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with Interactive Multimedia
By Professor John G Hedberg and Professor Barry M Harper
University of Wollongong
ABSTRACT
Current technologies allow the representation of ideas in many different media formats. The growth of constructivist learning environments has created new challenges for the development of learning software, both in terms of the design process and how students can manipulate the environments that software packages support.
This presentation will review the various proposed guidelines for developing such learning environments and describes how several interactive learning products were developed to incorporate problem-solving challenges for the learners.
In order to support flexible response to the problems, several cognitive tools have been designed to support learners faced with complex scenarios which might have multiple solutions. To the learner, the constructivist learning experience may not look welcoming. It may seem daunting and complex to those who feel ill-prepared for such creative freedom and choice of direction.
Often constructivist learning situations suddenly throw students on their own management resources and many fend poorly in the high cognitive complexity of the learning environment. Cognitive support tools and the explicit acknowledgment of the double agenda of metacognitive self-management and learning can help. The scaffolding and coaching of the cognitive apprenticeship model offer another solution.
These learning environments allow the representation of ideas with not only text and pictures but also dynamic models of relationships between variables, and information displays in multiple media forms. The most recent product requires that students can manipulate movement, sound and visual data to construct meaningful performances.
The interface design and the tools for information manipulation support creative and flexible thinking in domains other than text and data. The examples presented will demonstrate the challenges facing software designers as they seek to support learners as they move between knowledge domains from cognitive to kinaesthetic. The demonstrations will also demonstrate strategies and tactics that facilitate learners as multi-dimensional participants in socio-cultural processes as well as participants in social-dialogical activities.
If the designers' emphasis is on the learning which occurs through the process of interactive multimedia construction-learner as designer (Jonassen and Reeves, 1996), then the nature of the product is far less important than the knowledge construction process which the learner experiences along the way.
Less emphasis is placed on the refinement of production skills and more emphasis is placed on student initiated design and development with just-in-time skill support. When the focus is upon the process, the cognitive load of the construction tool(s) should be minimal to permit the learner to focus on knowledge construction.
Evaluation of Investigating Lake Iluka and the use of the package in classrooms gave the researchers further insights into the use of a fuller range of what Duffy and Cunningham (1996) have called the 'metaphors we teach by' in a constructivist learning environment (Hedberg, Harper and Brown, 1994). Student users expressed a need to:
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- have more access to the information resources to construct their own knowledge (i.e. access to the multimedia components)
- be presented with a challenge that was offered up-front and puts the challenge in context
- have access to the information in multiple forms and modes
- have more support for the tasks undertaken and
- have access to what they called "suck it and see" tools- i.e. 'what if' scenarios or simulations.
Schank and Cleary (1995) have described a set of innovative learning architectures based on their conceptualisation of realistic learning situations. They have created powerful example implementations of cognitive tools where different cognitive learning strategies are built into software and the learner is encouraged to explore their ideas and solutions with differing degrees of support and advice.
The innovative use of cognitive tools in interactive multimedia learning environments has also been reported by Lajoie and Greer (1995). The package Bio-World is an interactive learning environment designed to support the acquisition of scientific reasoning skills in high school students and integrates a variety of cognitive tools to assist in scaffolding scientific reasoning activity.
Users of this package are engaged in explicitly justifying hypotheses with evidence; organising, categorising, and rating evidence; and constructing a final summary argument on the topic of bacterial and viral infections.
Exploring the Nardoo provided a richer information landscape of resources based on a geographic metaphor which incorporated a Water Research Centre and a navigable river environment. The problem-solving challenge for students to become active participants in the learning process is presented on entry to the environment, the data collection facilities allow collection of a full range of media forms and simulators allow the user to ask questions and investigate possible answers to those questions.
Exploring the Nardoo provided the student with a flexible set of tools, to collect information made available through a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and a presentation tool called a Text Tablet to construct their solutions to investigations.
The Nardoo project enabled the placement of resources within a spatial framework which was largely coded through a geographical metaphor, thus it reduced the learning and searching requirements. The StageStruck project sought to move away from the narrow scientific concept of data and work with the construction of multiple meanings in a field that many would argue is highly subjective and open to numerous interpretations.
"StageStruck" introduces the learner to the world of Australian performing arts by exploring a performing arts venue (the Sydney Opera House) which showcases contemporary companies' performances, processes and people, and provides theatres and "tools" with which to direct scenes.
By extending the boundaries of interactivity in the context of a virtual world, learners have been provided with opportunities to express their own cultural interpretations and understandings. In this theatrical journey, we had the advantage of working with many visual metaphors. The world of theatre, opera, music theatre, dance and contemporary performance styles.
In this process individual users explore processes of visual design, sound development, and the concept of direction and motivation. In this project the construction tools have also been extended to enable the user not only to collect from a defined set of resources, but also to construct their own resources based upon combinations of sets, costumes and performers.
The database of vocal performances and movement animations and design elements provide the user with a rich set of tools enabling them to create performances with a strong feeling of stage depth, a rich sound accompaniment and effective, realistic animated performer movements.
The user can manage the flexibility of the scenarios by identifying the actor's intention behind making a movement or saying a line. This approach is designed to move the user's exploration beyond the simplistic attachment of a line of dialogue or an action to a performer towards experimenting with the more realistic, complex issues associated with directing and delivering a performance.
"StageStruck" enables the user to save their individually or group directed performance for comparison with others solutions to the task of directing a scene. In support of the free-form creativity available within the stage space, the user is asked to construct an appropriate set design for their performance. Each constructed performance can be compared with experts or other students, and learning can occur through the resolution of multiple responses to the same task.
Flexible learning environments can be designed to encourage student-centred investigations and knowledge constructions. We believe that as we have progressed through our learning environments we have developed some tools that can support learners to think more flexibly in their knowledge construction.
The design of interactive multimedia learning environments will increasingly include authentic activities that can be understood by less dexterous learners with specific cognitive tools, and different forms of representation. The challenge for researchers is to demonstrate for developers how to capture these opportunities and support the intrinsic motivation of learners to explore their own world and the variety of viewpoints within it.
Duffy, T. M., and Cunningham, D. J., (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the design and delivery of instruction, In D. H. Jonassen, (Ed.) Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology, NY: Macmillan Library Reference USA.
Hedberg, J. G., Harper, B. M., & Brown, C. (1994). Information Landscapes and Exploratory User Interfaces: Redesigning to Improve Learning Outcomes. In M. R. Simonson, N. Maushak, & K. Abu—Omar, (Eds.) 16th Annual Proceedings of Selected Research & Development Presentations, Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Ames, IA: Iowa State University. pp 247—257.
Jonassen, D. H., & Reeves, T. C. (1996) Learning with Technology: Using Computers as Cognitive Tools. In D. H. Jonassen, (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology. New York Simon & Shuster Macmillan, pp. 693-719.
Lajoie, S. P., and Greer, J. E. (1995), Establishing an argumentation environment to foster scientific reasoning with Bio-World. In D. Jonassen and G. McCalla, Eds. Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers in Education,. Singapore, December 5-8, pp. 89-96
Schank, R. C., & Cleary, C. (1995). Engines for Education. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
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Associate Professor and Head
Graduate School of Education
University of Wollongong,
Wollongong NSW 2522
Phone (02) 4221 3316
Fax (02) 4221 4657
Email: John_Hedberg@uow.edu.au
Graduate School of Education
University of Wollongong,
Wollongong NSW 2522
Phone (02) 4221 3555
Fax (02) 4221 4657
Email: Barry_Harper@uow.edu.au
