Provides guidelines on how to adapt common games such as checkers, tic tac toe, obstacle courses, and memory joggers into interactive games in multimedia courseware. Emphasizes creating generic games that can be recycled and used for multiple topics to save development time and keep costs low. Discusses topic themes, game structure, and…

Describes the following phases of multimedia courseware production: (1) needs assessment; (2) content and design; (3) rapid prototype; (4) storyboarding; (5) building the course using the production pathway; (6) usability testing; (7) quality assurance and testing. Benefits of Web-based courseware, courseware development team members and roles,…

Describes the experience gained during several years of teaching courses on CBT (computer-based training) design to undergraduate students with varying backgrounds and interests. Discusses the theoretical background for the potential benefits; preparation for lifelong learning; information technology literacy and teaching multimedia development; a…

Reports on the development of an interactive multimedia project in which an educational television program and supporting instructional materials were converted into digital data, integrated into courseware, and stored on a CD-ROM. Examines benefits and problems of using multimedia technology in the educational environment. (Author/AEF)

Benchmarking information technology services has become a vital activity for colleges and universities. The COSTS Project (http://www.costsproject.org/) is an ongoing quantitative effort to benchmark the costs of providing IT services in higher education; the project helps institutions understand their IT budgets and staffing relative to peer…

This article describes how case studies have been successfully implemented in an introductory biology course of 300+ students using available technologies ranging from WebCT, used to assign students to permanent small groups (as well as assign groups to regions of a large lecture hall), to hand-held response systems (aka "clickers"), which…

Tu Tran, Robert Baker, and Margo Pensavalle present e-portfolio technology as an effective tool in teacher preparation. Because e-portfolios chronicle students' learning outcomes, they provide a picture of students' development that can be used in response to increased demands for assessment of student teachers and increasingly standards-based…

The sharable content object reference model (SCORM) includes a representation of distance learning contents and a behavior definition of how users should interact with the contents. Generally, SCORMcompliant systems were based on multimedia and Web technologies on PCs. We further build a pervasive learning environment, which allows users to read…

The Eighth Annual EDUCAUSE Current Issues Survey asked campus information technology leaders to rate the most critical IT challenges facing them, their campuses, and/or their systems. Four findings associated with all respondents to this year's survey merit special mention. First, for the 2007 survey, the CIC decided to split a key issue choice…

This paper discusses the use of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) techniques for computer-aided learning (CAL); the work was started in the context of project Nestor, a joint effort of German universities about cooperative multimedia authoring/learning environments. There are four major categories of cooperation for CAL: author/author,…

NEAT (iNtegrated Environment for Authoring in ToolBook) provides templates and various facilities for the rapid prototyping of computer-based presentations, a capability that is lacking in current authoring systems. NEAT is a specialized authoring system that can be used by authors who have a limited knowledge of computer systems and no…

This paper describes the Guided Approach to Instructional Design Advising (GAIDA), an automated instructional design tool that incorporates techniques of artificial intelligence. GAIDA was developed by the U.S. Air Force Armstrong Laboratory to facilitate the planning and production of interactive courseware and computer-based training materials.…

This paper describes Topdown Conceptual Analysis (TCA) and how it can be used to produce the knowledge base for the development of courseware. Some of the prerequisites and basic theories behind TCA are explained. In discussing what is meant by learning and teaching a concept, an explanation is given of how a complex concept can be taught in terms…

This personal account of the development of computer-based learning from the 1960s to the present argues that the 1960s were a period of gestation. Instructional applications of computers at that time included efforts to simulate physics experiments and the debut of the PLATO system, which already had the ability to deliver interactive instruction…

According to a recent survey, the quality of educational software is the single most stated concern of computer educators in Canada. Only a small fraction of the educational software is evaluated. The evaluation approaches that have emerged to deal with this problem are subjective and unreliable, and they do not provide an overall impression of a…