Understanding how to include interactivity when designing multimedia-based training (MBT) storyboards is a major key for a successful MBT. Discusses the basic formats of interactions and when to use each format. Describes how to storyboard and areas to address, including: the display area, prompts, branching, programming and graphics notes,…

"Design Inspection Reviews" are structured meetings in which participants follow certain rules of procedure and behavior when conducting detailed readings of design plans to identify errors and misunderstandings. The technique is widely used in the software engineering industry, where it is demonstrably more effective than testing at…

Describes an experiment in which presentation size and text length is varied in a HyperCard application. Students performed a fact-retrieval task from a reference handbook. No interaction is found between these two independent variables. Performance is significantly better for the longer texts, but no significant difference is found for the two…

Within the field of teacher education, there are software designers creating software based on case-based learning theories. This paper examines the difficulties encountered in teacher preparation, and discusses how case-based instruction can address them. It analyzes three software packages designed for case-based teacher education, and discusses…

This paper shows how to use design patterns for building educational multimedia applications. The first section summarizes design issues related to organizing the information, the organization of the interface, and implementation. Navigating through information is covered in the second section, including problems, motivations, and solutions, and…

Users of content-based software programs, including hypertexts and instructional multimedia, rely on the navigation functions provided by the designers of those program. Typical navigation schemes use abstract symbols (arrows) to label basic navigational functions like moving forward or backward through screen displays. In a previous study, the…

This research investigates the ways people learn from multimedia and how navigational patterns can be incorporated into the design structure. The paper begins with a discussion of present navigational research and then presents the results from the initial empirical work, including a pilot study of primary and secondary children using multimedia…

This paper presents a set of guidelines for the design of computer-supported distance multimedia that enables collaborative distance learning. The first section provides an overview of distance learning and discusses teacher and student roles in a collaborative distance learning environment. Conditions for effective collaborative learning are…

A difficult task in creating rich, exploratory interactive learning environments is building an environment that is truly engaging. Engagement can be defined as the nexus of intrinsic knowledge and/or interest and external stimuli that promote the initial interest in, and continued use of a computer-based learning environment. Complete and total…

This paper introduces a multimedia-based educational system on logistics developed at the University of Magdeburg (Germany), reports on development and implementation of the prototype, and discusses ideas for redesign. The system was tested, used, and evaluated at the university and within a European network of 24 universities, colleges, and…