Chapter Outline

MULTIMEDIA

I. What is Multimedia?

1. Multimedia is everywhere, on television, at the shopping mall, in newspapers, and in education.
2. Multimedia refers to the communications of more than one media type such as text, audio, graphics, animated graphics, and full-motion video.
3. Multimedia is a computer-based method of presenting information that emphasizes interactivity.

II. Historical Perspective

1. In the professional literature, the words closely related to multimedia are hypertext and hypermedia.
2. Hypertext originated in 1945 with Vannevar Bush, an electrical engineer and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, who was given credit for proposing the idea of a hypothetical machine called a memex that mimics the mind's associative process.
3. Douglas Englebard conducted research at the Stanford Research Institute in 1960 that led to inventions such as the mouse, an on-line work environment now called Augment, and the concept of a viewing filter for quick viewing of an abstract of a document or file.
4. Ted Nelson made the most critical step in the development of multimedia in 1965, when he coined the term hypertext, meaning nonsequential writing, and he developed the writing environment called Xanadu that lets users create electronic documents and interconnect them with other text information; this writing environment made texts electronically available.
5. Hypermedia is nearly synonymous with hypertext, but emphasizes the nontextual components of hypertext.

III. Hypermedia Authoring Tools

1. Hypermedia authoring tools are preparing students for the information intensive society of the future and could some day eliminate publishing as we know it.
2. HyperCard, developed by Bill Atkinson at Apple Computer in 1987, was one of the first implementations of hypermedia and the best known.
3. Roger Wagner developed HyperStudio for the Apple IIGS.
4. Various hypermedia programs have different levels and traits, with different programs for business and education.

IV. Classroom Suggestions for Using Hypermedia

1. A rich selection of software and hardware exists for teachers to use in developing a first-class hypermedia presentations.
2. Students can use a desktop publishing package such as The Writing Center to write and illustrate stories that combine text with graphics.
3. Students can create their own motion pictures, and teachers can generate slide slows that explain a range of topics.
4. Teachers can prepare interesting film clips and combine presentations with computer graphics, photographs, animation, sound, and music.

V. Guidelines for Creating a Multimedia Presentation

1. Students and teachers should employ 8 steps in creating a quality presentation or multimedia stack.
2. See p. 339 for a computer multimedia project evaluation form with a list of criteria.

VI. Pros and Cons of Hypermedia

1. Hypermedia use has many benefits.
2. Hypermedia use has some drawbacks.
3. Hypermedia technology is so new that research is inconclusive about its role in the classroom, so that educators must draw their own conclusions.

VII. Additional Hypermedia Authoring Software Programs

1. Software has been developed to address the time-consuming nature of hypermedia presentations.
2. Modern Learning Aids was one of the first programs of its kind, with a multimedia generator that helped produce hypermedia presentations on the computer as easily as operating a VCR remote control.
3. Both beginner and advanced programs exist such as MP Express, Create Together, mPower, MovieWorks, Adobe Premiere, KidPix, PowerPoint, and AppleWorks 6.

VIII. Multimedia Formats: QuickTime, Quick Time Virtual Reality (VR), Morphing, Warping

1. Quick Time and Quick Time Virtual Reality (VR) are important formats of multimedia.
2. QuickTime VR is an extension of QuickTime that lets the user view on-screen in 3-D space.
3. Morphing
4. Warping
5. Students can use morphing and warping in the classroom to experiment with different images and cut and paste them to illustrate a story or report, create a morphed movie or warped picture for a hypermedia presentation.

IX. Virtual reality (VR): Historical Perspective

1. VR is the supreme achievement in multimedia, with William Gibson's depiction of cyberspace in his book Necromancer considered to be the ultimate example of VR.
2. Virtual reality is a three-dimensional, interactive simulation, in which participants in a computer-generated VR environment can manipulate what they see all around them.
3. The predecessor of virtual reality was Edward Link's flight simulator, a carnival ride built in 1929 that enabled passengers to feel as if they were really flying an airplane; this ride developed into the flight simulators used to train aviators.
4. In the 1960s, Morton Heilig created the Sensorama arcade simulator, another predecessor of VR, which used sound, motion, images, and smell to give spectators in a motorcycle ride the experiencing of riding through Brooklyn, New York.
5. In 1965, Ivan Sutherland created a head-mounted computer graphics display that tracked the head movements of the user; the person wearing this device could view simulations shown in graphic frames.
6. In 1967, Frederick Brooks explored force feedback, which directs physical pressure or force through a user interface that makes the user feel computer-simulated forces.
7. In the early 1970s, Nolan Bushnell introduced the popular electronic arcade game Pong, in which players Ping-Pong against each other or against the game.
8. In 1984, Ames Research Center at NASA developed low-cost VR equipment, which helped VR companies such as VPL Research begin the ongoing commercial production of virtual reality hardware and software.

X. How Virtual Reality Works

1. In VR, users are electronically immersed in a simulated environment, in which they use their sight, hearing, and touch in all three dimensions, not only to enter a virtual world but also to manipulate it.
2. Participants wear headgear in which computer-generated images are sent to small screens placed before their eyes and to headphones in their ears; the headgear blocks out all actual stimuli to focus concentration on the simulated stimuli.
3. Participants also wear gloves or bodysuits equipped with sensors that communicate changes in body position to the computer, which then communicates changes to the headgear.
4. VR has found its way into research labs, business, the military, and video game arcades; in some video games, the user directs the action of the game with the body, wearing headgear, gloves, and a bodysuit.
5. VR can be used to test the design of a building or to learn how to operate heavy equipment.
6. VR's potential in education has yet to be explored, with VR technology allowing students to interact more with information being presented in all subject areas.
7. VR in education means students and teachers could conduct experiments and experience situations that would otherwise be inaccessible, too costly or dangerous, an educational VR system could be networked to foster positive relations among people of different cultures, students could experience VR tours and simulate interaction or practice with experts and famous people.
8. The weight and cost of VR equipment are impediments to its implementation.

XI. Multimedia software

1. Software packaged in CD-ROMs that can hold 650MB have replaced floppy disk programs, with CD-ROMs being replaced soon by DVDs storing 17GB of data or the equivalent of 25 CD-ROMs.
2. Almost every software program incorporates some kind of multimedia.
3. Many software programs take advantage of virtual reality adventures, e.g., Myst, Eyewitness Encyclopedia series, Microsoft Word 2001, Inspiration, Kidspiration, JumpStart series, Living Books Children's series, Scholastic literature series, Kid Pix Studio 3d Edition, Snootz Math Trek, the Carmen Sandiego series, the Clue Finder series.

XII. General reference

1. Reference programs can address any area of the curriculum and give users access to multimedia maps, pictures, videos, animation, sounds, and time lines, e.g., 2001 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 200120th Century Day by Day.