Facilitating Optimization of the Educational Experience

The availability of a wide range of multimedia tools, and the necessary technical support and/or skills, makes it possible to greatly enhance a given classroom presentation. Building individual interactivity into learning experiences on CD ROM or Internet, supplemented with frequent self-assessment options, can create an "educational product" in many ways superior to the typical classroom presentation.

If one teacher were to create an outstanding unit on a particular topic, it is feasible to make that unit available at a reasonable cost for thousands of teachers and learners. This fact may eventually impact those teachers that currently teach that unit in a more traditional manner.

Such products might evolve to be so exceptional, affordable, and available as to replace many roles now dedicated to the classroom teacher and environment. The role of teachers is changing from being the source of knowledge and learning, to being a facilitator of connecting students with the best resources for knowledge and learning.

Helping students identify the best multimedia learning experiences for their particular learning level, style, and interest will require a high level of knowledge about the appropriate applications of multiple instructional technologies as well as an awareness of what's available.

It is not unrealistic to predict an emerging entrepreneurial trend regarding the investment of time and effort necessary to create high quality multimedia units. The trend toward higher quality educational products at less cost is inherent in current instructional technologies, particularly with the Internet as a delivery medium.

An imminent boom in distance learning is being driven by new needs in society. As more homes become equipped with Internet and multimedia computers, home-based learning will grow. The school environment might shift to focus on the social and life skills that traditionally were provided in a family environment, but have become a growing responsibility of teachers and the school environment due to failings in the stability of our modern day family. It is clear that learning is becoming an ongoing lifelong task no longer limited to the school day schedule or confined to the physical walls of today's schools.

Kindergarten to twelfth grade students spend 180 days a year not in school and average six hours a day in front of the television. Multimedia learning is proving to be more engaging than passive viewing of television.

Consider this definition of distance learning: "The process in which instructor and student are separated along the dimensions of time and space." There are specific processes unique to specific technologies. The recommended cycle is "Investigate, Implement, Evaluate, and Optimize." The challenge is to find the right blend of mind and machine and to have an intellectual grasp of the psychological and cultural barriers.