Multimedia integration in online courses.Abstract Rapidly developing technologies have influenced online education causing substantial changes in course design. We interviewed six online educators in a mid-western university about their course development experiences. Special attention was paid to multimedia integration. Questions included: multimedia integration in course components, multimedia development, multimedia training, multimedia and student learning, and future multimedia trends. Three themes emerged--a growth in multimedia integration in online classes, more focus on multimedia facilitated interaction and feedback, and the positive relationship between instructor training and multimedia integration in online courses. Introduction Education has experienced three major historical revolutions (Ehrmann, 1999). The first happened 2500 years ago when oral communication between teachers and students was supplemented and in some case replaced with reading and writing. A second upheaval occurred when students and teachers shared the same facilities such as libraries and laboratories, shaping today's educational community and campus life. The most recent revolution has been "made possible by computing computing - computer , video and telecommunication telecommunication Communication between parties at a distance from one another. Modern telecommunication systems—capable of transmitting telephone, fax, data, radio, or television signals—can transmit large volumes of information over long distances. " (Ehrmann, 1999). Fahmy (2004) termed this a "technology revolution" and asserted that this change enlarged learner groups and, in particular, is now having inevitable impacts on the way universities deliver services. Looking back at the last century, there had been a profound relationship between technologies and education, especially in the field of distance education. As a matter of fact, "all communication technologies have been used at some point as vehicles to transmit To send data over a communications line. See transfer. instruction and support education at a distance, including letters, newspapers, film, radio, television, and most recently, computers with web-based connections" (Clark, 2003). While the impact of technology applications on distance education had been generally positive, the force was relatively small until the widespread arrival of the World Wide Web in 1995. This "changed the distance learning landscape" (James James, person in the Bible James, in the Gospel of St. Luke, kinsman of St. Jude. The original does not specify the relationship. James, rivers, United States James. , 2001) and made online education the centerpiece of distance education. It is probably sale to say that computers and the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the shaped and continue to mold mold, name for certain multicellular organisms of the various classes of the kingdom Fungi, characteristically having bodies composed of a cottony mycelium. The colors of molds are caused by the spores, which are borne on the mycelium. the way online education appears today. Computer technology and Internet applications have unremittingly developed at an astonishingly a·ston·ish tr.v. as·ton·ished, as·ton·ish·ing, as·ton·ish·es To fill with sudden wonder or amazement. See Synonyms at surprise. exploding speed. In 2000 US Internet users Internet user n → internauta m/f Internet user Internet n → internaute m/f were estimated to be over 95,000,000, 33% of the national population. In June 2005, only five years later, US Internet users climbed to over 202,000,000, 68% of the population ("Internet World Stats", n.d.). America evolved a net generation and the Internet has become the choice communication and information source for many people. For this newly emerged wireless "net generation," technology is everywhere. Higher education higher education Study beyond the level of secondary education. Institutions of higher education include not only colleges and universities but also professional schools in such fields as law, theology, medicine, business, music, and art. , like any other segment in our society, is influenced by technologies and always strives for the necessary changes to use it (Fahmy, 2004). "The information revolution that is radically altering our whole world at an ever-accelerating pace touches every aspect of university life" ("University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. : president's information revolution commission report", n.d.). This change has powerfully influenced the distance education environment. Broadband broadband Term describing the radiation from a source that produces a broad, continuous spectrum of frequencies (contrasted with a laser, which produces a single frequency or very narrow range of frequencies). growth, course management systems, and easy to use software have infiltrated the ways online education is presented and delivered. From 1996 on, when course management systems like WebCT, e-college, and Blackboard (1) See Blackboard Learning System. (2) The traditional classroom presentation board that is written on with chalk and erased with a felt pad. Although originally black, "white" boards and colored chalks are also used. began to emerge, many instructors started using online instruction, mostly text-based word-processed documents, Adobe adobe (ədō`bē): see rammed earth. adobe Handmade sun-dried bricks formed from a mixture of heavy clay and straw found in arid regions. Acrobat Document exchange software from Adobe that allows documents to be displayed and printed the same on every computer. The Acrobat system created the Portable Document Format (PDF), which is widely used in commercial printing and on the Web. See PDF. PDF files See PDF. , online discussion boards, and e-mail exchanges. Today, as more multimedia presentation tools such as audio, video, animations, and games have migrated to the Web, it would be expected that instructors would be revising their text based Also called "character based," it refers to handling text and not graphics. Simple charts and illustrations may be drawn, but they are limited to a set of special characters that are strung together to make up lines and shades (see OEM font). online courses by adding the more robust multimedia tools. In this setting, we undertook a series of preliminary interviews with faculty to gain insights into the current status of online education compared to five years ago and the changes over time in design and delivery of instruction with a particular focus on multimedia use and integration. We sought to better understand how online educators are using multimedia in their courses and to predict where online multimedia use might be headed. Methodology To study the perceptions and experiences of educators who have been developing online teaching materials, we visited 15 online course sites offered by various departments at a large mid-western university. Each of the 15 course sites was categorized cat·e·go·rize tr.v. cat·e·go·rized, cat·e·go·riz·ing, cat·e·go·riz·es To put into a category or categories; classify. cat according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the degree of multimedia integration (1= text based to 5 = multimedia rich). Six online courses representing each of these five levels of multimedia integration were purposefully pur·pose·ful adj. 1. Having a purpose; intentional: a purposeful musician. 2. Having or manifesting purpose; determined: entered the room with a purposeful look. sampled from the 15 reviewed course sites. Of the six, two representative courses from level four were selected because of their very complete descriptions and their capability to help us understand multimedia integration possibilities. Course instructors of the six online courses were then interviewed. Interviews were organized into five sections related to multimedia integration in the online course. Questions were open ended and covered: * Course components--multimedia (such as text, graphics, audio and video, etc) integrated in the course five years ago; multimedia integrated in the course currently; description of new multimedia application(s); advantages and disadvantages of new multimedia application(s); and the reason(s) for utilizing multimedia into course delivery. * Course development--means by which multimedia course materials were developed (by instructors and/or external assistants); expectations about instructional designers' roles in online course development. * Training--attendance at any training to learn online instruction or multimedia development; future development needs. * Student learning--instructor perception of the satisfaction level of student learning with multimedia course delivery; desirable multimedia improvements to enhance student learning. * Trends--expectations of multimedia course components in the future; prediction of the impact of new multimedia tools on online course delivery. The researchers conducted the interviews with instructors. Some interviews were done in-person and some were collected by telephone; Notes were made during all the interviews. A thematic the·mat·ic adj. 1. Of, relating to, or being a theme: a scene of thematic importance. 2. approach was used to analyze data obtained from the interviews (Creswell, 2005). The interview data were coded based on the level of multimedia integration. This was done for each of the five sections. Next, we collapsed the five sections into one and looked for similar coding among the interview data. Then we reviewed the aggregated data to see if there were commonalities or themes; that is, we looked at all the interview data to identify similar comments, common applications, and results from multimedia integration between the six courses. The aggregated data revealed three overarching o·ver·arch·ing adj. 1. Forming an arch overhead or above: overarching branches. 2. Extending over or throughout: "I am not sure whether the missing ingredient . . . multimedia themes. Findings Theme One: Multimedia Integration To promote meaningful learning, online instructors are starting to incorporate multimedia products to present subject matter to students. Products used include PowerPoint slideshows, Flash multimedia animations, of streaming video A one-way video transmission over a data network. It is widely used on the Web as well as company networks to play video clips and video broadcasts. Computers in home networks stream video to digital media hubs connected to a home theater. . All the instructors interviewed stated that, compared with their course presentations five years ago, they now have more multimedia materials included, such as pictures, PowerPoint slides, audio and video, either as downloadable QuickTime movies in a course site of on a CD mailed to students. Compared with five years ago, both faculty and students have access to more advanced computer hardware and software, allowing for the integration of various multimedia components. This also reflects the growth of Broadband applications to even remote learners. One instructor indicated, "The technology has improved to the point that few students now have difficulty accessing the materials that I have created for the class. Formerly, there were students who struggled with configuring their computer properly." All faculty recognized and agreed with the growth in technology sophistication so·phis·ti·cate v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates v.tr. 1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2. . All interviewed instructors predicted that more integration of multimedia would be a future development for online courses. Compared to five years ago, today's online courses are somewhat more media rich; this is because of the development of easy to use programs like PowerPoint. In addition, technology itself has improved to the point that few students now have trouble with their computers of accessing class multimedia materials. In 2005, advanced technologies, increasing online capacity and personal experiences with online classes would make technology-savvy students out of most learners. However, one instructor did state her concern regarding limited faculty time to design and develop high quality multimedia materials. All instructors were concerned about the fast changing media such as expanded broadband applications that created new learning demands from students. Theme Two: Interaction and Feedback with Multimedia Tools In addition to multimedia integration, a second theme surfacing from interview data was the substantial increase of student-to-student and student-to-instructor interaction because of multimedia use. All the instructors interviewed use web-based discussion boards to enhance instructor-student and student-student interaction. Three instructors also indicated that they were striving to improve the level of feedback through multimedia tools like discussion boards, chat rooms, or e-mailed video feedback. One of the six instructors used the online chat tool provided in the course management system to promote instructor feedback in the final exam Noun 1. final exam - an examination administered at the end of an academic term final examination, final exam, examination, test - a set of questions or exercises evaluating skill or knowledge; "when the test was stolen the professor had to make a new set of review session. Another instructor noted the feature of attaching and retrieving examples of feedback across student work. One teacher used PowerPoint with audio to prepare students for tests and to provide group feedback. Another instructor is starting to make small "movies" of herself in her office to welcome students to class, to provide introductions to the instructional units, and to offer group and individual feedback on selected course activities and exercises. From our interview sample, it appears that multimedia integration in online courses is growing in instructor applications for feedback and interaction. The importance of interaction and feedback in education has been widely studied and well documented in the literature (Chickering & Gamson, 1987, 1991). Research suggests that interaction and feedback are strong in promoting student perceptions of quality learning, fostering student development and encouraging student engagement (e.g. King & Doerfert, 1996; Topper Topper house he purchases is haunted by the young couple who owned it previously and their dog. [Am. Lit., Cin., TV: Topper in Halliwell, 718] See : Ghost Topper Hopalong Cassidy’s faithful horse. , 2005). Due to the geographic separation of instructor and students in online education, web-based interaction and feedback are particularly critical. Theme Three: Instructor's Role in Course Development and Training We found that all six instructors interviewed stated they got help and assistance from diverse sources such as instructional designers housed in their department or through the university, or the use of graduate students in some cases. However, the degree of support varied. Interestingly, our analysis indicated that instructors of media robust courses tended to have a large individual involvement in their courses' multimedia development. For example, the instructor of the most media robust course did most of the multimedia development and integration by himself, receiving some assistance for developing a web-based sign-up sheet. On the opposite end, the instructor whose course was mainly a text-based site was involved the least in course multimedia development. Most of the multimedia work for this instructor was made and integrated by instructional designers provided by his college. Multimedia training emerged as another issue. Five of six instructors interviewed attended training sessions, workshops or relevant conferences about the use of multimedia in online instruction. Topics ranged from practical skills such as how to use course management systems, working with multimedia products like PowerPoint, Acrobat, or Dreamweaver, to theoretical approaches such as design principles of online instruction. When we ranked the level of course multimedia integration and the level of instructor training participation, it appeared that there was a positive relationship between these two factors; that is, the higher level of multimedia integration in online courses was associated with more multimedia training for instructors. Discussion Our preliminary data suggest a continuum Continuum (pl. -tinua or -tinuums) can refer to:
* The most multimedia robust course site (evaluated on the degree of multimedia integrated and the level of interaction supported by multimedia technologies) is associated with more instructor involvement/participation in multimedia development/integration. The large portion of instructor involvement seems to be associated with more staff development and training. * The least multimedia robust course site (evaluated on the degree of multimedia integrated and the level of interaction supported by multimedia technologies) is associated with comparably less instructor involvement/participation in multimedia development/integration. In these cases, instructional designers did most of the multimedia development. The smaller portion of instructor involvement seems to be associated with less staff development and less training. This study suggests that instructor training plays a very essential role in multimedia integration. Training appears to correlate positively with instructor involvement of multimedia development. At the same time, the latter has a reciprocal Bilateral; two-sided; mutual; interchanged. Reciprocal obligations are duties owed by one individual to another and vice versa. A reciprocal contract is one in which the parties enter into mutual agreements. relationship with the degree of multimedia integration. This interpretation suggests and reinforces the importance of training, which provides educators the opportunities to understand design principles of online teaching and master the skills of using multimedia technologies. However, since the sample size of this study is small (only six online instructors were interviewed), we suggest that further research with a bigger sample size is warranted. From this study, it appears that multimedia integration is gradually but steadily taking place in online courses, especially where faculty have been involved in training. This trend is inevitable as an outcome of the impact of today's rapidly developing technologies. Fascinating technologies are building higher education a generation of technology-savvy students. As a result, more multimedia rich online education environments are needed to fulfill ful·fill also ful·fil tr.v. ful·filled, ful·fill·ing, ful·fills also ful·fils 1. To bring into actuality; effect: fulfilled their promises. 2. student needs. References Clark, R. E. (2003). Research on web-based learning. In R. H. Bruning., C.A.Horn & L.M. PytlikZillig (Eds.), Web-based learning. What do we know? Where do we go? (pp. 1-22). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Chickering, A. W, & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education undergraduate education Medtalk In the US, a 4+ yr college or university education leading to a baccalaureate degree, the minimum education level required for medical school admission; undergraduate medical education refers to the 4 yrs of medical school. Cf CME. . AAHE AAHE American Association for Higher Education AAHE American Association for Health Education AAHE American Association of Housing Educators AAHE Arlington Association of Home Educators (Arlington, TX) Bulletin, 39, 3-7. Chickering, A. W., and Gamson, Z. F. (1991). Applying the seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 47 (Fall). San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden : Jossey-Bass Inc. Creswell, J. W. (2005). Education Research. UpperSaddle River, N J: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall Prentice Hall is a leading educational publisher. It is an imprint of Pearson Education, Inc., based in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6-12 and higher education market. History In 1913, law professor Dr. . Ehrmann, S. C. (1999) Technology's grand challenges. Academe. Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors American Association of University Professors (AAUP), organization of college and university teachers. It was founded (1915) for the purpose of defending faculty rights, most notably academic freedom and tenure (see tenure, in education). . 85 (5), 42-46. Fahmy, M. F. (2004). Thinking about technology effects on higher education. The journal of technology studies, 33(1), 53-58. Internet World Stats. (n.d.). United States of America UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The name of this country. The United States, now thirty-one in number, are Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, internet usage and broadband usage report. Retrieved August 11, 2005, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/us.htm James, L. (2001). Going the distance. Publishers Weekly, 248(26), 37-41. King, J. C., & Doerfert, D. L. (1996). Interaction in the distance education setting. Retrieved October 26, 2005, from http://www.ssu.missouri Missouri, state, United States Missouri (mĭz  r`ē, –ə), one of the midwestern states of the United States. .edu/ssu/AgEd/NAERM/s-e-4.htm Topper, A. (2005). Facilitating student interactions through discursive dis·cur·sive adj. 1. Covering a wide field of subjects; rambling. 2. Proceeding to a conclusion through reason rather than intuition. moves. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 6(1), 55-68. University of Michigan: president's information revolution commission report. (n.d.). Executive Summary: The University in a Changing Information Environment. Retrieved August 25, from http://www.umich.edu/pres/inforev2/executive.html Lan Li, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE James W. King, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE Matthew Kutscher, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE Li, is an instructor and doctoral student at the College of Education and Human Sciences CEHS CEHS College of Education and Human Services CEHS Center for Environmental Health Sciences (University of California, Davis) CEHS Canadian Economic History Society CEHS Civilian Employee's Health Service ), King, Ed.D., is an associate professor at the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education & Communication, Kutscher, is a doctoral student and instructional designer at CEHS. |
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