Multimedia

Previous chapters have focused on various audio P media, visual media, and computers. This chapter discusses combinations of these media, including combinations managed by computers. The generic term multimedia refers to the sequential or simultaneous use of a variety of media formats in a given presentation or self-study program.

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 mo tion media for heightened educational effect. Multimedia involves more than simply presenting information in multiple formats; it involves integrating these formats into a structured program in which each element com plements the others so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Today examples of multimedia in educa tion and training include slides with synchronized audio tapes, 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 handling sea shells lets the "experience" become more real. Multimedia makes one's experience as realistic as possible without actually being there.

MULTIMEDIA KITS

A multimedia kit is a collection of teaching/learning materials involving more than one type of medium and organized around a single topic. Kits may include CD ROMs, filmstrips, slides, audiotapes, videotapes, still pictures, study prints, overhead transparencies, maps, worksheets, charts, graphs, booklets, real objects, and models.

HYPERMEDIA 

The term hypertext was coined by Nelson in 1974 to describe "nonsequential documents" composed of text, au dio, and visual information stored in a computer, with the computer being used to link and annotate related chunks of information (nodes) into larger networks, or webs (Nelson, 1974a & b). The goal of hypertext is to im mene users in a richly textured information environment, one in which words, sounds, and still and motion images can be connected in diverse ways. Enthusiasts feel that the characteristics of hypertext parallel the associative properties of the mind, thereby making the construction of one's own web a creative educational activity.

Hypermedia refers to computer software that uses el ements of text, graphics, video, and audio connected in such a way that users can easily move within the informa tion. Users choose the pathway that is unique to their own style of thinking and processing information. According to its very nature, it provides a learning environment that is interactive and exploratory.

Hypermedia is based on cognitive theories of how people structure knowledge and how they learn. It is de signed to resemble the way people organize information with concepts and their relationships These relations ships, or links, are associations between ideas-for example, when thinking about bicycles, one creates a link between ideas about transportation and recreation. With hypermedia, one can link asynchronous data sources directly to compose and display nonsequential information that may include text, audio, and visual information. There is no continuous flow of test, as in a textbook or novel. Rather, the information is broken into small units that the author or user associates in a variety of ways. Using the bicycle example, learners can connect the word "bicycle" with a photo of a girl riding a bicycle in a field and a video clip of a Hong Kong boy carrying a duck to market on the back of a bicycle.

Computer hypermedia systems can be used for several different purposes :

• Browsing. Users browse, or navigate through the information, by choosing routes that are of interest. You can explore features in detail as it suits your personal learning style.

• Linking. Users can create their own special connections, or links, within the information.

• Authoring Users can author, or create, their own unique collections of information, adding or linking text, graphics, and audio as they wish.

INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Computer-based interactive media creates a multime dia learning environment that capitalizes on the features of both video and computer assisted instruction. It is an instructional delivery system in which recorded visuals, sound, and video materials are presented under com puter control to viewers who not only see and bear the pictures and sounds but also make active responses, with those responses affecting the pace and sequence of the presentation

The video portion of interactive media is provided through a CD-ROM, DVD, or the Web. Because CD ROM discs can store many types of digital information, including text, graphics, photographs, animation, and audio, they are popular in school settings, library media centers, and classrooms of all sorts. Anything that can be stored on a computer disk can be stored on a CD ROM (Figure 10.5) Multimedia CD-ROM products are commonly found in school library media centers, primarily in the form of encyclopedias or other reference databases. There is still relatively little application of multimedia and hypermedia to core instruction in schools. In higher education there is large-scale experi mentation with locally produced multimedia and hypermedia, but standardized formats or universal acceptance of such technologies for core instruction across institutions remain to be established.

VIRTUAL REALITY

Virtual reality (VR) is one of the newest multimedia applications of computer-based technologies. Virtual re ality is a computer-generated three-dimensional envi ronment where the user can operate as an active participant. The user wears a special headpiece that con tains a three-dimensional liquid crystal video display and headphones. The user participates within the three dimensional world by manipulating a joystick or a special glove worn on one hand. The data glove may be used to point, handle, and move objects and to direct the user's movements within the virtual world.

The essence of virtual reality is the expansion of ex periences for the user. Because VR places the user into the virtual environment, it provides an opportunity to interact with that environment in a unique way, giving the user the "ultimate" chance to grasp new ideas.

EXPERT SYSTEMS

Almost immediately after computers became a reality, sci entists were intrigued by what they saw as parallels be tween how the human brain works and how the computer processes information. They wondered whether the com puter could "learn" as well as retrieve and collate informa tion. Their experiments led to computers playing games such as checkers and chess with human experts-and win ning. Then they explored whether the computer could en able an amateur to play on an equal footing with an expert It certainly could. But, they reasoned, why limit this capa bility to playing games? Why not see if this "artificial intel ligence" could be applied to more useful problems?

This line of experimentation led to the development. of the so-called expert system. This is a software pack age that allows the collective wisdom of experts in a given field to be brought to bear on a problem. One of the first such systems to be developed is called MYCIN, a program that helps train doctors to make accurate di agnoses of infectious diseases on the basis of tests and patient information fed into the computer. Expert sys tems are slowly making their way into education.