
to their particular learning and teaching needs.
1. The work summarized here represents the second phase of an ongoing program
of research around new multimedia resources for education. The aim of this
research is not so much to guide educators in adopting this or that particular
program, but to alert them to a range of variables that together will help
to determine the success or failure of any effort to integrate these demanding
yet promising materials into environments for children's learning. The first
step in our research was an investigation of multimedia learning in the
largest sense. In a paper titled "Designing for Discovery: Interactive
Learning Environments at Bank Street," recent developments in multimedia
computing were viewed in light of a long tradition of environmental design
for education, in particular, a Bank Street approach stressing interactions
within a rich learning environment, and the student's central role as an
agent in discovering connections between ideas.
The present paper represents the second step in our research: a consideration
of new multimedia resources themselves, what they might offer the teacher
and student that is unique and powerful, and what design features might
either enhance or impede their usefulness for teaching and learning. The
third step in our research, based on preliminary field studies of multimedia
computing in different schools, is an examination of many of the things
that are required to make classroom integration of multimedia materials
work, from a flexible classroom setting to teachers with enough time to
preview, introduce, and customize the materials. Throughout this work, our
goal is to suggest ways of thinking critically about these new materials
that will put educators in a better position to integrate them successfully
into the teaching and learning enterprise.
2. Nearly all of our design examples were Macintosh, videodisc, and HyperCard-based
applications whose development was supported in part by Apple Computer,
Inc. In part, this was because Apple was generous with donations of equipment
and software to our multimedia lab. Such donations go hand in hand with
their support of the software developers who are creating innovative programs:
Both are efforts to stimulate an educational market for Apple-based multimedia
computing. Yet, because of these efforts, Apple is widely regarded as the
leader in applying multimedia to education. HyperCard has gained a wide
reputation as a powerful yet flexible browsing environment and authoring
program appropriate for teachers and children. In their integration of the
different media, many HyperCard-based multimedia programs represent the
state of the art in multimedia computing. Finally, the open-endedness of
many of the Apple design examples makes them appear conducive to the more
active, learner-directed modes of inquiry that we at Bank Street believe
are important. For example, the Apple design examples always include built-in
opportunities for student authorship and teacher customization.
3. It should be emphasized that the effectiveness of new educational materials
cannot be judged on the basis of a few hours' use by a handful of people
in a laboratory setting. If the multimedia materials were designed for classroom
use, lengthy field testing in very different kinds of schools and classrooms
by very different kinds of students and teachers is the only adequate measure
of a new program's potential. This is especially true of interactive programs
whose size and nonlinear nature may require far more time to explore fully
than other educational programs designed to be used in a more linear, structured
way. Again, our aim was not to judge or compare these particular programs,
but to gather from them a sense for which creative design conventions are
being successfully used to attract and engage students and teachers, and
which problems have yet to be addressed.
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multimedia: Developing and using multimedia tools in education. Redmond,
WA: Microsoft Press.
Ambron, S., & Hooper, K. (Eds.). (1988). Interactive multimedia.
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Bolt, R. A. (1984). The human interface: Where people and computers meet.
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Nickerson, R. S. (1986). Using computers: Human factors in information
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Norman, D. A., & Draper, S. W. (1986). User center system design:
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Tally, W., & Char, C. (1987). Children's use of the unique features
of interactive videodiscs. New York: Bank Street College of Education,
Center for Children and Technology.
Wilson, K. S. et. al. (1987). A design scrapbook of discovery experiences
in multi-dimensional worlds. New York: Bank Street College Project for
Apple Computer, Inc.
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a multimedia discovery-based experience for children. Children's Environments
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multimedia learning environments at Bank Street College. New York: Bank
Street College of Education, Center for Technology in Education.
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