Multimedia learning: The classroom experience

This paper addresses the problems and opportunities offered by the Domesday computer controlled laser-disc system in the primary and secondary classroom and school library within a Local Education Authority demonstrator project. Teachers and children have adopted different teaching and learning styles in classroom use of the systems. Perhaps it is a reflection on their flexibility that the styles range from didactive to heuristic, formal to informal learning, and for classroom and individual project work. Case studies of primary and secondary use emphasise the potential for more educational materials of this type. Childrens' interpretation of analogue and digital information from these systems will be discussed, as well as the methods used for searching, manipulating, presenting and interpreting information. There is a fundamental question concerning the level of interactivity in the systems: is interactivity related to the ease of user interface through mouse-driven, menu-based software, or is it related to the search, manipulation and display methods? There is an argument that suggests that interactivity is solely related to the ability of the children to enter their own data or reorganise existing data in an alternative structure. A progression of the level of interactivity in information handling will be postulated related to a child's ability to handle different kinds of media on the systems.