Assignment 5:  Introduction to selected papers

Introduction - selection theme

I have chosen eight papers from each of the five conference themes and will attempt to illustrate the interplay between theory and practice.  The collision of new powerful personal computers in the 1990's capable of displaying integrated multimedia and the Internet changed the educational information technology landscape forever.  This has had an interesting and unforeseen side-effect as the technology appeared to drive the teaching and learning paradigms in classrooms around the globe, the philosophy being "because we can, we do".

During the last decade, researchers began to catch up, tentatively exploring the impact of media on the learning process.  That exploration has shifted towards an examination of the manner in which multimedia supports the learning process through an understanding of how knowledge, particularly structural or semantic knowledge, is transferred bi-directionally between the media and the learner.

There is an additional element to the playing field where theory and practice meet and that is a backlash against the use of technology by educationalists fatigued by playing technology catch-up with the latest PC's and software that is sold on largely unsupported pedagogical and philosophical grounds.  They rightly question the efficacy of technology's role in education, increasingly seen as more the result of commercial pressures than the result of educational priorities.

With this inherent tension in mind, I will use the eight papers to highlight examples of "good practice" and "good theory" that come close to resolving the multimedia debate.

Good Theory

Rosalind Rice's paper Multimedia: a vehicle on the Information Highway? begins by challenging some of the assumptions posited by supporters of multimedia education.  She asks "how has media impacted on education?" and highlights the growing chasm between First and Third World countries in the mad rush to "e-learning".  Concluding this section by reminding educators "not to forget that the effect of technology based learning is dependent on the underlying pedagogy", she moves towards the Big Question -"does media influence learning?" - and explores the issues arising out of the debate between Richard Clark and Robert Kozma, both of whom addressed this question during the 1980's and 90's.   Though not offering substantive support for her thesis, Ros rightly argues that the "bells and whistles" often associated with multimedia (and now includes the recent catch-cry to implement "interactivity") should only be added where functionally appropriate.

The key to harnessing multimedia's potential in education is explored by Derek Wintle in his paper entitled More than words: challenges for writers/editors looking for careers in design and development of interactive educational multimedia.  Derek examines the skills required by writers and editors, and highlights areas of focus such as page and text design, control, and structure in differentiating print and Web based media.  The rush to place course materials online has produced web courses of varying quality, both pedagogically and visually.  Design issues are paramount, especially in today's constantly changing web environment. However, in calling for writers to think beyond simple placement of materials on the Web, Derek echoes Ros's paper in challenging producers to think long and hard about the functionality and purpose of their product.

According to Stephen Peek, the learner appears to be the forgotten component in educational multimedia, crowded out by other technology and design issues.   In his paper, Consider the Learner in Multimedia Development, much emphasis is placed on describing the diversity of learners which poses, at the same time, the greatest challenge to multimedia designers - how do you accommodate learner diversity in a multimedia learning environment?  He cautions over giving too much control to the novice learner (disorientation) but goes on to discuss student-centred navigation structures that allow learners to encounter materials in a variety of ways.  He concludes his paper by restating his introductory remarks that learners are the "beginning and the end of educational multimedia."

Christine Hunter's paper Maintaining Focus when Using Interactive Multimedia in Education picks up where Stephen's and Derek's papers end, namely the focus on learners and the role of developers in designing more effective navigational tools to permit greater interaction with the multimedia environment.   She offers very practical solutions to problems such as disorientation, navigation efficiency and cognitive overload.  After defining three types of learners (transformative, performing and conforming), she matches them with ideal learning environments and then goes on to offer practical ideas in terms of scaffolding, task description, self-monitoring and narrative storylines.  Christine's paper does a fine job in reconciling the open-endedness and multiple perspectives of multimedia with well-defined learner tasks and goals.

Extending the focus on learners, John McDermott's paper Motivational aspects of educational multimedia on language learners looks closely at learner autonomy and motivation in a constructivist learning environment - motivation, in this case, refers to the choices people make and the degree of effort they exert when working independently.  This is a key component in educational multimedia development and has been variously addressed by developers through a combination of "bells and whistles" technology and interface personalization.  Claims that educational multimedia offers a more stimulating (and therefore, by inference, more motivating) learning environment for learners have been made by both users (teachers) and developers but little substantive research has been completed to support this.  John seeks a framework to "reflect the array of variables in educational multimedia" but is unable to provide one.

Enter Andy Hede's paper entitled An Integrated Model of Multimedia Effects on Learning.  Reinforcing John's view that research on multimedia's impact in learning has demonstrated "inconsistent findings", Andy produces a model consisting of twelve elements that seeks to describe, rather than explain, the key inter-relationships of multimedia effects.  His paper brings together many of the key foci examined in this document; visual and auditory inputs, learner style, and motivation.  John's thesis is to provide a resolution to the contradictory findings in the literature, arising from "methodological confounding by uncontrolled variables".  The model does indeed afford us a starting point from which to consider the relationship, functionality and sequence of the main elements.

Good Practice

The six "theory" papers introduced above provide the platform for the second part of this document.  I have taken two papers which, in my opinion, best exemplify practical applications of multimedia based learning.  Jim Edgar's paper Teacher-Developed Multimedia: How and Why? compares commercial and teacher developed educational multimedia.  As a result of his comparison, Jim identifies two distinct advantages of teacher-developed multimedia over the commercial variety - a more flexible development cycle and the capacity to adapt to constructivist learning environments.  He takes a pragmatic approach to multimedia development and has used HyperCard extensively to produce his own software, much of which is based on behaviorist principles.  Jim admits that drill and practice programs, though not ideal in terms of the inherent tension with constructivism, dominate most teacher-developed multimedia and argues that effective software can (and does) exist on a continuum between behaviorism and constructivism.  One of the key ideas to come from Jim's paper is the intimacy between the teacher/developer and the product which permits a more integrative assessment that ensures the resource "fits" into the learning process - the speed with which this occurs can not be matched by the commercial development cycle.  My only criticism of the paper lies in the reality that the key components - pedagogy, design, technology, and delivery - have become increasingly complex today, often to a depth that pushes the cognitive and time input of most individual developers beyond reach.  Much value can be added to "locally grown" multimedia products through approaching development in terms of assigning key skills to a team of key personnel, thus affording opportunities for different perspectives and highly developed skills.

The final paper is Mary Stobbe's sinisterly named What Lies Beneath:  Mathematics interactive multimedia and constructivism.  While containing much theoretical discussion on constructivism, Mary's paper closely investigates the thesis that the success of using multimedia technology "depends on an appreciation and deliberate implementation of a chosen perspective on teaching and learning" - in other words, her paper is about practice which, according to her, should be driven by an underlying philosophy.  Mary details the main concepts of constructivism and then goes on to use Reeves' model (1997) to evaluate two software titles that have been extensively used in the teaching of mathematics.  At the conclusion of her evaluation, the titles were assigned at opposite ends of the behaviorist/constructvist continuum.  It appears to be a more difficult prospect to design and produce constructivist software, and this probably reflects the tension between theory and practice which was alluded to in my introduction.  This is supported by Jim's experiences with developing HyperCard software.

Summary

In examining the tension between theory and practice, it is useful to graphically portray this - see fig.1

The graphic shows practice, driven primarily by technology advances, leading the way.  Theory is constantly playing "catch-up" which is a normal response considering the lag-time in which an issue is debated by key players in journals and conferences.  The one exception to this model is that the theory of constructivism, pioneered by Bartlett in 1932 (Mergel, 1998) predates multimedia technological advances by over 50 years!  This notwithstanding, the selected papers have highlighted good theory that has been applied by Jim and Mary in their attempts to understand the multimedia phenomenon.  In Jim's case, my guess is that theory very much followed the practice whilst Mary is very much using theory to evaluate existing practices in the form of mathematics multimedia software.  In her conclusion, Mary quotes from a reference - "the generation of new models of teaching consistent with constructivism is in its early stages and much work needs to be done."  Today, teachers world-wide require models of good theory and good practice in educational multimedia which have been shown to be efficacious in most situations, both spatially and temporally.

Peter Hatherley-Greene

References

Reeves, T. (1997).  Evaluating what really matters in computer-based education.  http://www.educationau.edu.au/archives/cp/reeves.htm [1 November 2001]

Mergel, B. (1998).  Instructional Design and Learning Theory. http://www.usask.ca/edcuation/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.html [25 October 2002]