November 20, 2008
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Winter 1995 Vol. 4 No. 4
Multimedia's Coming of Age
Sidebar for Beyond the Textbook: Learner-Powered Multimedia
David Heil, host of the PBS science show “Newton's Apple” and associate director of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, calls himself an “enthusiastic skeptic” of multimedia. He insists that, despite the promise of multimedia, there will be a continuing need for both teachers and textbooks. “There is a real value to having textbooks,” Heil says. “I think kids want something that is their own, which they can reference when they want to and how they want to. A well-written text is a great resource for kids in a classroom setting. I think it is very important that we don't make bookless classrooms, because books still are a valuable resource for kids' learning, whether in a classroom setting or outside the classroom.”
Heil, who has helped produce several interactive educational CD-ROMs, warns that “the assumption is made by parents and teachers or entire school districts that if they can buy this batch of software and have it on all the terminals in the computer lab, that the kids can come down the hall, go into that lab for 45 minutes, and call it a science lesson. I think that is a very dangerous assumption because, while the new software, by and large, offers valuable resources, most of the products are still information-dense rather than interactive in terms of instigating experiments and encouraging students to formulate new ideas from their experience. There isn't a lot of experimental learning going on.”
Calling for far more research into the ways children learn at different developmental stages, Heil says that, in general, the developers of today’s multimedia programs “haven't spent a great deal of time on understanding learning theory and where kids are developmentally. So, for instance, they ignore the fact that at a late primary and early adolescent stage, children learn in very different ways than when they are fifteen, or when they are six.”
Heil says the value in the "Newton's Apple" CD-ROM package called "What's the Secret" lies in the many "interactive mini experiments you can do right on the terminal to explore things such as sound. You can compare a cow's moo with a honking car. Then you test what it's like as the sound passes through water or over a mountain range. You can do these experiments right on the terminal, which makes it interactive software. And there are opportunities for kids to conduct experiments away from the terminal and come back and compare the results. The more of this approach there is, the better off we will be in terms of using these kinds of products."
Heil predicts that multimedia will succeed as an educational tool if it stresses “learning that is self-instigated on the part of the learner” and encourages students to “get up out of their chairs and do something else, somewhere else.” This is precisely the experiential learning process being promoted by electronic publishers.
Heil calls for more research on learning, saying, “I’m glad computers and multimedia have offered this ability to combine many technologies and many approaches to produce a product. But what we've been producing up to now basically has been electronic lectures.” The best products are likely to emerge from combining the multiple strengths and valuable inventories of traditional schoolbook publishers with “the creative talents of the Disneys and the MTVs.” Yet he warns that, despite the apparent promise of multimedia, “you don't want to rely on it as your sole learning resource… Experiential learning is what I believe in. I am very concerned about kids or educators thinking that the computer can provide enough of a resource to stimulate all kinds of learning.”
Stressing the need to focus on students and student needs, Heil concludes that “if we can’t include the learner in the ‘multi’ of multimedia, then it’s not really multimedia yet.”
Return to Beyond the Textbook: Learner-Powered Multimedia TECHNOS Quarterly article.