MULTIMEDIA PEDAGOGUES - INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Multimedia learning environments, or pedagogues, may well revolutioniz e education as students participate in the educational process through intelligent simulation, dynamic links, and multimedia composition and creation. Multimedia technologies will challenge teachers to instruct dynamically and students to learn actively. The authors believe that this approach will motivate students to want to learn, and free teache rs to spend additional time providing individual attention and guidanc e. To accomplish this, the active learning environment must let users adjust the database parameters to their individual needs. The multimed ia system must be able to reason about user actions and respond immedi ately. To do so, the system must have detailed knowledge about the env ironment. The authors present case studies of educational multimedia s ystems already in use, including simulations, tutors, document creatio n and collaboration, and explanatory systems. For example, the Cardiac Tutor, a knowledge-based simulation for teaching cardiac resuscitatio n. provides spoken advice, emergency room sounds, and graphic indicati ons of ECG trace, blood gases, and vital signs for senior medical stud ents at the University of Massachusetts. Some technological barriers m ust be overcome before more effective multimedia tools can be develope d. The authors suggest several ways. They discuss the benefits of know ledge- and network-based multimedia systems, and the challenges that m ust be faced to realize their potential in active learning environment s. They also call for effective authoring tools that can evaluate stud ent responses and track student activities. As these technologies matu re, multimedia pedagogues will help motivate a shift in education towa rd active, hands-on learning.