All portfolio items

Cyberia was one of the first cyber cafés to open in London, attempting to bring the social and geeky together.

This was the brief for the workshop:

Teclab Computer Conferencing Pilot Project

Workshop Task

How do you deliver language training through a computer conference?

In this workshop your task is to consider the issues relating to the delivery of language training through computer conferencing and to try an work out a plan for doing so.

Considerations to be taken into account include:

• What time period should a unit of training last for?
• Should we form students into cohorts or treat each individually?
• How do we measure ‘contact time’?
• What kind of transactions might take place between tutors and students?
• Can we, and should we, do without face-to-face sessions?
• What materials on paper should we prepare?
• What are students entitled to?
• What are the tutors responsibilities?
• How many tutors relate to how many students?
• How can we exploit other computer tools and communication networks?

Add to this list any questions you have identified, and try to answer as many as possible.  If some questions seem hard to answer, perhaps we should tease out why and see if we can formulate research that would help to answer them.

Finally, report back to the workshop your discussions!

The outline of our presentation:

Background, where we’re coming from

• TECLAB, who it is, its aims
• ULTRALAB, who it is, its aims

Issues in Language learning

• Problems
• Flexible Learning & Learner Centred Learning

Issues in developing language materials

• Fast Track, Standards Based and for Specific Business Purposes
• Self Help Groups

Computer conferencing

• technical features
• organisational features
• beyond e-mail

Project design

• invite SMEs & representative organisations, developers, training providers & consultants and accrediting bodies.
• create a marketplace for services
• encourage self-help groups with leadership from TECLAB
• disseminate news

Demonstration of the system

Progress and suggestions as to what is valuable

• collaborate

Future plans

• European bid made, extension to link with other regions in the EU

Preparing and delivering this keynote clarified my ideas about the potential for technology to free learners if we could be sure that the technology wasn't a barrier and that we were ready to offer responsibility and support for negotiation

In this keynote I argued that

• Our vision of the use of the equipment needs radical overhaul
• It's not only about individuals
• It's also about social, cultural, political & commercial organisation

and that:

• programmed learning
• teachers in close control
• passive software

were failed visions.

I continued to claim that technology was good enough:

• The box is both Mac and Windows
• The media is of “human” quality
• Communications channels are becoming fast enough to deliver
• Before we’re ready for it, we will have all the power we need!

and I exemplified these views with cases of:

• Infants in control
• Pupils modelling decisions
• Students learning to use tools
• Debating the future
• The knowledge navigator

ans suggested possible learning scenarios included:

• Work together
• Work where you are
• Learn when you can

I had a part in three presentations and papers for this conference:

Discussing difficult decisions through direct manipulation of simple data

Richard Millwood and Greta Mladenova

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential for computer software to offer modes of representing, modifying and calculating data which is ordinal in nature. Such data is usually discussed in statistics to represent evaluations of opinion where alternatives are ranked in order. This same notion can be applied to computer modelling, which is more often numerically quantit
mative in nature. This can allow the modelling of decision-making problems, particularly where ranking is the only authentic evaluation to be made. Such decisions can include moral and political choices, and as with other applications of modelling in learning, the research and discussion which is motivated can be an important opportunity for deeper understanding.

Education 2010: An Experimental Form of Academic Conferencing

Martin Owen and Richard Millwood

Abstract

This paper discusses the nature of academic discourse in the electronic age. It reports on the development of an alternative form of academic conferencing where the aim is to produce a multimedia CD-ROM reflecting the live face-to-face discussions of a group of academics. The CD-ROM can then be used as a stimulus to continuing the debate amongst others.

Supporting linguistic & cultural learning with immersive software

Sam Deane, Pekka Lehtiö, Richard Millwood and Alice Mitchell

Abstract

There are new requirements for language learning as the mobility of the student population and the work force increases. At the same time new media and access methods are likely to become commonplace. The adaptation of, or access to, existing materials is important and should be supported. In addition there is a trend towards increased autonomy for students and responsibility for management of their learning. For these reasons it is desi
ˇrable that the level of 'reusability' of materials is increased and the manageability of multimedia software is improved. The prototype design described here is specially designed to support applied language learning about foreign culture/business practice. It features an immersive approach which motivates learners with problems to solve, tools to operate and agents to advise. The authors believe that this can facilitate the development of cognitive and affective language learning strategies and techniqueså. The software can also offer organisations a framework to standardise and support knowledge transfer, technology transfer, commercial activity and customer care.

This is the report we made for colleagues on our return:

We attended this conference to report on the profiling and portfolio tools aspects of the multimedia research project we are engaged in funded by Teleste OY and TECLAB - our abstract is below. In addition we have included the abstracts of several other papers we attended with our comments.

PORTFOLIO TOOLS FOR SUPPORTING LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL LEARNING

Alice Mitchell and Richard Millwood, Anglia Polytechnic University

Abstract– There is a trend towards increased autonomy for students and responsibility for management of their own learning. At the same time there are new requirements for evidencing linguistic and cultural learning now that the reality of the Single European Market is upon us. For these reasons it is desirable that
learners are empowered to devise and develop their learning agendas and record their own progress against internationally recognised standards. The prototype software described here is part of an immersive software package commissioned by Teleste Oy of Finland. It is specially designed to support learners of foreign languages, foreign culture/business practice and features a portfolio design which motivates learners with problems to solve, tools to operate and agents to advise. The authors believe that this can facilitate the development of cognitive and affective language learning strategies and techniques. The software also offers individuals and organisations a framework to co-ordinate and standardise procedures and support a programme of lifetime learning.

Our presentation was well received (we believe), the session chairman made kind remarks and several people wanted to know more and see finished product. We didn’t see much to compete with the comprehensive analysis of how profiling and portfolio preparation can support the ‘open learner’ nor the with the level of media and learning integration that we we were showing.

Overview of my presentation:

1 Introduction

2 Problems in traditional teaching

3 Open and flexible competency based learning

4 The supportive nature of traditional learning

5 Support for flexible learning

6 Multimedia materials

7 Multimedia is natural

8 Multimedia and the affective side of learning

9 Selecting multimedia materials

10 Developing and distributing multimedia

11 Internet

12 Conclusions

Ciudad de México diary

I went to Mexico to talk to an invited assembly of 70 educationalists, college principals and education ministry people about materials (specifically multimedia computer-based learning materials) for competency-based education. The World Bank have agreed a large loan to Mexico to introduce such training over five years and the Mexicans have pretty much decided to follow the British NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) model.  I was sponsored by AK Vision, the multimedia training software development company based in Ingatestone who have been consulting us recently.

Saturday 7th October
I left for Brentwood BR car park at 9.20 - plane leaves at 12 noon - with the exhaust pipe hanging off the back of the car. Parked, got week's parking ticket for £6, got on train to Stratford, Central to Holborn, Picadilly to Heathrow.  Arrive at check-in at 11.15, warned that the flight is full but get seat in smoking area!
John Gulson (West Herts College and developer of NVQ based multimedia training materials with AK Vision) is on the plane but I don't get to talk because I'm so dozy from the night before.  Nevertheless I watch "While You Were Sleeping", a film I saw with Greta last week, and later wake up enough to finally start to finish the presentation off. We fly over the the Mississipi river and the the Gulf of Mexico. The landing at Mexico City is exciting - the whole city is surrounded by volcanic mountains.  I didn't realise a 747 could bank that far nor that it could be so unbalanced at touch-down. We go through customs which are a literally a lottery.  You press a button and if the light is green you go through and if it is red you stop and they search.  I press first and get lucky, but John goes next and gets searched.  He's not carrying piles of equipment and loads of CDs, but I am! We're met at the airport by Jaime (pronounced Haimi in Mexican Spanish, not Jouma as in Mallorqine Catalan?) who takes us to the hotel after giving us personal invitations from Hector Tello (boss of Harry Mazal - the company sponsoring the event) welcoming us to the country and offering us telephone numbers and details of when we'll meet. We unpack, wash and rest and speculate on Alan Church's (AK Vision boss and sponsor of the event) arrival which is anticipated from New York that evening.  John convinces me that a Mexican MacDonalds Big Mac is the answer to our dreams, but I am only consoled by the hot fudge sundae that appears to be compulsory.  Alan and Larry Rowe (boss of LJ Electronics another company involved in this issue who make training equipment such as electronics test-beds etc) discover us in the hotel bar drowning our sorrows in a Mexican 'Bohemia' beer.

Sunday 8th October
We get up late and have a breakfast in the hotel from a huge range of stuff.  In my enthusiasm I fill my plate with burritos, fried beans and other Mexican stuff.  Its too late to add the bacon, sausages, custom omelettes fried by dusky maidens, fresh fruit I normally see in tins, juice of nearly every description including melon juice, bread, rolls, croissants, pastries, muesli, yoghurt etc
Hector Tello - a big , balding but warm, welcoming man collects us at 12.30 at the hotel, introduces us to Robert Gibb - a colleague at Harry Mazal who is thin, mildly wasted and cynical but cross-cultural (British but lived in Mexico the past 15 years), supportive and helpful - and sweeps us away in a vehicle that closely resembles a furniture store with dralon rotating armchairs, wooden trim, venetian blinds, deep pile carpet and hi-fi system.  He is amusing, amusable and friendly. We go to the hotel in which we are going to present, test all the kit and argue about the position of speakers and screens.  Afterwards we go downtown to an old style authentic Mexican restaurant where we have Tequila, beer and I have chicken in chocolate curry sauce 'Pollo Mole Pol... something'  - yum.  All the time a pianist and violinist are playing. The building is old and atmosphere is like a film.  We have a nice time, have our photograph taken and get to know each other.  Later we return to the hotel to finish the presentation and sleep.

Monday 9th October
Breakfast of bacon, sausages, scrambled egg, hash browns, coffee etc
We start at 9am with John Gulson's speech about NVQs and the UK experience in practice. Halfway through there is an earthquake (7.6 on the Richter scale), the building moves under our feet, and Carlos, a Mexico resident I'm chatting to outside the presentation room, says almost under his breath 'Stop, stop, stop you ****er, stop'. This makes more of an impact on me than the actual event - if he's worried shouldn't I be?. The building creaks asit moves.  It is subtle but unsubtle and lasts longer than you might think or prefer.  When it stops there is universal relief and John finally notices that it's happened and that people have left the room because of it, not because he is boring them to tears.  Some women are particluarly affected and are led out of the room.  Maybe they suffered loss in the 1985 'quake that killed so many in Ciudad de México - certainly they don't feel the need for macho humour.  John restarts after half an hour's delay.  I do my speech, we have lunch, Larry does his, we all take questions.  Two women have been translating in parallel as we speak, effortlessly switching from Spanish to English depending on who is speaking.
Hector takes us to Hacienda Morales?  a beautiful old villa in the city which has been converted to a high class restaurant.  We have beer, tortillas, guacomole, 'weevils', ants' eggs, salsa (of course) to start. I have duckling in sauce and we all taste Hector's balls - bull's balls that is.  Another film atmosphere in dramatic surroundings. Early to bed again.

Tuesday 10th October
Alan goes to talk business with Hector and John and I go on a tour to the Toltec pyramids 45km to the north of the city.  We climb the pyramid of the moon, the pyramid of the sun, get sunburnt (seems reasonable), hassled by Mexicans selling nice souvenirs very cheaply and dehydrate.  A really remarkable place.
We catch the plane at 7.25.

Wednesday 11th October
Arrive Heathrow 12.15.

A summary of the project - COPERNICUS CP - 94 - 0636:

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Software Support for Bulgaria and Lithuania

Dr Todorka Damianova, Technical University Sofia and Richard Millwood, ULTRALAB, Anglia Polytechnic University.

‘SME Software Support’ is a three year project carried out within the framework of the European Community's Copernicus programme for Cooperation in Science and Technology with Central and Eastern European Countries and New Independent States of former Soviet Union.

The project is being developed by an international team of researchers and software professionals from eight institutions located in five European countries:

ORFEUS - the leading company for development and dissemination of educational and training software in Denmark (Coordinator);

ULTRALAB - innovative learning technology research centre for design and development of multimedia software at Anglia Polytechnic University, UK;

Technical University of Sofia - the biggest technological institute of higher education in Bulgaria;

University of Klaipeda - modern higher educational institution in Lithuania;

INTERPROGRAMMA - a long established company for localization and distribution of software in Bulgaria;

VANDEM - a company for development of special purpose software systems in Bulgaria;

TEV - an electronic publishing company in Lithuania;

NWZ-ZG - a newspaper distribution company from Germany.

The project concerns information technology-based support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a particular emphasis on the localisation and development of software applications for administrative, training and professional problems. The main aim of the project is to promote the provision of relevant software tools and vocational skills for businessmen establishing SMEs by means of opening access to the available modern information technologies and applications. The main objective is the establishment of two support units in Bulgaria and Lithuania acting on three tasks:

Task 1: Delivering software - Localisation and development of up-to-date interactive multimedia software technologies, tools and applications for small and medium-sized business administration and maintaining;

Task 2: Training - Establishment of open learning training and retraining courses addressing the principle needs of small and medium-sized enterprises and unemployed people;

Task 3: Information dissemination - Transfer and dissemination of information technology materials to contribute to the rehabilitation of business in both Eastern European countries.

The main activities and results are shown in this figure:

[Figure 1]

Both Bulgaria and Lithuania have historically determined problems in the implementation of Information Technology. There is an inconsistency between the size, power and functionality of existing computer systems and an increase in the number of consumers with an awareness of information services. In addition many companies which are well equipped with computers need competent advice in choosing appropriate software, and local language user interfaces and supporting materials.

A 1994/95 survey conducted by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu International/IDOM consultants reports:

“[SMEs] now require ongoing support and maintenance, and they want it within a reasonable time (not flown in from abroad) from people who speak the language and understand local needs”

The data reported from the survey ‚can be interpreted that the more advanced Central and Eastern economies increasingly require localised software, suggesting that as Information Technology is adopted more widely in less advanced economies, demand there will increase.

This imposes an emphasis on the research of the project to be on the problems of inter-lingual and inter-cultural adaptation of software materials addressed to users who do not have special informatics or language preparation.

The benefits of the project will reflect mainly on the activities of small and medium-sized enterprises and on the development of the economy in both Eastern-European countries as a whole.

The project team invites interested parties to contact us particularly with regard to software localisation. For further information, contact the project coordinator,

Leo Højsholt-Poulsen

Managing Director, Orfeus

Skæring Skolevej 202

Egaa, Aarhus

DK-8250

DENMARK

The talk:

1 Introduction

ULTRALAB is a learning technology research centre based at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU). APU is a new university in the UK with a vocational, polytechnic tradition of higher education in partnership with industrial and commercial organisations in the East Anglia region.

ULTRALAB develops learning software for all age groups and both formal and informal learning contexts. It works as an ideas factory, CD-ROM developer and active partner in international projects.

ULTRALAB’s capacity to articulate ideas based on a decade and a half of experience has created a demand for consultancy helping major clients such as Apple Computer, British Telecom, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Finnish company Teleste OY to plan and put into practice future learning environments.

2 Problems in teaching

Classrooms have not changed much in this century. A photograph of a rows of desks facing the front with the lecturer speaking to an attentive audience can be difficult to place in one decade or another. Of course this is simple to manage for the teacher. The assumption is that the students will follow the lesson at the same pace, those who are capable may be bored and those who are not may struggle. Not all teaching and learning is like this.

The organisational requirements of traditional teaching methods have led to the simplest ideas of learning progression being imposed on learners in their school years. The traditional method demands that one learns and is measured against others who were born in the same year in spite of a diversity of competence, knowledge and learning styles - not only between individuals, but also for one individual across different subjects disciplines. In some contexts the diversity is too great to be accommodated by selection or streaming of learners. Research shows that in mathematics, sixteen year old students often show a range of competence varying from say that of a ten year old to that of a twenty year old. This problem can be even greater for mixed-experience groups of young adults with varying backgrounds from the world of work.

But this is not new. Ever since the middle ages, learners have had problems with their learning environment, as Adam Martindale remarked on his own education: "My hindrances were many: as first, many teachers, five in fewer years; secondly, none of these the best; thirdly a tedious method then and there used; fourthly, dullards in the same class with me, having power to confine me to their pace!"

At the same time, technology change continues and leads to a regularly updated curriculum in many fields, but particularly in technological disciplines. The needs of society mean new skills have to be tackled and new disciplines introduced.

The curriculum also becomes richer and multifaceted, many disciplines jostling for the teacher/tutor and learner’s attention. Increasingly, managing the learner’s curriculum to be responsive becomes an administrative as well as pedagogic task and support is necessary for even the most experienced and capable teacher.

3 Open learning?

To resolve these problems, open and flexible learning methods based on sets of competencies have been proposed. ‘Open’ learning can mean one of two things: open entry to learning opportunities, without formal qualification, which is designed to encourage those who would not otherwise join courses; or open access to learning allowing learners to choose where, when, how and in what order and at what pace they study. Flexible learning involves some combination of these dimensions of choice, but too many degrees of freedom can be difficult to manage. In addition, due to a changing world of work in society, we expect learners to consider life-long learning as their goal.

4 Strength in numbers

It is useful to appreciate how supportive the traditional forms of teaching have been for learners: they would know where to learn - in a classroom; they would know when - according to a timetable; they would know how - often by instruction from an enthusiast; they would know about key points in the year - examinations, holidays, transitions to new courses; and they would certainly know that it would all stop at some point in the future and that they could then get on with real life and earn money. Most importantly they had friends and colleagues going through the same processes at each point of their learning career - if a learner was unsure about when, what, where or how then they could simply follow their peers. Their peers also provide a 'norm' against which the learner can measure their competence.

5 Support for open learning

If learners are to cope with flexible, life-long learning to meet their own and society’s needs, they require support for the many decisions and uncertainties that arise. This implies greater awareness of their own learning process, responsibility for planning learning & setting targets, self assessment & testing and reflection on progress. The teacher or tutor is also faced with a new style of working which involves facilitating learning rather than delivering knowledge. The components in such a learning environment include rich sets of learning activities graded to match the desired competency levels and categorised by topic; suggested pathways for working through the materials together with guidance on how to set targets; tests to identify starting points and to measure progress; advice to learners on how to maintain portfolios of evidence from their activities to prepare for formal assessment; support for self-reflection on learning styles and competency to present a profile of current progress.

Depending on the degree of flexibility, these components can be offered by direct guidance from the teacher or tutor or can depend on the learner completely. Traditionally paperwork, audio and video and mixed media study packs are used to deliver many of these components. Computers can help organise flexible learning by interactively offering much of the simpler guidance directly in context with some learning activities - in particular those tackling underpinning knowledge presented through multimedia techniques.

6 Multimedia materials

Multimedia is the integration of digital media such as text, sound, graphics, animation, and video. Interactive control and novel, meaningful combinations of these media make multimedia materials highly appropriate for presentation of learning materials. For example, digital video can include not only video and sound tracks but also multiple text tracks permitting sub-titling, alternative languages, keyword labelling and data to be linked to a movie.

Interactivity lets learners choose pace and route through material, take risks without penalty and in the case of simulations show the consequences of decisions made by the learner. Ready repetition of key details, in the control of the learner, can help comprehension and omission of familiar material can avoid boredom. Interactive control by the learner can increase motivation, empower the learner and lead to greater autonomy.

7 Multimedia is natural

To many adults, multimedia seems demanding, sophisticated, expensive and even frivolous. To young learners it is no more than the expected, since their real environment includes all the ‘media’ and it’s no surprise to them when television or animated games appear on a computer screen. Multimedia also benefits learners by offering redundancy in the presentation of information: text may be presented alongside picture and overlaid with sound, each part telling the same story and reinforcing each other.

This strongly communicative approach helps learners make sense of challenging material and offers choice and support to the learner who is not skilled in reading text or who finds listening difficult. Where text alone can only create context by extensive description, multimedia can quickly establish the circumstances of learning which help learners understand meaning by filling the metaphorical ‘white space’ between the words and letters.

We have special words for people who have impairments of speech, writing, vision or hearing; we have special words for computers with all these attributes. Its likely that we will see computers without these capabilities as disabled in the very near future.

Competence with text has been the major defining factor in learning, which makes a very narrow pathway for learners to achieve success. Multimedia offers a broader path allowing competence with speech, listening and visual interpretations to stand alongside writing and reading. Multimedia may redefine literacy.

8 Multimedia and affect

Well designed interactive multimedia also offers learners delight, influencing them to enjoy the learning experience - their 'affective' mode. Although to many, delight may not seem an appropriate factor in the serious business of learning, it is clearly effective in helping learning take place. Delight in this sense is motivating and memorable: in the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, inventor of the notion of quality in business management, it is not adequate to simply satisfy customers (learners in this case) it is necessary to delight them, with the consequence that delighted customers become your best sales representatives and in the case of learning, perhaps engender a learning culture. Alongside the concept of delight in learning is the element of surprise. Computer software can offer random elements which surprise the learner, avoid repetition and maintain interest & motivation.

9 Selecting multimedia

There is a considerable amount of multimedia materials available to choose from - many are 'multimediocre', offering surface 'gloss' but little depth or learning. Materials which do not offer some degree of progression and continuity are to be avoided - students should be able to work at their level of competence and avoid repetition of material already known. Materials that can be used immediately but also adapted by the tutor (or learner) are more likely to be adopted than those which impose inflexible pedagogy or alienate those involved.

There are many technical criteria related to media and design quality such as the use of appropriate colour, contrast, layout and human computer interface. More important is that the materials offer learners ownership and control over the learning environment - self-paced learning means that the software does not take over, but responds effectively to students expressed need. Three models of involvement can be identified - narrative, interactive, participative. Television offers narrative modes where the learner simply watches and responds. Most multimedia products permit interactive modes of use, but not so many are designed for the learner to be in participative mode where the learner is actively involved in reconstruction or representation of knowledge: learning by doing.

Materials should also support the learner in making sense of their progress and revealing explicitly the curriculum covered and the alternative levels to be adopted. Working with others can develop a sense of competence in a competitive way - more often welcome when learners are working independently of the teacher. Some of these ideas are well expressed in popular and successful computer games which keep people involved for long periods of time.

10 Developing multimedia

Multimedia development is becoming increasingly straightforward technically, but nevertheless requires a multidisciplinary team of authors to create high quality materials. Typically, programmers, graphic designers, animators, subject specialists and learning experts are involved. Video materials can involve film crews, actors and scriptwriters. A major aspect of developing multimedia is the design of interactivity and hypermedia links - authors are familiar with linear narrative, but creating non-linear pathways can be challenging.

Key design elements include careful consideration of the learning requirement and what knowledge is to be presented. Designing accurate self-assessment on the computer is necessary to allow students to progress independently and with confidence, but this is not easy except for testing factual recall. More complex competencies best depend on students assessing their own performance in simulation situations where the intended outcome is understood and the consequences of students decisions are shown by the software. Artificial intelligence techniques for tutoring complex student performance are not well developed: human assessors are very successful in identifying partially correct but adequate responses, but the computer cannot readily support this important aspect of learning.

The development process is iterative and although capable of some automation, is a craft rather than a manufacturing process: user testing is critical for success. Analysis of design failure provides the basis for creative development.

CD-ROM is highly cost effective for distribution of multimedia learning materials, costing less than 50c per disk to reproduce in quantity, yet storing 650 Mb of data. Retail prices for CD-ROM materials usually reflect the more significant development costs as well as production costs.

11 Internet

The Internet offers large quantities of information from countless educational institutions and, increasingly, commercial organisations across the world. Most importantly, it also offers human communication between individuals and groups and opportunities for very small enterprises to publish on a very large scale at low cost.

Currently the Internet is offering new opportunities for learning, managing learning and coordinating the learning environment at all levels. Teachers and learners are naturally collaborative individuals who benefit from the possibilities for debate, constructive criticism, access to information and sharing of resources. Internet connections can support these functions across a wide community of education and training, permitting self-help groups to develop and sustain knowledge transfer. This community building can be local, national and international widening access to education and training. Crucially, 'identity' is needed for individuals to enhance participation and reasonably cheap connection time to encourage risk-taking with this new environment. Organisation infrastructure, leadership and information services must be provided to augment basic communication and this can solve problems for both authorities and the education community by maintaining awareness of technology and curriculum change and by helping to put policy into practice. In the medium term, Internet may replace CD-ROM as a delivery mechanism for multimedia resources, but there is still a place for CD-ROM until broadband, inexpensive network infrastructure is in place.

12 Conclusions

We should provide learning opportunities which are and continue to be more responsive to individuals and to technological, curricular and societal change. In order to achieve this, learning resources must be organised, learner competencies identified and guidance for both teachers/tutors and learners developed, to support open and flexible learning. Multimedia computers have a major role to play both in presenting knowledge, organising learning, communicating guidance and as tools for learners which change our definition of literacy. Participative Internet tools facilitate the natural capacity for humans to collaborate and to react rapidly to technological and societal change, which in part is promoted by Internet itself. Our opportunity is to help learners access knowledge, teachers develop professionally and all to excel in building learning for the future, but without forgetting the lessons of the past.

My presentation notes:

1 Introduction

ULTRALAB is a learning technology research centre based at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU). APU is a new university in the UK with a vocational, polytechnic tradition of higher education in partnership with industrial and commercial organisations in the East Anglia region.

ULTRALAB develops learning software for all age groups and both formal and informal learning contexts. It works as an ideas factory, CD-ROM developer and active partner in international projects.

ULTRALABs capacity to articulate ideas based on a decade and a half of experience has created a demand for consultancy helping major clients such as Apple Computer, British Telecom, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Finnish company Teleste OY to plan and put into practice future learning environments.

2 Problems in teaching

Classrooms have not changed much in this century. A photograph of a rows of desks facing the front with the lecturer speaking to an attentive audience can be difficult to place in one decade or another. Of course this is simple to manage for the teacher. The assumption is that the students will follow the lesson at the same pace, those who are capable may be bored and those who are not may struggle. Not all teaching and learning is like this.

The organisational requirements of traditional teaching methods have led to the simplest ideas of learning progression being imposed on learners in their school years. The traditional method demands that one learns and is measured against others who were born in the same year in spite of a diversity of competence, knowledge and learning styles - not only between individuals, but also for one individual across different subjects disciplines. In some contexts the diversity is too great to be accommodated by selection or streaming of learners. Research shows that in mathematics, sixteen year old students often show a range of competence varying from say that of a ten year old to that of a twenty year old. This problem can be even greater for mixed-experience groups of young adults with varying backgrounds from the world of work.

But this is not new. Ever since the middle ages, learners have had problems with their learning environment, as Adam Martindale remarked on his own education: "My hindrances were many: as first, many teachers, five in fewer years; secondly, none of these the best; thirdly a tedious method then and there used; fourthly, dullards in the same class with me, having power to confine me to their pace!"

At the same time, technology change continues and leads to a regularly updated curriculum in many fields, but particularly in technological disciplines. The needs of society mean new skills have to be tackled and new disciplines introduced.

The curriculum also becomes richer and multifaceted, many disciplines jostling for the teacher/tutor and learners attention. Increasingly, managing the learners curriculum to be responsive becomes an administrative as well as pedagogic task and support is necessary for even the most experienced and capable teacher.

3 Open learning?

To resolve these problems, open and flexible learning methods based on sets of competencies have been proposed. Open learning can mean one of two things: open entry to learning opportunities, without formal qualification, which is designed to encourage those who would not otherwise join courses; or open access to learning allowing learners to choose where, when, how and in what order and at what pace they study. Flexible learning involves some combination of these dimensions of choice, but too many degrees of freedom can be difficult to manage. In addition, due to a changing world of work in society, we expect learners to consider life-long learning as their goal.

4 Strength in numbers

It is useful to appreciate how supportive the traditional forms of teaching have been for learners: they would know where to learn - in a classroom; they would know when - according to a timetable; they would know how - often by instruction from an enthusiast; they would know about key points in the year - examinations, holidays, transitions to new courses; and they would certainly know that it would all stop at some point in the future and that they could then get on with real life and earn money. Most importantly they had friends and colleagues going through the same processes at each point of their learning career - if a learner was unsure about when, what, where or how then they could simply follow their peers. Their peers also provide a 'norm' against which the learner can measure their competence.

5 Support for open learning

If learners are to cope with flexible, life-long learning to meet their own and societys needs, they require support for the many decisions and uncertainties that arise. This implies greater awareness of their own learning process, responsibility for planning learning & setting targets, self assessment & testing and reflection on progress. The teacher or tutor is also faced with a new style of working which involves facilitating learning rather than delivering knowledge. The components in such a learning environment include rich sets of learning activities graded to match the desired competency levels and categorised by topic; suggested pathways for working through the materials together with guidance on how to set targets; tests to identify starting points and to measure progress; advice to learners on how to maintain portfolios of evidence from their activities to prepare for formal assessment; support for self-reflection on learning styles and competency to present a profile of current progress.

Depending on the degree of flexibility, these components can be offered by direct guidance from the teacher or tutor or can depend on the learner completely. Traditionally paperwork, audio and video and mixed media study packs are used to deliver many of these components. Computers can help organise flexible learning by interactively offering much of the simpler guidance directly in context with some learning activities - in particular those tackling underpinning knowledge presented through multimedia techniques.

6 Multimedia materials

Multimedia is the integration of digital media such as text, sound, graphics, animation, and video. Interactive control and novel, meaningful combinations of these media make multimedia materials highly appropriate for presentation of learning materials. For example, digital video can include not only video and sound tracks but also multiple text tracks permitting sub-titling, alternative languages, keyword labelling and data to be linked to a movie.

Interactivity lets learners choose pace and route through material, take risks without penalty and in the case of simulations show the consequences of decisions made by the learner. Ready repetition of key details, in the control of the learner, can help comprehension and omission of familiar material can avoid boredom. Interactive control by the learner can increase motivation, empower the learner and lead to greater autonomy.

7 Multimedia is natural

To many adults, multimedia seems demanding, sophisticated, expensive and even frivolous. To young learners it is no more than the expected, since their real environment includes all the media and its no surprise to them when television or animated games appear on a computer screen. Multimedia also benefits learners by offering redundancy in the presentation of information: text may be presented alongside picture and overlaid with sound, each part telling the same story and reinforcing each other.

This strongly communicative approach helps learners make sense of challenging material and offers choice and support to the learner who is not skilled in reading text or who finds listening difficult. Where text alone can only create context by extensive description, multimedia can quickly establish the circumstances of learning which help learners understand meaning by filling the metaphorical white space between the words and letters.

We have special words for people who have impairments of speech, writing, vision or hearing; we have special words for computers with all these attributes. Its likely that we will see computers without these capabilities as disabled in the very near future.

Competence with text has been the major defining factor in learning, which makes a very narrow pathway for learners to achieve success. Multimedia offers a broader path allowing competence with speech, listening and visual interpretations to stand alongside writing and reading. Multimedia may redefine literacy.

8 Multimedia and affect

Well designed interactive multimedia also offers learners delight, influencing them to enjoy the learning experience - their 'affective' mode. Although to many, delight may not seem an appropriate factor in the serious business of learning, it is clearly effective in helping learning take place. Delight in this sense is motivating and memorable: in the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, inventor of the notion of quality in business management, it is not adequate to simply satisfy customers (learners in this case) it is necessary to delight them, with the consequence that delighted customers become your best sales representatives and in the case of learning, perhaps engender a learning culture. Alongside the concept of delight in learning is the element of surprise. Computer software can offer random elements which surprise the learner, avoid repetition and maintain interest & motivation.

9 Selecting multimedia

There is a considerable amount of multimedia materials available to choose from - many are 'multimediocre', offering surface 'gloss' but little depth or learning. Materials which do not offer some degree of progression and continuity are to be avoided - students should be able to work at their level of competence and avoid repetition of material already known. Materials that can be used immediately but also adapted by the tutor (or learner) are more likely to be adopted than those which impose inflexible pedagogy or alienate those involved.

There are many technical criteria related to media and design quality such as the use of appropriate colour, contrast, layout and human computer interface. More important is that the materials offer learners ownership and control over the learning environment - self-paced learning means that the software does not take over, but responds effectively to students expressed need. Three models of involvement can be identified - narrative, interactive, participative. Television offers narrative modes where the learner simply watches and responds. Most multimedia products permit interactive modes of use, but not so many are designed for the learner to be in participative mode where the learner is actively involved in reconstruction or representation of knowledge: learning by doing.

Materials should also support the learner in making sense of their progress and revealing explicitly the curriculum covered and the alternative levels to be adopted. Working with others can develop a sense of competence in a competitive way - more often welcome when learners are working independently of the teacher. Some of these ideas are well expressed in popular and successful computer games which keep people involved for long periods of time.

10 Developing multimedia

Multimedia development is becoming increasingly straightforward technically, but nevertheless requires a multidisciplinary team of authors to create high quality materials. Typically, programmers, graphic designers, animators, subject specialists and learning experts are involved. Video materials can involve film crews, actors and scriptwriters. A major aspect of developing multimedia is the design of interactivity and hypermedia links - authors are familiar with linear narrative, but creating non-linear pathways can be challenging.

Key design elements include careful consideration of the learning requirement and what knowledge is to be presented. Designing accurate self-assessment on the computer is necessary to allow students to progress independently and with confidence, but this is not easy except for testing factual recall. More complex competencies best depend on students assessing their own performance in simulation situations where the intended outcome is understood and the consequences of students decisions are shown by the software. Artificial intelligence techniques for tutoring complex student performance are not well developed: human assessors are very successful in identifying partially correct but adequate responses, but the computer cannot readily support this important aspect of learning.

The development process is iterative and although capable of some automation, is a craft rather than a manufacturing process: user testing is critical for success. Analysis of design failure provides the basis for creative development.

CD-ROM is highly cost effective for distribution of multimedia learning materials, costing less than 50c per disk to reproduce in quantity, yet storing 650 Mb of data. Retail prices for CD-ROM materials usually reflect the more significant development costs as well as production costs.

11 Internet

The Internet offers large quantities of information from countless educational institutions and, increasingly, commercial organisations across the world. Most importantly, it also offers human communication between individuals and groups and opportunities for very small enterprises to publish on a very large scale at low cost.

Currently the Internet is offering new opportunities for learning, managing learning and coordinating the learning environment at all levels. Teachers and learners are naturally collaborative individuals who benefit from the possibilities for debate, constructive criticism, access to information and sharing of resources. Internet connections can support these functions across a wide community of education and training, permitting self-help groups to develop and sustain knowledge transfer. This community building can be local, national and international widening access to education and training. Crucially, 'identity' is needed for individuals to enhance participation and reasonably cheap connection time to encourage risk-taking with this new environment. Organisation infrastructure, leadership and information services must be provided to augment basic communication and this can solve problems for both authorities and the education community by maintaining awareness of technology and curriculum change and by helping to put policy into practice. In the medium term, Internet may replace CD-ROM as a delivery mechanism for multimedia resources, but there is still a place for CD-ROM until broadband, inexpensive network infrastructure is in place.

12 Conclusions

We should provide learning opportunities which are and continue to be more responsive to individuals and to technological, curricular and societal change. In order to achieve this, learning resources must be organised, learner competencies identified and guidance for both teachers/tutors and learners developed, to support open and flexible learning. Multimedia computers have a major role to play both in presenting knowledge, organising learning, communicating guidance and as tools for learners which change our definition of literacy. Participative Internet tools facilitate the natural capacity for humans to collaborate and to react rapidly to technological and societal change, which in part is promoted by Internet itself. Our opportunity is to help learners access knowledge, teachers develop professionally and all to excel in a multimedia education world.

This was the script for my talk:

1 Introduction

ULTRALAB is a learning technology research centre based at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU). APU is a new university in the UK with a vocational, polytechnic tradition of higher education in partnership with industrial and commercial organisations in the East Anglia region.

ULTRALAB develops learning software for all age groups and both formal and informal learning contexts. It works as an ideas factory, CD-ROM developer and active partner in international projects.

ULTRALAB’s capacity to articulate ideas based on a decade and a half of experience has created a demand for consultancy helping major clients such as Apple Computer, British Telecom, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Finnish company Teleste OY to plan and put into practice future learning environments.

2 Problems in teaching

Classrooms have not changed much in this century. A photograph of a rows of desks facing the front with the lecturer speaking to an attentive audience can be difficult to place in one decade or another. Of course this is simple to manage for the teacher. The assumption is that the students will follow the lesson at the same pace, those who are capable may be bored and those who are not may struggle. Not all teaching and learning is like this.

The organisational requirements of traditional teaching methods have led to the simplest ideas of learning progression being imposed on learners in their school years. The traditional method demands that one learns and is measured against others who were born in the same year in spite of a diversity of competence, knowledge and learning styles - not only between individuals, but also for one individual across different subjects disciplines. In some contexts the diversity is too great to be accommodated by selection or streaming of learners. Research shows that in mathematìics, sixteen year old students often show a range of competence varying from say that of a ten year old to that of a twenty year old. This problem can be even greater for mixed-experience groups of young adults with varying backgrounds from the world of work.

But this is not new. Ever since the middle ages, learners have had problems with their learning environment, as Adam Martindale remarked on his own education: "My hindrances were many: as first, many teachers, five in fewer years; secondly, none of these the best; thirdly a tedious method then and there used; fourthly, dullards in the same class with me, having power to confine me to their pace!"

At the same time, technology change continues and leads to a regularly updated curriculum in many fields, but particularly in technological disciplines. The needs of society mean new skills have to be tackled and new disciplines introduced.

The curriculum also becomes richer and multifaceted, many disciplines jostling for the teacher/tutor and learner’s attention. Increasingly, managing the learner’s curriculum to be responsive becomes an administrative as well as pedagogic task and support is necessary for even the most experienced and capable teacher.

3 Open learning?

To resolve these problems, open and flexible learning methods based on sets of competencies have been proposed. ‘Open’ learning can mean one of two things: open entry to learning opportunities, without formal qualification, which is designed to encourage those who would not otherwise join courses; or open access to learning allowing learners to choose where, when, how and in what order and at what pace they study. Flexible learning involves some combination of these dimensions of choice, but too many degrees of freedom can be difficult to manage. In addition, due to a changing world of work in society, we expect learners to consider life-long learning as their goal.

4 Strength in numbers

It is useful to appreciate how supportive the traditional forms of teaching have been for learners: they would know where to learn - in a classroom; they would know when - according to a timetable; they would know how - often by instruction from an enthusiast; they would know about key points in the year - examinations, holidays, transitions to new courses; and they would certainly know that it would all stop at some point in the future and that they could then get on with real life and earn money. Most importantly they had friends and colleagues going through the same processes at each point of their learning career - if a learner was unsure about when, what, where or how then they could simply follow their peers. Their peers also provide a 'norm' against which the learner can measure their competence.

5 Support for open learning

If learners are to cope with flexible, life-long learning to meet ∫their own and society’s needs, they require support for the many decisions and uncertainties that arise. This implies greater awareness of their own learning process, responsibility for planning learning & setting targets, self assessment & testing and reflection on progress. The teacher or tutor is also faced with a new style of working which involves facilitating learning rather than delivering knowledge. The components in such a learning environment include rich sets of learning activities graded to match the desired competency levels and categorised by topic; suggested pathways for working through the materials together with guidance on how to set targets; tests to identify starting points and to measure progress; advice to learners on how to maintain portfolios of evidence from their activities to prepare for formal assessment; support for self-reflection on learning styles and competency to present a profile of current progress.

Depending on the degree of flexibility, these components can be offered by direct guidance from the teacher or tutor or can depend on the learner completely. Traditionally paperwork, audio and video and mixed media study packs are used to deliver many of these components. Computers can help organise flexible learning by interactively offering much of the simpler guidance directly in context with some learning activities - in particular those tackling underpinning knowledge presented through multimedia techniques.

6 Multimedia materials

Multimedia is the integration of digital media such as text, sound, graphics, animation, and video. Interactive control and novel, meaningful combinations of these media make multimedia materials highly appropriate for presentation of learning materials. For example, digital video can include not only video and sound tracks but also multiple text tracks permitting sub-titling, alternative languages, keyword labelling and data to be linked to a movie.

Interactivity lets learners choose pace and route through material, take risks without penalty and in the case of simulations show the consequences of decisions made by the learner. Ready repetition of key details, in the control of the learner, can help comprehension and omission of familiar material can avoid boredom. Interactive control by the learner can increase motivation, empower the learner and lead to greater autonomy.

7 Multimedia is natural

To many adults, multimedia seems demanding, sophisticated, expensive and even frivolous. To young learners it is no more than the expected, since their real environment includes all the ‘media’ and it’s no surprise to them when television or animated games appear on a computer screen. Multimedia also benefits learners by offering redundancy in the presentation of information: text may be presented alongside picture and overlaid with sound, each part telling the same story and reinforcing each other.

This strongly communicative approach helps learners make sense of challenging material and offers choice and support to the learner who is not skilled in reading text or who finds listening difficult. Where text alone can only create context by extensive description, multimedia can quickly establish the circumstances of learning which help learners understand meaning by filling the metaphorical ‘white space’ between the words and letters.

We have special words for people who have impairments of speech, writing, vision or hearing; we have special words for computers with all these attributes. Its likely that we will see computers without these capabilities as disabled in the very near future.

Competence with text has been the major defining factor in learning, which makes a very narrow pathway for learners to achieve success. Multimedia offers a broader path allowing competence with speech, listening and visual interpretations to stand alongside writing and reading. Multimedia may redefine literacy.

8 Multimedia and affect

Well designed interactive multimedia also offers learners delight, influencing them to enjoy the learning experience - their 'affective' mode. Although to many, delight may not seem an appropriate factor in the serious business of learning, it is clearly effective in helping learning take place. Delight in this sense is motivating and memorable: in the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, inventor of the notion of quality in business management, it is not adequate to simply satisfy customers (learners in this case) it is necessary to delight them, with the consequence that delighted customers become your best sales representatives and in the case of learning, perhaps engender a learning culture. Alongside the concept of delight in learning is the element of surprise. Computer software can offer random elements which surprise the learner, avoid repetition and maintain interest & motivation.

9 Selecting multimedia

There is a considerable amount of multimedia materials available to choose from - many are 'multimediocre', offering surface 'gloss' but little depth or learning. Materials which do not offer some degree of progression and continuity are to be avoided - students should be able to work at their level of competence and avoid repetition of material already known. Materials that can be used immediately but also adapted by the tutor (or learner) are more likely to be adopted than those which impose inflexible pedagogy or alienate those involved.

There are many technical criteria related to media and design quality such as the use of appropriate colour, contrast, layout and human computer interface. More important is that the materials offer learners ownership and control over the learning environment - self-paced learning means that the software does not take over, but responds effectively to students expressed need. Three models of involvement can be identified - narrative, interactive, participative. Television offers narrative modes where the learner simply watches and responds. Most multimedia products permit interactive modes of use, but not so many are designed for the learner to be in participative mode where the learner is actively involved in reconstruction or representation of knowledge: learning by doing.

Materials should also support the learner in making sense of their progress and revealing explicitly the curriculum covered and the alternative levels to be adopted. Working with others can develop a sense of competence in a competitive way - more often welcome when learners are working independently of the teacher. Some of these ideas are well expressed in popular and successful computer games which keep people involved for long periods of time.

10 Developing multimedia

Multimedia development is becoming increasingly straightforward technically, but nevertheless requires a multidisciplinary team of authors to create high quality materials. Typically, programmers, graphic designers, animators, subject specialists and learning experts are involved. Video materials can involve film crews, actors and scriptwriters. A major aspect of developing multimedia is the design of interactivity and hypermedia links - authors are familiar with linear narrative, but creating non-linear pathways can be challenging.

Key design elements include careful consideration of the learning requirement and what knowledge is to be presented. Designing accurate self-assessment on the computer is necessary to allow students to progress independently and with confidence, but this is not easy except for testing factual recall. More complex competencies best depend on students assessing their own performance in simulation situations where the intended outcome is understood and the consequences of students decisions are shown by the software. Artificial intelligence techniques for tutoring complex student performance are not well developed: human assessors are very successful in identifying partially correct but adequate responses, but the computer cannot readily support this important aspect of learning.

The development process is iterative and although capable of some automation, is a craft rather than a manufacturing process: user testing is critical for success. Analysis of design failure provides the basis for creative development.

CD-ROM is highly cost effective for distribution of multimedia learning materials, costing less than 50c per disk to reproduce in quantity, yet storing 650 Mb of data. Retail prices for CD-ROM materials usually reflect the more significant development costs as well as production costs.

11 Internet

The Internet offers large quantities of information from countless educational institutions and, increasingly, commercial organisations across the world. Most importantly, it also offers human communication between individuals and groups and opportunities for very small enterprises to publish on a very large scale at low cost.

Currently the Internet is offering new opportunities for learning, managing learning and coordinating the learning environment at all levels. Teachers and learners are naturally collaborative individuals who benefit from the possibilities for debate, constructive criticism, access to information and sharing of resources. Internet connections can support these functions across a wide community of education and training, permitting self-help groups to develop and sustain knowledge transfer. This community building can be local, national and international widening access to education and training. Crucially, 'identity' is needed for individuals to enhance participation and reasonably cheap connection time to encourage risk-taking with this new environment. Organisation infrastructure, leadership and information services must be provided to augment basic communication and this can solve problems for both authorities and the education community by maintaining awareness of technology and curriculum change and by helping to put policy into practice. In the medium term, Internet may replace CD-ROM as a delivery mechanism for multimedia resources, but there is still a place for CD-ROM until broadband, inexpensive network infrastructure is in place.

12 Conclusions

We should provide learning opportunities which are and continue to be more responsive to individuals and to technological, curricular and societal change. In order to achieve this, learning resources must be organised, learner competencies identified and guidance for both teachers/tutors and learners developed, to support open and flexible learning. Multimedia computers have a major role to play both in presenting knowledge, organising learning, communicating guidance and as tools for learners which change our definition of literacy. Participative Internet tools facilitate the natural capacity for humans to collaborate and to react rapidly to technological and societal change, which in part is promoted by Internet itself. Our opportunity is to help learners access knowledge, teachers develop professionally and all to excel in building learning for the future, but without forgetting the lessons of the past.

Notes (what I say and what I do - roughly speaking)

OVERVIEW

Higher Education and Further Education are being squeezed.  How can these institutions respond?  By considering increased use of flexible and open learning, developing new courses, competing for a wider audience of students and by creating independent learning materials, HE & FE may be able to deliver whilst keep quality standards high.  Each of these are potential reasons for buying Macintosh, each offers either suitability, savings in labour or reduced training costs.

Click on Critter to hear my notes for this and other slides. Option click Critter if you want to change the notes. Click on the centre picture to look at the background to the H.E. and F.E. squeeze, click on each colour cloud to discuss that opportunity.

THE SQUEEZE

Last November, the government cut 7% off Higher Education budgets.  Further education has suffered a squeeze for many years.  The net result is that they are looking for savings in the delivery of learning.  The European Year of Lifelong Learning adds credibility to the notion that students will learn independently.

Click on The Lemon Song to launch MoviePlayer with the Led Zeppelin song.  Play the movie using MoviePlayer's controls and point out that this is just another QuickTime movie, made direct from the original Audio CD without special software - just MoviePlayer.

FLEXIBLE AND OPEN LEARNING

Some flexible and open learning solutions are immediately attractive.  Learning direct skills and underpinning knowledge with interactive training software can be highly efficient.  Quicktime screen-capture of applications in use with expert voiceover is easily developed for Macintosh.
Seeking guidance through software for operational help and advice could potentially reduce the load on busy  lecturers and support staff.  Apple Guide with its innovative context sensitive support and coach-marking can make independent learning possible. Internet delivery can mean freeing rooms, timetables and delivering interactive,  large-group learning.  Small scale web-publishing is easiest on the Macintosh.

Insert the Training on CD demo disk and then click on the button to demonstrate QuickTime being used to deliver training on common Mac applications.
The Apple Guide button simply bring s the Finder to the front for you to select the Macintosh Guide from the System Help menu.

NEW COURSES

New courses which meet the needs of students keen to join the creative services are attractive.  With information technology these are less concerned with traditional Computer Science, but growing in the fields of Art and Design, Media and Music.  These are all areas where the Macintosh has the lead professionally. There are no demos for this slide.

LEARNING MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

Macintosh is the platform of choice for  multimedia development.  Not just for the professionals, but also for ordinary lectureres who want to go beyond the Powerpoint slide set. Developing learning materials can range from simple desk-top publishing of a paper handout with word-processing software, through presentation slides to enliven lectures, to self study 'electronic worksheets' created using Cyberdog and Opendoc. The new digital media are as easy to handle as word-processing, using basic cut and paste ideas which many teachers are already comfortable with.

Click on the Quayle Season button to open MoviePlayer with that movie.  After enjoying the movie, demonstrate how easy it is to select jokes from the movie and sequence edit them into a new movie - just liek cut and paste in a word-processor.

COMPETITION FOR NEW STUDENTS

New students are to be found amongst those who live at a distance (including overseas) or those who live locally but cannot attend at the times the timetable offers.  Internet delivery can most easily developed on Macintosh.
Students with disabilities are also to be sought, with modern I.T. solutions providing better than ever access to learning.  Macintosh, with its broad vision of digital video which encompasses multiple text tracks can allow such learners to choose how they access learning materials.
In competing for all students, but particularly those from overseas, the ability to offer comprehensive cultural and linguistic support will allow institutions to stand out.  Macintosh has the best handling of multiple languages and the best world-wide cultural support - offering overseas and British students native language word-processing could help an institution 'stand out'.

Click on the World in Motion button to open MoviePlayer with that movie.  Play a bit of it and show how you can enable the text track of the movie to aid students with hearing problems.  Also use Find in MoviePlayer to search for 'hooligans'.

If you have installed the Cyrillic language kit, you can demonstrate that Macintosh can mix different language character sets.  Point out the Pacific rim countries, where students are looking for UK qualifications, are particularly well served by Macintosh language kits and third party software.

My handout notes:

Multimedia in Education

Nottingham Trent University June 26th 1996

Richard Millwood

ULTRALAB

Anglia Polytechnic University

1 Introduction

ULTRALAB is a learning technology research centre based at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU). APU is a new university in the UK with a vocational, polytechnic tradition of higher education in partnership with industrial and commercial organisations in the East Anglia region.

ULTRALAB develops learning software for all age groups and both formal and informal learning contexts. It works as an ideas factory, CD-ROM developer and active partner in international projects.

ULTRALAB’s capacity to articulate ideas based on a decade and a half of experience has created a demand for consultancy helping major clients such as Apple Computer, British Telecom, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Finnish company Teleste OY to plan and put into practice future learning environments.

2 Institutional challenges

Higher Education and Further Education are anxious to find savings in the delivery of learning after being asked to teach more students for less funding. How can these institutions respond? By considering increased use of flexible and open learning, developing new courses, competing for a wider audience of students and by creating independent learning materials, HE & FE may be able to deliver whilst keep quality standards high.

Some flexible and open learning solutions are immediately attractive. Learning direct skills and underpinning knowledge with interactive training software can be highly efficient. Seeking guidance through software for both operational and meta-cognitive advice could potentially reduce the load on busy lecturers and support staff. Internet delivery can mean freeing rooms, timetables and delivering interactive, large-group learning.

New courses which meet the needs of students keen to join the creative services are attractive. With information technology these are less concerned with traditional Computer Science and growing in the fields of Art and Design, Media and Music.

New students are to be found amongst those who live at a distance (including overseas) or those who live locally but cannot attend at the times the timetable offers. Students with disabilities are also to be sought, with modern I.T. solutions providing better than ever access to learning. In competing for all students, but particularly those from overseas, the ability to offer comprehensive cultural and linguistic support will allow institutions to stand out.

Modern computers can offer productive opportunities for multimedia development. This can include simple desk-top publishing with word-processing software and presentation slides to support lectures. But the new digital media may be equally easy to handle, using basic cut and paste ideas which many teachers are already comfortable with.

3 Challenges for Teachers

The relationship between teacher and pupil is changing from one where the teacher controlled the learner's activity, to one where the learner is empowered to learn. New sources of knowledge, based on CD-ROM encyclopaedias, and Internet mean that the teacher is no longer the 'sage on the stage' but now the 'guide on the side'.

Technology change continues and leads to a regularly updated curriculum in many fields, but particularly in technological disciplines. The needs of society mean new skills have to be tackled and new disciplines introduced.

The curriculum also becomes richer and multifaceted, many disciplines jostling for the teacher and learner’s attention. Increasingly, managing the learner’s curriculum to be responsive becomes an administrative as well as pedagogic task and support is necessary for even the most experienced and capable teacher.

4 Challenges for Learners

Classrooms have not changed much in this century. A photograph of a rows of desks facing the front with the lecturer speaking to an attentive audience can be difficult to place in one decade or another. Of course this is simple to manage for the teacher. The assumption is that the students will follow the lesson at the same pace, those who are capable may be bored and those who are not may struggle. Not all teaching and learning is like this.

The organisational requirements of traditional teaching methods have led to the simplest ideas of learning progression being imposed on learners in their school years. The traditional method demands that one learns and is measured against others who were born in the same year in spite of a diversity of competence, knowledge and learning styles - not only between individuals, but also for one individual across different subjects disciplines. In some contexts the diversity is too great to be accommodated by selection or streaming of learners. Research shows that in mathematics, sixteen year old students often show a range of competence varying from say that of a ten year old to that of a twenty year old. This problem can be even greater for mixed-experience groups of young adults with varying backgrounds from the world of work.

But this is not new. Ever since the middle ages, learners have had problems with their learning environment, as Adam Martindale remarked on his own education: "My hindrances were many: as first, many teachers, five in fewer years; secondly, none of these the best; thirdly a tedious method then and there used; fourthly, dullards in the same class with me, having power to confine me to their pace!"

5 Open Learning?

To resolve these problems, open and flexible learning methods based on sets of competencies have been proposed. ‘Open’ learning can mean one of two things: open entry to learning opportunities, without formal qualification, which is designed to encourage those who would not otherwise join courses; or open access to learning allowing learners to choose where, when, how and in what order and at what pace they study. Flexible learning involves some combination of these dimensions of choice, but too many degrees of freedom can be difficult to manage. In addition, due to a changing world of work in society, we expect learners to consider life-long learning as their goal.

It is useful to appreciate how supportive the traditional forms of teaching have been for learners: they would know where to learn - in a classroom; they would know when - according to a timetable; they would know how - often by instruction from an enthusiast; they would know about key points in the year - examinations, holidays, transitions to new courses; and they would certainly know that it would all stop at some point in the future and that they could then get on with real life and earn money. Most importantly they had friends and colleagues going through the same processes at each point of their learning career - if a learner was unsure about when, what, where or how then they could simply follow their peers. Their peers also provide a 'norm' against which the learner can measure their competence.

Open Learning could leave learners out at sea if appropriate learning support and cultural understanding is not in place.

Alan Kay in reporting to the US House of Representatives in 1995 remarks: "... Difficulty is not the real issue here. Belonging to a culture and building a personal identity are. We could call this "rite of passage" motivation. ...".

Alan Kay continues: "... Now something that is very hard to do, and which is not seen by a child as an important "rite of passage", is simply not going to be focused on with the intensity, stick-to-it-ness and tolerance of failure that is required to get over the hurdles. One of the great problems with the way most schools are set up is that the children quickly sense that most of the stuff they are asked to do is not "real", especially as opposed to optional activities like sports and games, art and music. They know these are "real", and a school has to go to great lengths to make them artificial enough for the children to lose interest. ..."

If learners are to cope with flexible, life-long learning to meet their own and society’s needs, they require support for the many decisions and uncertainties that arise. This implies greater awareness of their own learning process, responsibility for planning learning & setting targets, self assessment & testing and reflection on progress. The teacher or tutor is also faced with a new style of working which involves facilitating learning rather than delivering knowledge. The components in such a learning environment include rich sets of learning activities graded to match the desired competency levels and categorised by topic; suggested pathways for working through the materials together with guidance on how to set targets; tests to identify starting points and to measure progress; advice to learners on how to maintain portfolios of evidence from their activities to prepare for formal assessment; support for self-reflection on learning styles and competency to present a profile of current progress.

Depending on the degree of flexibility, these components can be offered by direct guidance from the teacher or tutor or can depend on the learner completely. Traditionally paperwork, audio and video and mixed media study packs are used to deliver many of these components. Computers can help organise flexible learning by interactively offering much of the simpler guidance directly in context with some learning activities - in particular those tackling underpinning knowledge presented through multimedia techniques.

6 Multimedia materials

Multimedia is the integration of digital media such as text, sound, graphics, animation, and video. Interactive control and novel, meaningful combinations of these media make multimedia materials highly appropriate for presentation of learning materials. For example, digital video can include not only video and sound tracks but also multiple text tracks permitting sub-titling, alternative languages, keyword labelling and data to be linked to a movie.

Interactivity lets learners choose pace and route through material, take risks without penalty and in the case of simulations show the consequences of decisions made by the learner. Ready repetition of key details, in the control of the learner, can help comprehension and omission of familiar material can avoid boredom. Interactive control by the learner can increase motivation, empower the learner and lead to greater autonomy.

7 Multimedia is natural

To many adults, multimedia seems demanding, sophisticated, expensive and even frivolous. To young learners it is no more than the expected, since their real environment includes all the ‘media’ and it’s no surprise to them when television or animated games appear on a computer screen. Multimedia also benefits learners by offering redundancy in the presentation of information: text may be presented alongside picture and overlaid with sound, each part telling the same story and reinforcing each other.

This strongly communicative approach helps learners make sense of challenging material and offers choice and support to the learner who is not skilled in reading text or who finds listening difficult. Where text alone can only create context by extensive description, multimedia can quickly establish the circumstances of learning which help learners understand meaning by filling the metaphorical ‘white space’ between the words and letters.

We have special words for people who have impairments of speech, writing, vision or hearing; we have special words for computers with all these attributes. Its likely that we will see computers without these capabilities as disabled in the very near future.

Competence with text has been the major defining factor in learning, which makes a very narrow pathway for learners to achieve success. Multimedia offers a broader path allowing competence with speech, listening and visual interpretations to stand alongside writing and reading. Multimedia may redefine literacy.

8 Multimedia and affect

Well designed interactive multimedia also offers learners delight, influencing them to enjoy the learning experience - their 'affective' mode. Although to many, delight may not seem an appropriate factor in the serious business of learning, it is clearly effective in helping learning take place. Delight in this sense is motivating and memorable: in the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, inventor of the notion of quality in business management, it is not adequate to simply satisfy customers (learners in this case) it is necessary to delight them, with the consequence that delighted customers become your best sales representatives and in the case of learning, perhaps engender a learning culture. Alongside the concept of delight in learning is the element of surprise. Computer software can offer random elements which surprise the learner, avoid repetition and maintain interest & motivation.

9 Selecting multimedia

There is a considerable amount of multimedia materials available to choose from - many are 'multimediocre', offering surface 'gloss' but little depth or learning. Materials which do not offer some degree of progression and continuity are to be avoided - students should be able to work at their level of competence and avoid repetition of material already known. Materials that can be used immediately but also adapted by the tutor (or learner) are more likely to be adopted than those which impose inflexible pedagogy or alienate those involved.

There are many technical criteria related to media and design quality such as the use of appropriate colour, contrast, layout and human computer interface. More important is that the materials offer learners ownership and control over the learning environment - self-paced learning means that the software does not take over, but responds effectively to students expressed need. Three models of involvement can be identified - narrative, interactive, participative. Television offers narrative modes where the learner simply watches and responds. Most multimedia products permit interactive modes of use, but not so many are designed for the learner to be in participative mode where the learner is actively involved in reconstruction or representation of knowledge: learning by doing.

Materials should also support the learner in making sense of their progress and revealing explicitly the curriculum covered and the alternative levels to be adopted. Working with others can develop a sense of competence in a competitive way - more often welcome when learners are working independently of the teacher. Some of these ideas are well expressed in popular and successful computer games which keep people involved for long periods of time.

10 Developing multimedia

Multimedia development is becoming increasingly straightforward technically, but nevertheless requires a multidisciplinary team of authors to create high quality materials. Typically, programmers, graphic designers, animators, subject specialists and learning experts are involved. Video materials can involve film crews, actors and scriptwriters. A major aspect of developing multimedia is the design of interactivity and hypermedia links - authors are familiar with linear narrative, but creating non-linear pathways can be challenging.

Key design elements include careful consideration of the learning requirement and what knowledge is to be presented. Designing accurate self-assessment on the computer is necessary to allow students to progress independently and with confidence, but this is not easy except for testing factual recall. More complex competencies best depend on students assessing their own performance in simulation situations where the intended outcome is understood and the consequences of students decisions are shown by the software. Artificial intelligence techniques for tutoring complex student performance are not well developed: human assessors are very successful in identifying partially correct but adequate responses, but the computer cannot readily support this important aspect of learning.

The development process is iterative and although capable of some automation, is a craft rather than a manufacturing process: user testing is critical for success. Analysis of design failure provides the basis for creative development.

CD-ROM is highly cost effective for distribution of multimedia learning materials, costing less than 50c per disk to reproduce in quantity, yet storing 650 Mb of data. Retail prices for CD-ROM materials usually reflect the more significant development costs as well as production costs.

11 Internet

The Internet offers large quantities of information from countless educational institutions and, increasingly, commercial organisations across the world. Most importantly, it also offers human communication between individuals and groups and opportunities for very small enterprises to publish on a very large scale at low cost.

New opportunities for learners to collaborate with others having their specialist and minority interests are a major benefit of Internet. Although plagiarism is not a new problem, new dimensions arise for teacher's when learners can cheaply swap essays and homework nationally and internationally.

Currently the Internet is offering new opportunities for learning, managing learning and coordinating the learning environment at all levels. Teachers and learners are naturally collaborative individuals who benefit from the possibilities for debate, constructive criticism, access to information and sharing of resources. Internet connections can support these functions across a wide community of education and training, permitting self-help groups to develop and sustain knowledge transfer. This community building can be local, national and international widening access to education and training. Crucially, 'identity' is needed for individuals to enhance participation and reasonably cheap connection time to encourage risk-taking with this new environment. Organisation infrastructure, leadership and information services must be provided to augment basic communication and this can solve problems for both authorities and the education community by maintaining awareness of technology and curriculum change and by helping to put policy into practice. In the medium term, Internet may replace CD-ROM as a delivery mechanism for multimedia resources, but there is still a place for CD-ROM until broadband, inexpensive network infrastructure is in place.

12 Conclusions

We should provide learning opportunities which are and continue to be more responsive to individuals and to technological, curricular and societal change. In order to achieve this, learning resources must be organised, learner competencies identified and guidance for both teachers/tutors and learners developed, to support open and flexible learning. Multimedia computers have a major role to play both in presenting knowledge, organising learning, communicating guidance and as tools for learners which change our definition of literacy. Participative Internet tools facilitate the natural capacity for humans to collaborate and to react rapidly to technological and societal change, which in part is promoted by Internet itself. Our opportunity is to help learners access knowledge, teachers develop professionally and all to excel in including multimedia in education.

My handout notes:

Building a Learning Community

Richard Millwood

ULTRALAB

Anglia Polytechnic University

1 Introduction

ULTRALAB is a learning technology research centre based at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU). APU is a new university in the UK with a vocational, polytechnic tradition of higher education in partnership with industrial and commercial organisations in the East Anglia region.

ULTRALAB develops learning software for all age groups and both formal and informal learning contexts. It works as an ideas factory, CD-ROM developer and active partner in international projects.

ULTRALAB’s capacity to articulate ideas based on a decade and a half of experience has created a demand for consultancy helping major clients such as Apple Computer, British Telecom, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Finnish company Teleste OY to plan and put into practice future learning environments.

2 Institutional challenges

Higher Education and Further Education are anxious to find savings in the delivery of learning after being asked to teach more students for less funding. How can these institutions respond? By considering increased use of flexible and open learning, developing new courses, competing for a wider audience of students and by creating independent learning materials, HE & FE may be able to deliver whilst keep quality standards high.

Some flexible and open learning solutions are immediately attractive. Learning direct skills and underpinning knowledge with interactive training software can be highly efficient. Seeking guidance through software for both operational and meta-cognitive advice could potentially reduce the load on busy lecturers and support staff. Internet delivery can mean freeing rooms, timetables and delivering interactive, large-group learning.

New courses which meet the needs of students keen to join the creative services are attractive. With information technology these are less concerned with traditional Computer Science and growing in the fields of Art and Design, Media and Music.

New students are to be found amongst those who live at a distance (including overseas) or those who live locally but cannot attend at the times the timetable offers. Students with disabilities are also to be sought, with modern I.T. solutions providing better than ever access to learning. In competing for all students, but particularly those from overseas, the ability to offer comprehensive cultural and linguistic support will allow institutions to stand out.

Modern computers can offer productive opportunities for multimedia development. This can include simple desk-top publishing with word-processing software and presentation slides to support lectures. But the new digital media may be equally easy to handle, using basic cut and paste ideas which many teachers are already comfortable with.

3 Challenges for Teachers

The relationship between teacher and pupil is changing from one where the teacher controlled the learner's activity, to one where the learner is empowered to learn. New sources of knowledge, based on CD-ROM encyclopeadias, and Internet mean that the teacher is no longer the 'sage on the stage' but now the 'guide on the side'.

Technology change continues and leads to a regularly updated curriculum in many fields, but particularly in technological disciplines. The needs of society mean new skills have to be tackled and new disciplines introduced.

The curriculum also becomes richer and multifaceted, many disciplines jostling for the teacher and learner’s attention. Increasingly, managing the learner’s curriculum to be responsive becomes an administrative as well as pedagogic task and support is necessary for even the most experienced and capable teacher.

4 Challenges for Learners

Classrooms have not changed much in this century. A photograph of a rows of desks facing the front with the lecturer speaking to an attentive audience can be difficult to place in one decade or another. Of course this is simple to manage for the teacher. The assumption is that the students will follow the lesson at the same pace, those who are capable may be bored and those who are not may struggle. Not all teaching and learning is like this.

The organisational requirements of traditional teaching methods have led to the simplest ideas of learning progression being imposed on learners in their school years. The traditional method demands that one learns and is measured against others who were born in the same year in spite of a diversity of competence, knowledge and learning styles - not only between individuals, but also for one individual across different subjects disciplines. In some contexts the diversity is too great to be accommodated by selection or streaming of learners. Research shows that in mathematics, sixteen year old students often show a range of competence varying from say that of a ten year old to that of a twenty year old. This problem can be even greater for mixed-experience groups of young adults with varying backgrounds from the world of work.

But this is not new. Ever since the middle ages, learners have had problems with their learning environment, as Adam Martindale remarked on his own education: "My hindrances were many: as first, many teachers, five in fewer years; secondly, none of these the best; thirdly a tedious method then and there used; fourthly, dullards in the same class with me, having power to confine me to their pace!"

5 Open Learning?

To resolve these problems, open and flexible learning methods based on sets of competencies have been proposed. ‘Open’ learning can mean one of two things: open entry to learning opportunities, without formal qualification, which is designed to encourage those who would not otherwise join courses; or open access to learning allowing learners to choose where, when, how and in what order and at what pace they study. Flexible learning involves some combination of these dimensions of choice, but too many degrees of freedom can be difficult to manage. In addition, due to a changing world of work in society, we expect learners to consider life-long learning as their goal.

It is useful to appreciate how supportive the traditional forms of teaching have been for learners: they would know where to learn - in a classroom; they would know when - according to a timetable; they would know how - often by instruction from an enthusiast; they would know about key points in the year - examinations, holidays, transitions to new courses; and they would certainly know that it would all stop at some point in the future and that they could then get on with real life and earn money. Most importantly they had friends and colleagues going through the same processes at each point of their learning career - if a learner was unsure about when, what, where or how then they could simply follow their peers. Their peers also provide a 'norm' against which the learner can measure their competence.

Open Learning could leave learners out at sea if appropriate learning support and cultural understanding is not in place.

Alan Kay in reporting to the US House of Representatives in 1995 remarks: "... Difficulty is not the real issue here. Belonging to a culture and building a personal identity are. We could call this "rite of passage" motivation. ...".

Alan Kay continues: "... Now something that is very hard to do, and which is not seen by a child as an important "rite of passage", is simply not going to be focused on with the intensity, stick-to-it-ness and tolerance of failure that is required to get over the hurdles. One of the great problems with the way most schools are set up is that the children quickly sense that most of the stuff they are asked to do is not "real", especially as opposed to optional activities like sports and games, art and music. They know these are "real", and a school has to go to great lengths to make them artificial enough for the children to lose interest. ..."

If learners are to cope with flexible, life-long learning to meet their own and society’s needs, they require support for the many decisions and uncertainties that arise. This implies greater awareness of their own learning process, responsibility for planning learning & setting targets, self assessment & testing and reflection on progress. The teacher or tutor is also faced with a new style of working which involves facilitating learning rather than delivering knowledge. The components in such a learning environment include rich sets of learning activities graded to match the desired competency levels and categorised by topic; suggested pathways for working through the materials together with guidance on how to set targets; tests to identify starting points and to measure progress; advice to learners on how to maintain portfolios of evidence from their activities to prepare for formal assessment; support for self-reflection on learning styles and competency to present a profile of current progress.

Depending on the degree of flexibility, these components can be offered by direct guidance from the teacher or tutor or can depend on the learner completely. Traditionally paperwork, audio and video and mixed media study packs are used to deliver many of these components. Computers can help organise flexible learning by interactively offering much of the simpler guidance directly in context with some learning activities - in particular those tackling underpinning knowledge presented through multimedia techniques.

6 Multimedia materials

Multimedia is the integration of digital media such as text, sound, graphics, animation, and video. Interactive control and novel, meaningful combinations of these media make multimedia materials highly appropriate for presentation of learning materials. For example, digital video can include not only video and sound tracks but also multiple text tracks permitting sub-titling, alternative languages, keyword labelling and data to be linked to a movie.

Interactivity lets learners choose pace and route through material, take risks without penalty and in the case of simulations show the consequences of decisions made by the learner. Ready repetition of key details, in the control of the learner, can help comprehension and omission of familiar material can avoid boredom. Interactive control by the learner can increase motivation, empower the learner and lead to greater autonomy.

7 Multimedia is natural

To many adults, multimedia seems demanding, sophisticated, expensive and even frivolous. To young learners it is no more than the expected, since their real environment includes all the ‘media’ and it’s no surprise to them when television or animated games appear on a computer screen. Multimedia also benefits learners by offering redundancy in the presentation of information: text may be presented alongside picture and overlaid with sound, each part telling the same story and reinforcing each other.

This strongly communicative approach helps learners make sense of challenging material and offers choice and support to the learner who is not skilled in reading text or who finds listening difficult. Where text alone can only create context by extensive description, multimedia can quickly establish the circumstances of learning which help learners understand meaning by filling the metaphorical ‘white space’ between the words and letters.

We have special words for people who have impairments of speech, writing, vision or hearing; we have special words for computers with all these attributes. Its likely that we will see computers without these capabilities as disabled in the very near future.

Competence with text has been the major defining factor in learning, which makes a very narrow pathway for learners to achieve success. Multimedia offers a broader path allowing competence with speech, listening and visual interpretations to stand alongside writing and reading. Multimedia may redefine literacy.

8 Multimedia and affect

Well designed interactive multimedia also offers learners delight, influencing them to enjoy the learning experience - their 'affective' mode. Although to many, delight may not seem an appropriate factor in the serious business of learning, it is clearly effective in helping learning take place. Delight in this sense is motivating and memorable: in the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming, inventor of the notion of quality in business management, it is not adequate to simply satisfy customers (learners in this case) it is necessary to delight them, with the consequence that delighted customers become your best sales representatives and in the case of learning, perhaps engender a learning culture. Alongside the concept of delight in learning is the element of surprise. Computer software can offer random elements which surprise the learner, avoid repetition and maintain interest & motivation.

9 Selecting multimedia

There is a considerable amount of multimedia materials available to choose from - many are 'multimediocre', offering surface 'gloss' but little depth or learning. Materials which do not offer some degree of progression and continuity are to be avoided - students should be able to work at their level of competence and avoid repetition of material already known. Materials that can be used immediately but also adapted by the tutor (or learner) are more likely to be adopted than those which impose inflexible pedagogy or alienate those involved.

There are many technical criteria related to media and design quality such as the use of appropriate colour, contrast, layout and human computer interface. More important is that the materials offer learners ownership and control over the learning environment - self-paced learning means that the software does not take over, but responds effectively to students expressed need. Three models of involvement can be identified - narrative, interactive, participative. Television offers narrative modes where the learner simply watches and responds. Most multimedia products permit interactive modes of use, but not so many are designed for the learner to be in participative mode where the learner is actively involved in re-construction or representation of knowledge: learning by doing.

Materials should also support the learner in making sense of their progress and revealing explicitly the curriculum covered and the alternative levels to be adopted. Working with others can develop a sense of competence in a competitive way - more often welcome when learners are working independently of the teacher. Some of these ideas are well expressed in popular and successful computer games which keep people involved for long periods of time.

10 Developing multimedia

Multimedia development is becoming increasingly straightforward technically, but nevertheless requires a multidisciplinary team of authors to create high quality materials. Typically, programmers, graphic designers, animators, subject specialists and learning experts are involved. Video materials can involve film crews, actors and scriptwriters. A major aspect of developing multimedia is the design of interactivity and hypermedia links - authors are familiar with linear narrative, but creating non-linear pathways can be challenging.

Key design elements include careful consideration of the learning requirement and what knowledge is to be presented. Designing accurate self-assessment on the computer is necessary to allow students to progress independently and with confidence, but this is not easy except for testing factual recall. More complex competencies best depend on students assessing their own performance in simulation situations where the intended outcomeis understood and the consequences of students decisions are shown by the software. Artificial intelligence techniques for tutoring complex student performance are not well developed: human assessors are very successful in identifying partially correct but adequate responses, but the computer cannot readily support this important aspect of learning.

The development process is iterative and although capable of some automation, is a craft rather than a manufacturing process: user testing is critical for success. Analysis of design failure provides the basis for creative development.

CD-ROM is highly cost effective for distribution of multimedia learning materials, costing less than 50c per disk to reproduce in quantity, yet storing 650 Mb of data. Retail prices for CD-ROM materials usually reflect the more significant development costs as well as production costs.

11 Internet

The Internet offers large quantities of information from countless educational institutions and, increasingly, commercial organisations across the world. Most importantly, it also offers human communication between individuals and groups and opportunities for very small enterprises to publish on a very large scale at low cost.

New opportunities for learners to collaborate with others having their specialist and minority interests are a major benefit of Internet. Although plagiarism is not a new problem, new dimensions arise for teacher's when learners can cheaply swap essays and homework nationally and internationally.

Currently the Internet is offering new opportunities for learning, managing learning and coordinating the learning environment at all levels. Teachers and learners are naturally collaborative individuals who benefit from the possibilities for debate, constructive criticism, access to information and sharing of resources. Internet connections can support these functions across a wide community of education and training, permitting self-help groups to develop and sustain knowledge transfer. This community building can be local, national and international widening access to education and training. Crucially, 'identity' is needed for individuals to enhance participation and reasonably cheap connection time to encourage risk-taking with this new environment. Organisation infrastructure, leadership and information services must be provided to augment basic communication and this can solve problems for both authorities and the education community by maintaining awareness of technology and curriculum change and by helping to put policy into practice. In the medium term, Internet may replace CD-ROM as a delivery mechanism for multimedia resources, but there is still a place for CD-ROM until broadband, inexpensive network infrastructure is in place.

12 Conclusions

We should provide learning opportunities which are, and continue to be, more responsive to individuals and to technological, curricular and societal change. In order to achieve this, learning resources must be organised, learner competencies identified and guidance for both teachers/tutors and learners developed, to support open and flexible learning. Multimedia computers have a major role to play both in presenting knowledge, organising learning, communicating guidance and as tools for learners which change our definition of literacy. Participative Internet tools facilitate the natural capacity for humans to collaborate and to react rapidly to technological and societal change, which in part is promoted by Internet itself.

Institutions will have to commit resources for the professional development of all its staff and it won't be good to wait for demand from staff who are unaware of possibilities, but better to promote IT based on sound vision. Our opportunity is to help learners access knowledge, teachers develop professionally and all to excel through building a learning community.

Copyright 1996 Anglia Polytechnic University

Aim: To develop the design proposition for online communities of practice to support the continuing professional development of teachers.

Reflection: TeacherNet UK allowed me to consolidate and apply my design ideas about a comprehensive, national & professional online community. This included the establishment of professional online values, the notion of a passport for professional identity and a profiling mechanism to enable teachers to claim their competencies and develop a portfolio of evidence. It was a participant action research as I took the role of designer, developer and company director.

Towards the end of this period, I became involved in developing using HyperCard and with colleagues wrote books to guide others on how to design in this environment. We also began to create interactive multimedia and CD-ROM software.

Contribution: In TeacherNet UK, I co-designed and developed the organisation itself, designed, developed and maintained the initial website, made many conference presentations and acted as one of six directors of the company. I exercised national and European thought leadership to establish notions of informal professional development online. My part: 25% (with Marilyn Leask, Norbert Pachler, Darren Leafe, Kryss Durling and Keith Byrom)

Originality, impact and importance: TeacherNetUK was inspired by the Australian OZTeacherNet, but proposed original think around continuing professional development for teachers and self-profiling of teachers in order to match content to their interests. Although it did not become a mass-movement, it enjoyed a considerable membership for a time and was in demand by UK government and industry for consultancy, culminating in the government creating its own TeacherNet service with the help of members of the team.

TeacherNet (UK) was established in 1996, following consultation with and support from DfEE, British Council, NCET (then BECTA), TTA, OFSTED, private sector, Scottish Office, professional associations teachers and teacher educators.

TeacherNet (UK) established philosophy, principles and practice underpinnning a national web site centred on teachers interests and professional development.  It explored many avenues for developing, financing, managing and sustaining a service whilst maintaining independence from government and the private sector in order to ensure effective change with teachers by winning their confidence. As a result it formed a not-for-profit company named TeacherNet to form a charity, run seminars and conferences, work with innovative practitioners to publish in books and journals, advise DfEE and the General Teaching Council and others.  It also explored the possibility with companies such as BESA, ICT companies and publishers and others to develop teacher-centred e-commerce solutions using profiling.  TeacherNet (UK) had a paid membership composed of a relatively small number of teachers.

Amongst the aspects and innovations developed in the Schools Online project I discussed were:

• Curriculum focus
• Annotations
• Live editing
• Guidance
• Comment and communication
• Continuity to Phase 2

I went on to become one of six founding director of the TeacherNet UK project together with Marilyn Leask, Norbert Pachler, Darren Leafe, Krys Durling and Keith Byrom.

The project was ultimately consumed by the government's own information service of the same name.

Overview of my presentation:

1 Introduction

2 Institutional challenges

3 Challenges for teachers

4 Challenges for learners

5 Open learning?

6 Learning materials

7 Multimedia is natural

8 Multimedia and  affect

9 Selecting multimedia

10 Developing multimedia

11 Internet

12 Conclusions

My presentation outline was published in the magazine of the group 'Interfaces' No 35 Summer 1997 ISSN 1351-119X –

The full programme included:

The British HCI Group

A Specialist Group of the British Computer Society
London, Thursday 5th December 1996

Usability and Educational Software Design

School of Education, King's College London, Waterloo Road, London SE1 8WA
(The School of Education is five minutes walk from Waterloo Station)

Meeting Chair and Organiser: David Squires, King's College

Topic: The usability  of educational software is often conceived in terms of simply operating the software, without a consideration of the implications of usability features for achieving educational goals.  In this sense the integration of usability and educational issues is not considered.  This leads to consideration of arbitrary usability features which may or may not be important to achieving educational goals.  As multimedia educational software, with attractive and easier to use interfaces becomes available, attention to usability may become even more limited.  A feeling that  interface problems have been solved may prevail.  This would be unfortunate, as it would encourage the continued neglect of the relationship between usability and educational issues.

Programme

9.30 Registration and coffee

10.00 Chairman's Introduction

10.10 David Squires, King's College & Jenny Preece, South Bank University
Towards a set of usability heuristics in educational software design

10.40 Richard Millwood, Anglia Polytechnic University
Issues in multimedia educational software design

11.10 Coffee

11.30  Margaret Cox, King's College
Motivation and educational software design

12.00 Terry Mayes, Glasgow Caledonian University

Why learning is not just another kind of work

12.30 Lunch

1.30 Ann Jones, Open University
Implications from a distance education perspective for evaluation

2.00 Irene Neilson, University of Liverpool
Design issues in engineering CAL: some lessons from TLTP

2.30 Wendy Hall, University of Southampton

Ending the tyranny of the button

3.00 Tea

3.15 Panel and discussion

4.00 Meeting closes