Subject: Can multimedia authoring projects help comprehension?
From: Benjamin Choppy (benjamin.choppy@kcl.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 03 Dec 1999 - 00:08:46 MET
From: "Benjamin Choppy" <benjamin.choppy@kcl.ac.uk> Subject: Can multimedia authoring projects help comprehension? Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 12:08:46 +1300
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I'm a graduate student King's College and trying this
discussion group for the first time!!!
My study group has been debating the following question;
"Can multimedia authoring help student acheive
comprehension in a subject?"
I seem to be the only one having some doubts! and hence
looking for some clarifications/views. Especially how it
compares to the more classical notion of programing.
Consider the following argument:
When students develop multimedia projects through the use
of a multimedia authouring system, they construct a
sequence of information presented through different media.
A student has to select the information from the literature
or from other software and may have to programme specific
items to to be included in the project being developed.
Ounce these items are included in the project the student
can reflect upon debug them in terms of quality, depth and
meaning of the information made available in hi/her
software. Constructing multimedia projects provide a chance
to pull together information in a coherent manner, analyse
in formation and critique it.
In this sense, the cycle of description, execution,
reflection and debugging has particular features. The level
of description and execution are not the same as in the
programming activity. Authoring systems do not require the
student to describe everything s/he is thinking while
selecting a particular piece of information or even in
which media to present this information. Also, the
authoring system does not register the process the student
uses to set up the project. Thus the computer executes the
sequence of information and does not execute the
information itself. In this sense, multimediaexecution is
very similar to that of the word processor!
The cylce is in terms of getting the multimedia project to
work. In terms of the content, it can be rich or poor
depending on how much the student comprehends about the
information present in his/her software. She/he may know
and comprehend a lot if the subject was worked out but may
know very little if the subject was just copied from one
source into the project being developed.
(Valente, 1997)
Hence successful authoring of multimedia projects may have
induced comprehension in students but this is not
necessarily the case. This is because the
'successful' 'sequencing' of information in such a project
does not in,itself, necessarily, constitutes an explicit
demonstration of comprehension.???
I would very much like your views or corrections or
information regarding any related empirical studies.
Ben.
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Benjamin Choppy
benjamin.choppy@kcl.ac.uk
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