Publication Date: October 25, 1996

Interactive Multimedia and the World Wide Web: New Avenues for University Teaching, Learning

By Howard Kaplan
University of Massachusetts Lowell

One of the more explosive growth areas of the World Wide Web is the opportunity it affords for distance learning. With courses ranging from Rhetoric of the Road at the University of Texas-Austin to Case Studies in Turfgrass Management at Penn State University, today's college students are in the driver's seat.

Distance courses on the Web can run the gamut from text-based, e-mail, correspondence-type classes to full-blown interactive multimedia presentations. The vast majority more closely resemble the text-based model, but we are beginning to see video, audio and even some interactivity in many offerings. Of particular interest are the newer multimedia technologies (Java, VRML, Shockwave, etc.), their use in course delivery, the challenges they present to faculty and administrators, and how those challenges may be overcome.

Interactive Multimedia Technologies

It seems that every day there's another announcement from Netscape or Microsoft or some start-up company about an exciting new piece of technology that will deliver audio, or animation, or 3-D graphics, or allow one to wander through virtual spaces on the Web—and all for free! Whether it's called RealAudio or Shockwave or Java or Virtual Reality Modeling Language or ActiveX or QuickTime Video, what we have is a multimedia smorgasbord that faculty can indulge in putting to use in their courses.

What do these kinds of technologies do that hasn't been done before? Physics faculty using Java, for example, created an applet on projectile motion that allows the user to set the launch angle and coefficient of linear air resistance, then animates the trajectory of the body and calculates some of its properties numerically.

What's new and fascinating about applets like these is that they offer hard-to-do simulations of physical events, are free to the user, can be demonstrated on a variety of computer operating systems, are highly interactive, and can be accessed at any time by anyone in the world with an Internet connection. The good news for educators is that for the first time we have an innovative mix of technologies that makes courseware delivery over the Web a very potent educational force.

What would an interactive multimedia course module delivered over the Web look like? Physics faculty, for example, could videotape real-world phenomena that depict certain laws of physics, then supplement the video with animation and audio lecture material, allow students to manipulate variables in a Java program, use VRML to create 3-D walk-through models, conduct synchronous two-way conversations with students via chat lines, correspond with students asynchronously via e-mail, and then quiz and grade students using online interactive exams.

Besides the appeal of being able to cater to different learning styles—and the obvious razzle-dazzle—are there other reasons for using multimedia in teaching? A fascinating glimpse of the power of multimedia to positively impact learning can be seen in the world of physics.

In The Initial Knowledge State of College Physics Students (Journal of Physics, 1986), I.A. Halloun and D. Hestenes demonstrated that freshman physics students' intuitive notions of the behavior of a ball leaving a track are often contrary to the laws of circular motion. Other research indicates that these misconceptions may be overcome through the use of video and animation. In one experiment conducted at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the path of a ball on a circular track was videotaped; a segment of the track was then removed and another video segment captured the path of the ball as it was about to leave the track. When queried at this point as to where the ball would go next, many students got stuck: Intuition told them the ball would go off in an upward path or a downward path but not the straight-ahead path it actually takes. A third video segment showed the actual path of the ball leaving the track. Animation done in Macromedia Director and put on the Web with Shockwave illustrated that a circle is comprised of an infinite number of straight lines and that when the ball hits one of them it goes off in a straight line. Our research indicated that students using these multimedia supplements to their regular course materials did significantly better on tests than students who did not use them.

A number of sites offer robust distance learning offerings. The World Lecture Hall offers hundreds of courses from universities all over the world, many with multimedia components. Gamelan features Java and VRML applets used in education; other VRML sites can be found through Silicon Graphics and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) (search for VRML). The Internet University, a compendium of more than 30 colleges and universities, offers over 700 courses. Another exemplary site is San Francisco State University's Introduction to Multimedia course, which features excellent design, interactive multimedia, graphics, streaming audio, and chat features.

Getting Courses on the Web: The Players

Major players in getting an interactive multimedia course on the Web include administrators, faculty and content developers.

Administration: There seems to be a great willingness of the part of universities to provide distance learning opportunities. They see it as going after a market that typically does not come through their doors: students who live far away, or are disabled, or are employed full-time, etc. Moreover, with the coming of age of baby boomers' offspring, college enrollments are about to explode and many universities lack the physical space to house more classes. (K-12 school enrollment is at 51.7 million—exceeding the peak baby boom generation of 50 million—and is projected to rise to 54.6 million by 2006.) We need only look at schools such as the University of Delaware, with its more than 100 distance learning courses, two distance degree programs and over 1,700 enrollments from 12 states, or the Western Virtual University, a distance learning consortium created by the governors of 11 Western states, to see the writing on the wall.

Much of the distance learning/Web debate is played out in the economic arena: State legislatures, governors and university trustees are focusing on how they can get the biggest educational bang for the buck. They also need to think about that university down the road—or, indeed, around the world—that is offering Web courses or degrees and how these programs might lure students away. Courses without buildings, heat and utilities can make a lot of economic sense, both to the schools and to prospective students. This kind of thinking is driving university agendas and the bottom line can come down to "embrace distance learning" or face eminent cutbacks or even closing.

Faculty: A faculty buy-in is imperative for robust distance learning/Web development to occur. Without this buy-in the consequences can be disastrous, as shown by what recently happened at the University of Maine, where faculty vociferously protested the addition of a degree-granting distance-learning-only campus and ultimately forced the resignation of the university's chancellor.

Why do faculty resist? Professors may not be interested in seeing their lectures iterated ad infinitum via videotapes or Web courses without receiving any royalties or other compensation. Or it may be that they don't view the Web as a forum for viable teaching. Moreover, many professors fear for their jobs. They have witnessed how technology has replaced workers in a number of areas—newspaper publishing and commercial printing, for example, turned topsy-turvy when programs like QuarkXPress and PageMaker eliminated production jobs. Indeed, faculty can visualize the way the administration may be thinking: "Why hire three English professors to teach six sections of college writing when one professor plus a few teaching assistants can do it over the Web?"

Despite these negatives, we do know that there are hundreds of class offerings on the Web and we can safely assume that many faculty are interested in pursuing this type of instruction. In fact, many offer it as a supplement to their classroom offerings. College administrators need to begin to address the issues involved with their professors and teachers' unions.

Web Content Developers: Who can create these projects? Faculty is one obvious source, but given the plethora of new technologies and the time it takes to create courseware (and typically these are not activities that lead to tenure), it is the rare faculty member who would pursue such a project. Populating the contemporary college campus, however, is a savvy group of students who are adept at these technologies and who can produce world-class applications and programs. (See, for example, this Shockwave-based tutorial on Archimedes.) Lest we forget, it was Marc Andreessen of Netscape fame who honed his skills creating its predecessor, Mosaic, while earning $6.75 hour at the University of Illinois. Moreover, art majors have been given a new lease on life with the growth of the Web and often make excellent page designers. One need only look at many college home pages to see effective student design work. Other options, albeit more costly, include outsourcing and using in-house personnel.

Conclusion

We are at a challenging place in the world of education, a confluence of three major forces: a market-driven push for universities to attract more students at lower costs, a robust Web instructional delivery system, and a large cadre of capable Web page developers. All these trends point to the World Wide Web as a central arena for distance learning development. Savvy universities would be wise to begin putting in place their strategies for interactive multimedia Web course offerings.

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Howard Kaplan is the founding director of the Multimedia Program and the Internet Institute at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. A version of this article appears in the January 1997 issue of the Educom Review.

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