Instructional design, as boring as it is, is relevant to exciting multimedia. As with any other media, the content should be mapped to the learning objectives and the design should attempt to work with human cognitive processes effectively and efficiently.
[quoting Dalgarno, 25 Jul 96.b] Certainly you are right that describing the learners' actions in terms of their use of the interface is not sufficient. For example in each of the above cases the learner drags an icon with the mouse, but clearly this is not sufficient to describe the interaction.
What's more important are the processes the interaction triggers in the learners' minds. Do they serve any instructional purpose? Do the interactions create a link between the learning objectives and the mental processes triggered? We can design our multimedia titles in such a way that we teach using our understanding of cognition. In fact, many of the current theories of cognition come from computer metaphors. IF these theories are valid, then computers should be an ideal teaching vehicle. If the instructional value is not increased, however, we may as well use something cheaper and simpler--like a book. Categories of interactions, therefore, should be based upon the cognitive process inspired or the domain of the learning objective (e.g., procedural vs. elaborative, etc.) as are the objectives themselves.
[quoting Brock, 25 Jul 96] Good instruction has to have a goal (aka, a learning objective) expressed in measurable terms. If you can't measure it, then you don't know if learning happened.
Measuring the level of attainment of learning objectives can be designed into a good multimedia product to determine its effectiveness.
Don't the "qualities of the medium" determine available structures and appropriate contents? For instance, if the learning objective is a psycho-motor skill, representing it adequately to teach it using multimedia can be a formidable task. Even when the technology becomes cheap and prevalent enough, do we really want a robot with manual dexterity to be teaching our youngsters to tie their shoes? On the other hand, clicking, dragging, dropping, and so forth can adequately represent some simple procedural skills.
If the learning objective is of a higher order intellectual skill, such as problem solving, can we provide a sufficiently rich simulation or microworld to carry the content? We can all think of situations (how about flight simulations?) where a computer based simulation would be safer, cheaper, or more effective than a real-world scenario. But can it effectively deliver the information? Find out. Build in an evaluation of attainment of learning objectives.
[quoting Hart, 25 Jul 96] Only content affects learning--the medium is, as Clark says, no more significant than the truck that delivers our food.
In fact, if the delivery medium is totally irrelevant, and "only content affects learning," then why have we even bothered with teachers in the first place? They're just another type of grocery truck--and an expensive one at that. Let's make teachers find relevant work, and just give everybody a set of encyclopedias.
Oops, I guess they might not know how to read.