Multimedia and the changing experience of the learner

This paper argues for a pedagogical analysis of what the new multimedia systems can offer that will impose on them a more ambitious objective than they currently have. It begins by summarising a framework for analysing educational media, in terms of how well they each support the teaching‐learning process. The different types of media are then related to different ‘modes’ of learning: via the narrative media which support learning through acquisition, the discursive media which support learning through discussion, the interactive media, which support learning by discovery, and adaptive media which can be used to support ‘guided discovery’. Multimedia is sometimes seen as a way of re‐purposing material originally developed for narrative media. Because it can be (even should be) an adaptive medium, this requires the learning objectives to be re‐constructed if the new medium is to achieve its pedagogical potential and offer a new kind of learning experience to students.