Developing Instructional Multimedia -- A Realistic Look

Multimedia is interesting! Compelling! People like using it! Students learn from it! It works! Anyone can develop a package; just point and click!

The truth is that many things are simpler, cheaper, quicker, and -- gasp -- more effective. Multimedia really can draw a student's interest, but like any movie or class, it can also be boring. Once the novelty wears off, the merit of multimedia will be based on its content, presentation, and effectiveness.

There are some excellent multimedia instructional packages on the market. If a ready-made piece does what you need, use it. At some time, you may want to develop your own materials. This article offers some insights into what instructional multimedia is and into the instructional multimedia development process. The choices and process are adaptable, as developers customize their procedures to suit the needs of individual projects.

Computer technology can assist the instructional environment in one of three basic categories: electronic communication, presentation support, or student materials.

Electronic communication -- email, bulletin boards, and the like. These give teachers and students more opportunities to talk to each other by leaving messages. This can have the effect of extending mutually-convenient office hours. Students can leave notes for the teacher, and the teacher can post assignments, answer questions, and engage in discussions. In some cases, leaving notes is the perfect solution.

Presentation support -- using the computer to enhance a lecture. This is the digital version of slides or overheads. The advantage of a multimedia presentation is that you can set your slides to show a movie clip or pictures. You can play them sequentially or pick slides at random as you speak.

Student materials -- programs used by students either alone or in class. For example, you can automate your presentation so that students can see your "lecture" on their own. However, you may need to include additional information or instructions on how to operate your presentation. You can design the module to address many different instructional goals such as giving information, providing simulated experiences, or giving drill-and-practice opportunities.

Effectiveness is all about making the solution match the problem. Your solution may combine various elements from all three categories of computer technology, or your solution may use just one category combined with non-computer-based presentation formats such as a lecture, video, laser disk, overheads, and blackboard portions. It is important to understand the features of technology when making your choices.

I recommend that first time developers have fun and pick smaller projects that will be easier to develop and more manageable regarding time and resources. But even small projects require thought and planning. A well-designed plan will make your project more rewarding because your development and implementation will be smoother and the project will have a greater chance of success.

Fun and "safe" first projects are small presentations with limited media elements that you can use during lectures. Lecture presentation allows you to watch your students and see how your project is working out. To get ideas, you can visit the InfoTech Arcade and try out their presentation software packages. Including pictures and graphic elements in your presentations is not very difficult. Video does start adding more work and complications. Remember, each graphic element has its own aesthetic requirements. It is helpful to consider the following instructional design process for small projects as well as larger projects because it is always important to consider the major instructional design issue: What do you want your students to know and to do?

The process of instructional design is defining where you want to go instructionally, and developing a "map" of information and experiences to guide your students to the same destination or goal. If along the way you see some interesting sights to share, by all means point them out. This can be inspirational and fun. But it is very important not to cause confusion by including extraneous information in your course map. If you want someone to meet you at a given destination, you have to tell them what the destination is. On a bright sunny day, you would not look at the car and think, "Gee, how can I use these great windshield wipers to meet friends at the mall?"

What follows is a simplified outline that groups the tasks involved in the instructional media development process into twelve major steps. It is not meant to be a complete "how-to" of instructional design, but it does show the major concerns of a professional instructional designer.

1) Determine your overall goal.

What problems are you trying to solve? Perhaps you really want to provide more opportunities to talk with your students and answer their questions. Do you want to prepare a presentation tool? Are you trying to provide your students with additional review or practice opportunities? An instructional designer can be of assistance at this point.

2) Define your instructional goal and develop your learning objectives.

If you are designing instruction or developing a presentation, list each component of what you want the student to know, what you want the student to do, and what information and experience is needed to learn or communicate each step. If you need video, list it here. If you do not need video to teach a point, do not list it. You may need to do content research to fully analyze the content and tasks you are teaching. Content experts can help assemble this information.

An instructional designer can be of assistance at this point to help break the information into individual learning objectives, determine their sequence, and select media elements such as graphics, text, video, audio, and interactivity for each learning experience. This is not a selection of the final media platform. Identifying a need for video at this point is not identifying whether the video will be shown as a stand-alone video or as part of a computer-based multimedia module.

3) Analyze your students or audience.

This is especially relevant when developing materials to be used by others. If your students are not experienced or comfortable using computers, you may need to add steps to teach them how to use the package you develop. Surprising as it may seem, not everyone loves computers or even likes using them. Keep your design simple. Unless you are teaching computer usage, try to reduce the number of steps people need to learn in order to use your module. You may need to add steps to your instructional goals and learning objectives from Step 2 to get your end-users up and running. Once again, an instructional designer can be of assistance at this point.

4) Determine what expertise is needed for your project.

If you are developing a presentation that relies on a great deal of new video, you will need to know how to script and produce video for instructional purposes. It's simple to point a camera and press a button, but knowing how to set the stage, light the scene, and script appropriate visuals for your communication or educational goals requires a more thorough understanding. The same holds true for graphics. You may want to consult with, or even hire, graphic artists, instructional designers, and media developers for guidance.

5) Determine your computer hardware and software requirements.

This is really an extension of Step 4, but because many things are involved, we look at technology and its implications as a separate step.

A network, for example, means being able to reach a large number of people at various locations. It also means security and uneven-timing issues. So if you are working on a project that you want to test and load and test and load, you may want to consider a small-systems solution that allows immediate access instead of a wider networked solution.

Check with the Computer Center to discuss the pros and cons of various campus-wide network and small-systems networking solutions. Keep in mind that the technical configuration can have a strong influence on the student's learning environment. You can discuss these implications with an instructional designer.

What development software should you use? Examine the software available in your department, and see what your colleagues are using. The InfoTech Arcade in the Library is a great place to start, not only to see demos of the software, but to hear what the staff recommend. They will be able to tell you about other projects by other faculty with similar interests.

Journals and other discipline-related publications provide an additional source of information. Many specialized developers produce packages to assist discipline-specific educators. For example, chemistry software developers have produced a package to develop chemistry-related animations.

6) Draw your conclusions.

Decide which media platform you will use to execute each learning objective from Step 2. You might use a stand-alone video and lecture for some portions of your project and develop a multimedia program for other portions. You might develop portions of the project as multimedia modules pressed on CDs to be loaded onto individual hard drives, or even develop the entire project as a multimedia module loaded on a small or campus-wide network. There are legitimate reasons for choosing each of these media technologies. If you need help, consult an instructional designer or other educational specialists. You may find that you need to repeat some or all of the previous steps any number of times until you are able to draw satisfactory conclusions.

At this point you should know your goals, problems, and all the requirements for developing your materials. You may decide that your goals are more effectively and efficiently achieved by using a commercial video for a one-time show than by spending hours developing something that will only be used once.

Remember, keep your instructional requirements in focus. If the software or technology can not do what you know needs to be done, then supplement your technology with additional materials such as handouts or lectures. You may have to develop your project using two or three different methods at different stages. You may have to scrap the idea of using computers for a particular goal and use traditional technologies. Choose whatever tool works best for each goal.

7) Write your design specifications.

You might have specialized portions done by others, such as video developers, graphic artists, or programmers, or you may do everything completely on your own. A written plan is still a valuable development tool.

If you are bringing in others, written design documents are required. Talk to them to determine what design documentation they need. You can fashion your own multimedia storyboard as long as it lists all the components. For example, list and number each screen in the leftmost column. Then, going across for each screen, list the information displayed, the branching points, the interactive response features, and the video, animation, audio, and graphic elements. If the flow of your program is complex, you may also need to develop a flow chart to outline the behind-the-scenes logic. You may also need to write an expanded video script for the video portions. Remember, talk with your development team.

8) Develop an implementation plan.

If you are installing a dozen computers on the campus-wide network and want a month-long testing phase, people will need to coordinate with you and develop their schedules. Make sure to meet with all the people involved and develop a schedule of events and requirements.

9) Develop a field test plan.

How can you test to see if your project really meets your goals? A field test or evaluation tells you how well your design is delivering your instruction. The field test can be conducted during project development (formative) or when you think you are done (summative). For large-scale projects that cover an entire semester or that have a wide distribution, formative and summative evaluations are essential. Anytime students use materials on their own, a field test is necessary, even for small projects. In addition to using your software, you might also include a questionnaire with your field test to better understand the subjective reactions of your test subjects.

Remember, unlike a class presentation where you can ask questions and see how things are working on the spot, you will not be there to see the confused looks and frustrated grimaces of students using self-paced materials. Self-paced materials require thorough field testing to make sure that they achieve your goals. In this step, design your test plan. Determine what you need to test for, whether you need formative and/or summative tests, and how to test and evaluate your project.

10) Develop your project.

This is the fun part. If you are using new development tools, allow yourself plenty of time to learn the packages. If you are combining video, graphics, and audio elements you may have problems with file compatibilities. TIFF, PIC, PICT, and QuickTime quickly go from labels to very demanding, detail-specific requirements that can prevent your module from working. See support people in the Computer Center, the InfoTech Arcade, and other programmers and developers.

11) Conduct your field test and revise as needed.

If you will not be with your students to explain the "how-to's" when they use the module, fight the temptation to interfere and explain during the trial run. Be an observer. Go through the questionnaires that you developed in Step 9 with your test subjects after they have used your module and related materials. This important source of information can point out facets that you had not considered.

Make revisions, changes, and supplements until a new group of test subjects achieves your objectives. You may find yourself back at the drawing board or even returning to Steps 1 or 2. If it is necessary, do not get discouraged, as this happens to even experienced developers. It is why we conduct field tests.

12) Implement your module, use it, and monitor its results.

You may need to revise your module. As you test your students for their knowledge, keep in mind that you are also evaluating the success of the materials used to teach them.

These twelve steps point out things to consider and a sequence of steps in which to think. Your project may require a different approach, although many of the steps described here are still likely to be useful.

Instructional design is an iterative process. Most likely you will find that you are going through a set of steps repeatedly. There are usually loops in the analysis and design steps and then again between the field test and design steps until you come up with a project that works for you. All projects have elements of analysis, developing learning objectives, design, development, implementation, and monitoring. These phases can be very small or very large depending on your project.

The field of computer-aided instruction and multimedia is new. Using it effectively requires deliberate thought and attention to detail. In its new life, we are just beginning to learn what effective use is for this technology. We think it has the potential of addressing many educational issues. By using it to its best potential, we hope to find solutions to some of today's instructional challenges.

Comments are appreciated; send them to connect@uic.edu