An authoring and learning kit for digital electronics

A multimedia component kit for digital electronics authoring and learning is presented. It is based on a sophisticated structuring mechanism and a flexible link management scheme. Components available on the Internet facilitate sharing and reuse of educational software during the authoring process, make possible the support of all phases of the learning process, and allow students to achieve their desired depth of understanding. Emphasis is put on the implementation of a great number of components based on simulation and animation that provide a high level of interactivity and allow some presentation difficulties inherent in the subject to be overcome. An analysis of the impact of using the kit for authoring and learning is currently being performed.     

Interactive technology and authoring tools: A historical review and analysis

Computer systems, interactive technologies, and the software tools for authoring multimedia programs have evolved over the past several decades. The evolution of multimedia technology is discussed and current alternatives for authoring multimedia programs are described. Issues related to analyzing authoring tool requirements and selecting software are presented and trends in the evolution of authoring tools are identified. Many factors affecting the selection and use of authoring software are exogenous to the technology itself. Both technological trends and market forces must be considered.     

国外多媒体教学中学习者认知表征方式的理论

多媒体教学具有其理想功能,其实现的关键是客观上多元的刺激与学习者主观的表征方式的结合。许多认知表征理论为多媒体教学提供了理论基础和实践指导,多表现在知识的表征系统、表征资源和表征方法等方面。教师在设计和实施多媒体教学时,对于同时加工所需的感官通道的数量、知识的情境性、先前经验、信息的选择问题等方面应做良好的考量和设计。     

多媒体课件制作软件的对比与选用

现代化教学手段的发展和普及,使多媒体技术在课堂教学中广泛应用,而选择合适的课件制作软件尤为重要。本文对照三种基本课件类型,就目前常用的多媒体课件制作软件进行分析对比,以便根据课程内容和教学目的灵活地选用课件制作软件。     

认知负荷理论视角的移动课程教学设计原则

移动通讯技术的发展促进了学习理念的变革,给学习者带来了全新的学习方式。移动学习作为一种特殊的、全新的学习模式,其课程的教学设计受学习对象、呈现方式、传输载体等的影响,需在充分考虑认知负荷理论和多媒体学习认知理论的基础上,按照明确定位、界面简单、小模块呈现、随机进入、双通道、去除冗余、适当排序、情境认知等八大设计原则,设计既不增加学习者认知负荷、符合移动学习者特点和需求,又能充分发挥移动通讯技术、特别是多媒体技术优势的移动课程,实现高效的移动学习。     

Children's writing goes 3D: a case study of one primary school's journey into multimodal authoring

This paper draws from research conducted as part of an Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project ‘Teaching effective 3D authoring in the middle years: multimedia grammatical design and multimedia authoring pedagogy’, which is a collaboration between the University of New England, the University of Tasmania and the Australian Children's Television Foundation. This project is being conducted in over 20 schools around Australia. The data presented in this paper focuses on one such school, located in Tasmania. It explores one school's endeavour in the teaching and learning of multimodal narrative. Data includes interviews from students and multimodal analysis of student narratives. The paper showcases the kinds of semiotic choices the children are making for their stories, and includes excerpts from the interviews to illustrate how they are able to articulate justifications for their choices. In particular, it focuses on how children are establishing literary concepts such as genre, characterisation and point of view using all semiotic resources. In doing so, it considers the pedagogy behind the creations to explore how effectively it works as children create new kinds of texts which are innovative, critical, creative and ‘of quality’.     

Fostering active processing of instructional explanations of learners with high and low prior knowledge

Despite the potential advantages of instructional explanations, evidence indicates that they are usually ineffective. Subsequent work has shown that in order to make instructional explanations effective indeed, one successful strategy is to combine them with indications of the limitations in learners' understanding that they are intended to revise, which makes learners deeply process the explanations. We explored whether this is so for both learners with low and those with high prior domain knowledge. In one experiment, 77 participants with low and high prior knowledge learned about plate tectonics from a multimedia presentation. In addition to the presentation, half the participants received instructional explanations combined with indications, whereas the rest received instructional explanations with no indications. After using the materials, the participants solved retention and transfer tests. Results showed that low prior knowledge learners learned more from explanations including indications of their misunderstandings, whereas high prior knowledge learners profited from instructional explanations either with or without the indications. We discussed theoretical and practical implications.     

Support for self-regulation in learning complex topics from multimedia explanations: do learners need extensive or minimal support?

Acquiring complex conceptual knowledge requires learners to self-regulate their learning by planning, monitoring, and adjusting the process but they find it difficult to do so. In one experiment, we examined whether learners need broad systems of support for self-regulation or whether they are also able to learn with more economical support configurations. Eighty-six undergraduate students with little prior domain knowledge learned plate tectonics from a multimedia presentation involving animation with concurrent narration and support in one of four forms: minimal support, two variants of intermediate support, or extensive support. After the presentation, participants solved retention and transfer tests. The results revealed that participants receiving the broadest system of support outperformed those in the other conditions, which did not differ from one another. This means that it is so difficult for learners to self-regulate learning that they need considerable support if they are to learn complex conceptual knowledge.     

基于认知理论的多媒体英语课堂活动设计探究——以《商务英语阅读》课堂教学为例

以语言学习为目标的英语教学不同于其它以知识、信息学习为目标的课堂教学,无论对于语言的理解、还是语言的产出,多媒体呈现带来的认知有效性并不直接等同于语言学习的有效性。调研结果表明,误用、滥用多媒体进行英语课堂教学导致了实际教学效果与预期有相当大的偏差。从认知理论出发,以课堂教学案例分析为基础,探究了多媒体英语课堂教学的有效活动设计。     

探讨多媒体在英语修辞教学中的作用

英语修辞学是英语专业的一门高级课程。多媒体的应用给这门课程的教学带来了革新。与传统教学侧重于文本学习的修辞教学模式相比,多媒体能够展示修辞的呈现环节,能够让学习者生动地感受到修辞的功效和作用,能够激发他们去思考、探究修辞的本质和功能,从而形成以呈现环节为切入点、以实例、效果和实用性为导向的修辞教学模式。     

汉语儿童英语词汇习得策略调查研究

哪种多媒体呈现模式有助于儿童二语词汇学习,图片、单词还是图片和单词同时呈现？本文通过定量分析考察了这三种不同的呈现模式在汉语儿童英语词汇学习中的有效性。被试是135名七年级儿童,他们阅读了一篇用计算机屏幕呈现的英语短篇故事。被试被分为三个组,分别就故事中的12个关键词接受了言语注解、视觉注解,或者言语注解加视觉注解。结果表明：只接受了言语注解的儿童比同时接受了视觉和言语注解,或者只接受了视觉注解的儿童对单词翻译的回忆更好。此研究结果支持之前关于电子学习环境下的认知负荷的研究,表明儿童的学习过程受到有限的工作记忆的阻碍,并对为儿童设计的基于自我调节学习的多媒体方案提出质疑。     

Authorware课件的制作技巧

教师在职业生涯中不可避免地要制作多媒体课件,Authorware是一款功能强大的图标导向式多媒体制作工具。介绍利用Authorware制作课件所积累的技巧,以提高课件制作水平。     

AIDA: An integrated authoring environment for educational software

This paper describes an integrated authoring environment, AIDA (Ambiente Integrado de Desenvolvimento de Aplicações educacionais). It is an open tool, giving the author a high degree of freedom both in package characteristics and design methodologies used. This environment integrates several modules. The core of the design module is a prototyping tool, allowing the creation of evolutionary prototypes. These prototypes can include several types of multimedia components and can be used as part of the final package. The AIDA environment also includes other options that support evaluation, learning materials re-use, communication between authoring team members and translation and cultural adaptation of packages to work in different environments. An experimental version of this authoring environment was implemented and the results of its evaluation are encouraging. In this paper we also present an example of a package created with the AIDA authoring environment.     

E-learning中基于Web的概念图协同创作系统研究

概念图是学生协作知识建构的一种有效支持工具,然而在Web环境下概念图的协同创作系统的研究却并不多见。鉴于此,文章通过对协作学习中概念图的理论研究,分析了概念图协作创建过程中学习者的认知过程,设计了基于概念图的协作知识建构的理论模型,设计了概念图协作创作系统的功能模型和动态模型,介绍了基于Flex和FMS技术的系统实现方案,讨论了系统功能和实现过程。文章的研究成果能丰富协作知识建构的理论研究,推进概念图在网络协作学习实践中的应用。     

The educational potential of multimedia authoring as a part of the earth science curriculum—a case study

The purpose of this study was to assess the potential of multimedia authoring, as a learning tool, using the software ASTOUND. The subjects in this study were 32 students in two Grade 12 classes. The context of the study was a multi‐disciplinary environmental unit about earthquakes. Students were provided with basic background about earthquakes via laboratory experiments and field trips. At a later stage, the students did in‐depth independent projects on selected topics related to earthquakes. Once completed, the students presented their projects using the multimedia software ASTOUND . The research consisted of the following stages: a pre‐development phase; curriculum design phase; implementation and evaluation. The research tools included: questionnaires, interviews, observations, concept mapping, and an analysis of the multimedia presentations. The findings showed that an integration of laboratory exercises, field trips, and an independent study project, could lead to meaningful learning. However, although most of the students enjoyed using the multimedia program, there was no evidence to support the assumption that it contributed to knowledge acquisition. In fact, much of the time invested in multimedia authoring was devoted to producing decorative effects, reducing the time available for meaningful learning. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 1121–1153, 2000     

面向情境体验的在线学习课程设计

情境认知理论和体验式学习理论强调知识在实际情境中的迁移,重视学习者在学习中的情境体验和经验对学习的重要作用。基于这一理论,可以建立面向情境体验的在线学习课程框架。该框架采用“主题一专题一体验圈”的组织形式,强调导学情境、交流研讨、多媒体呈现、拟真任务设计、反思与总结等策略。将这一设计框架应用到《多元智能教学应用》在线学习课程实例的设计与开发中,可以得出两点主要结论：一是在情境体验学习理论的指导下,学习者的整体学业成绩高于平均水平;二是学习者对该在线课程的总体框架和学习体验的满意度均较高。     

Designing hypermedia documentation for safety critical training applications

This paper discusses the requirements for authoring methodologies for large multimedia systems to be used for technical education documentation in the domain of 'safety critical' industries and presents work which contributes to the development of a methodology for their design. Such documentation is typically required to serve both for training purposes and for direct support of engineers in the field. This dual-purpose nature means that documents are typically complex with multiple navigation paths. The documentation used to train for and support maintenance and repair may itself be safety critical, in that incorrect documentation can lead to incorrect maintenance procedures. Research into 'industrial strength' hypermedia has tended to concentrate on the issues of robustness and data integrity, while the issues of design methodologies for such systems have not received as much attention. These issues include those of the verifiable correctness of such systems, both in terms of their content and other issues such as sequence of presentation. It is argued that the addressing of these issues is essential to the development of technical documentation systems that are of sufficient quality to be used for safety critical applications such as within the transport industry. The requirements that viable design methodologies for these applications must address are discussed, and a methodology is proposed, based on traditional authoring methods and process algebra-based formal specification and verification.     

Investigation of learners' perceptions for video summarization and recommendation

Recently, multimedia-based learning is widespread in educational settings. A number of studies investigate how to develop effective techniques to manage a huge volume of video sources, such as summarization and recommendation. However, few studies examine how these techniques affect learners' perceptions in multimedia learning systems. This article aims to examine learners' perceptions for summarization and recommendation, with an emphasis on the perspective of prior experience. In this study, we developed a multimedia content summarization and recommendation system, which can automatically extract summaries from raw video sources and recommend suitable video content to learners through emails. The results demonstrate that learners' prior experience and preferences for the presentation of document types affect their perceptions, including the enhancement of interests, the ease of information acquisition and the intention for the further use of the system. Finally, the findings are applied to develop a framework that can support for the design of multimedia learning systems.     

Participation in science practices while working in a multimedia case‐based environment

The purpose of this study was to investigate how two female students participated in science practices as they worked in a multimedia case‐based environment: interpreting simulated results, reading and writing multiple texts, role‐playing, and Internet conferencing. Using discourse analysis, the following data were analyzed: students' published web posters, Internet conferencing logs between American and Zimbabwean university students, and a focus group interview. Three constructs supported the development of these students' identities in practice: (a) multimedia cases creating emotional involvement; (b) authoring web posters, and role‐playing situated in cross‐cultural social networks; and (c) altruism associated with relevant global topics. The investigators argue that educators and developers of online learning environments consider social contexts, authoring, and opportunities for cross‐cultural interaction to support participation in science practices. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 1116–1136, 2010     

The influence of a game-making project on male and female learners’ attitudes to computing

There is a pressing need for gender inclusive approaches to engage young people in computer science. A recent popular approach has been to harness learners’ enthusiasm for computer games to motivate them to learn computer science concepts through game authoring. This article describes a study in which 992 learners across 13 schools took part in a game-making project. It provides evidence from 225 pre-test and post-test questionnaires on how learners’ attitudes to computing changed during the project, as well as qualitative reflections from the class teachers on how the project affected their learners. Results indicate that girls did not enjoy the experience as much as boys, and that in fact, the project may make pupils less inclined to study computing in the future. This has important implications for future efforts to engage young people in computing.