Pacific Lutheran University
M e m o r a n d u m

Date: July 15, 1996

To: Paul Menzel, David Yagow, Keith Cooper

From: Douglas E. Oakman

Subject: Asymetrix Multimedia ToolBook Evaluation (Part II)

This is the second (and final!) installment of my report on Multimedia ToolBook 3.0/CBT Edition (MMT/CBT). While I do not have a ToolBook to show as I would have liked, I did devote numerous hours in various explorations related to this project. And the exercise has been valuable for deepening my perspectives on these matters.

Part I Reprise

My first installment promised additional comments regarding the following:

Further thoughts on questions raised in Part I (questions are repeated below)

An exploration and assessment of TBKs (ToolBooks) available through the Internet; an attempt to ascertain what humanities people elsewhere are doing with MMT

A description of the process of designing a TBK to teach about ancient calendars, and provision of a working demonstration

Pedagogical recommendations, with particular interest in refining critical principles that can inform decisions about the technological commitments and directions at PLU

I address these items in turn (as before, from a humanities perspective).

Questions from Part I

The following questions emerged out of the last report:

1) Are we sufficiently clear about our pedagogical and educational goals before we embrace computer technology? Conversely, how does such clarity provide criteria for evaluating computer technology in the classroom?

2) What are the most efficient computer means to the ends we want to achieve? What strategic computer decisions do we need to be making in the very near future?

3) Do multimedia computer capabilities do anything more for the humanities classroom than what is already available through the Media Center (i.e., older audio and video technologies)?

4) What can local multimedia programs do that Internet tools and resources cannot?

1) Philosophical issues abound at the moment in relation to computer technology in education. On the one hand, extravagant claims are being made as to the "sea change" that such technology introduces into pedagogy. On the other hand, institutions of higher learning are being pressured into embracing higher technology under rhetorical banners of "preparing for the future" or "efficiency." As discussed in Part I of this report, much of the present educational conversation seems to focus on "means" and "measurable outcomes," when more thorough assessment of means in the light of ends seems called for. If we cannot clarify what the education we promote is for, then we will not be able to provide critical frameworks for evaluating computer-mediated instruction (CMI). I will return to this theme later.

2) Question 2 is also taken up later and mostly addressed in the section on "Pedagogical Recommendations."

3) Multimedia applications do many of the same things that older library and media technologies do, but with greater efficiency and sometimes flexibility at the delivery end (as long as appropriate machine-readable materials are available).

4) Multimedia authoring programs effectively link programming possibilities with text, graphics, sound, and video. Moreover, within a few years Internet servers and browsers will potentially offer "global virtual computing" through agencies like Java (an object-oriented programming language for the Internet). Though there is much ferment at present, it seems that the World Wide Web (WWW) will soon become a more powerful educational tool than local multimedia. Not surprisingly, Asymetrix is working to develop tools for connecting ToolBook with the Internet.

TBKs, Humanities Multimedia Over the Internet

My research on the Internet turned up only a very few sites with TBKs or ToolBook enhancements available for download. (Note: Moving binary files--at least with Lynx on WWW--is somewhat tricky.)

There are TBKs available at the Washington University Archives in St. Louis, but they either illustrate ToolBook capabilities or supply applications in scientific areas. I have also discovered TBKs listed in the CCAT archives at the University of Pennsylvania, but they are unavailable for public access.

Asymetrix itself has a WWW page at http://www.asymetrix.com. This page highlights their commercial products and some shareware add-ons. Asymetrix also has a bulletin board in the Seattle area accessible through modem (206-451-1173). This is a long-distance call for most of us, and I was only able to ascertain that TBKs are available for download there to parties with registered copies of ToolBook. I did not take an extensive inventory of their TBK holdings.

Though unable to acquire TBKs directly concerned with the humanities, I was able to review Scientific American's CD "Exploring Ancient Cities." This multimedia tour of four ancient cities (Crete, Petra, Pompeii, and Teotihuacán) offers maps, timelines, sound narration, "slides" of city remains, and text-information. The CD is informative, but so far as I have been able to see it only obliquely serves to encourage critical thought about the role of cities in human social development or their potentially negative impact as forms of social organization.

Despite interactive limitations, products like "Exploring Ancient Cities" or the even more ambitious Perseus material (available in our Media Center and partly over the Internet) represent enormous multimedia databases ("information capital") that can enhance teaching sessions by permitting rapid access of digitized images and texts whose real-object exemplars are dispersed throughout the world's libraries and often not readily available to scholar or student. For similar reasons, the Internet holds interesting educational promise. As a complementary component of this report, I recently organized an entire section of links devoted to "Education on the Internet" on my PLU home page (access through the faculty home pages or http://www.plu.edu/~oakmande).

Designing a TBK

Heavy research and writing demands (related to my sabbatical book project) compromised my TBK development plans. Though I did not achieve my envisioned goal of a working application, I learned enough to draw some conclusions.

My home computer proved less than ideal for working with MMT/CBT. Besides lacking video and sonic capabilities, my system is too slow and has insufficient memory to handle effectively a program the size and complexity of ToolBook. The 486 office computer did better, but used an older version of ToolBook. In general, multimedia capabilities demand a fast processor (preferably Pentium class), large hard drive (1 gigabyte probably best), at least 16 megabytes of RAM, fast CD-ROM reader with sound card, and video interface.

The task of multimedia design itself is taxing. Certainly pasting text and "widgets" (e.g., control buttons) to the screen is not difficult, but implementing an interesting and educationally viable application is another matter. I had originally hoped to produce something related to ancient calendars, but finding a fruitful way to employ the basic materials through ToolBook eluded me in the time available. Substantially more time and effort would have been needed to create a demonstrable product. (I also began to have serious questions about the pedagogical value of dedicated multimedia tutorials. See below on considerations of appropriate disciplinary areas for multimedia development.)

Some analogies indicate that this outcome is perhaps to be expected. The previously mentioned CD from Scientific American represents literally hundreds of hours of development time, by a team of skillful developers (not folks learning on the fly), to produce an educationally worthwhile entity.

Likewise, a standard textbook incorporates up-to-date compendia of various fields of knowledge. Good textbooks incorporate well considered information and sound pedagogical strategies (previews, pictorial and graphical aids, summaries, glossaries). Given the complexities, few teachers produce their own. Those who do probably provide the text and maybe photographs, while the publisher employs professional graphic artists and editorial consultants to turn the raw materials into a polished work.

"Course readers" also synthesize materials pertinent to a particular pedagogical agenda, but are usually much less polished and rich than a commercial textbook. Course readers usually depend upon careful advance selection or long trial-and-error with readings. Even though less refined, a good course reader still involves significant preparation time.

Outcomes of individual faculty efforts with multimedia authoring tools like ToolBook can be expected to be more in line with the course reader analogy than the textbook. Conversely, commercial multimedia companies or intensely capitalized university working groups (supported by programming expertise) can produce something like "Exploring Ancient Cities." This would not seem to be a model within the budgetary realities of a small university.

These comparisons, added to my experience, indicate that a more concentrated effort would be needed for success. Given the technical difficulties (learning the authoring system and some object-oriented programming) and creative stringencies (how to implement ideas effectively on a machine), I would guess that few faculty can succeed alone in producing a viable pedagogical TBK.

There are, moreover, certain educational areas where stand-alone, interactive multimedia applications seem most appropriate. Bernard Gifford, Chairman of Academic Systems, identifies these characteristics:

the theory of instruction informing Mediated Learning [Academic Systems' multimedia learning environment] is sufficiently rigorous, cohesive and comprehensible to be applicable to other first-year college courses that, like mathematics, are hierarchical, linear, stable and adaptable. A high percentage of first-year courses have these characteristics, including, among others, first year courses in language, science, economics and statistics. (Interview, Educom Review 1996: 19)

Not surprisingly, the departments at PLU that are making significant commitments to multimedia instruction are listed here. Gifford's parameters do not seem so well suited, though, to the educational goals of literature, philosophy, or religious studies.

Strengthening Our Pedagogy--by All Appropriate Means!--in the Light of Higher Education Ends

Beyond the technicalities, do multimedia computer applications really support what the humanities are trying to accomplish with students? The "Exploring Ancient Cities" CD, for instance, represents an enormous amount of "canned" information. While "Exploring Ancient Cities" is informative and interesting, it does not serve necessarily to stimulate the building of worldviews and reflection upon humane values that I wrote about in my previous installment. Can the larger aims of humanities education be canned? Should they? What is it that we want and intend to do with our students? These questions need clarification before the pedagogical means can be evaluated appropriately.

We thus need to reflect on whether "information transfer," "training," or "canned information" really characterize what humanities higher education pursues at the most significant pedagogical level. I maintain that book "technology" represents something distinct from information accessed and scrolled across a computer screen. Even the notion of "information" as bandied about by proponents of CMI, seems overly positivistic--as if all of reality resided in that information with little need for interpretation. Education, higher education at least, does not consist of watching endless videos or the endless scrolling of texts and images across computer screens. Texts and images need careful correlation and assessment in relation to the multiplex, multi-leveled reality in which real humans live (as opposed to virtual and imaginary humans online). Education in the humanities involves not so much "canning" as opening up "cans of worms" for students. "Habits of thought" captures its essence more than "training" or "tutorial."

In this connection, then, an appreciation for what the book can represent is called for. The best books in literature, philosophy, and theology offer highly distilled, carefully deliberated symbols of experienced reality. In the sense of "symbol" used by Clifford Geertz (The Interpretation of Cultures [New York: Basic Books, 1973]), excellent books both model reality and shape human motivation and character. Because no book captures reality completely, deep understandings of the world and rich funds of motive and character depend upon encapsulated experience in many books (or in rich learning communities). Humanistic studies and the liberal arts mediate powerful symbols through many important traditions. It is good, then, to ask whether computer terminals also convey this kind of learning.

To illustrate that others are raising such questions, I have attached a second article from Educom Review that sketches what an "information literacy" might look like within the liberal arts. The article attempts to define not only the positive content but also the critical mindset to be inculcated. In the authors' view, information literacy would involve seven elements:

[1] Tool literacy, or the ability to understand and use the practical and conceptual tools of current information technology, including software, hardware and multimedia, that are relevant to education and the areas of work and professional life that the individual expects to inhabit.

[2] Resource literacy, or the ability to understand the form, format, location and access methods of information resources, especially daily expanding networked information resources.

[3] Social-structural literacy, or knowing that and how information is socially situated and produced.

[4] Research literacy, or the ability to understand and use the IT-based tools relevant to the work of today's researcher and scholar. [IT=information technology]

[5] Publishing literacy, or the ability to format and publish research and ideas electronically, in textual and multimedia forms (including via World Wide Web, electronic mail and distribution lists, and CD-ROMs), to introduce them into the electronic public realm and the electronic community of scholars.

[6] Emerging technology literacy, or the ability to ongoingly adapt to, understand, evaluate and make use of the continually emerging innovations in information technology so as not to be a prisoner of prior tools and resources, and to make intelligent decisions about the adoption of new ones.

[7] Critical literacy, or the ability to evaluate critically the intellectual, human and social strengths and weaknesses, potentials and limits, benefits and costs of information technologies. (Shapiro and Hughes 1996: 34)

These desiderata provide a multifaceted framework for evaluating the impact of information technology in areas of the humanities where traditional disciplinary concerns are important. Elements [3], [6], and [7] especially suggest critical considerations that can be helpful to us in our ongoing evaluative process.

Because of its relevance to this discussion, I have also attached my critique of a book that was used in the June Teaching and Learning Discussion Group related to Critical Conversation Seminars. The critique is accompanied by an educational model that builds a framework for additional reflection about technology in higher education. The concern of the model is that "formal" and "final" causative factors need heightened emphasis.

Pedagogical Recommendations

1) Make sure that the Instructional Resources Committee, assisted by other appropriate groups, includes regular discussions of the goals served by CMI, with ongoing critical evaluation of computer technologies and uses on campus, and identifies the most appropriate applications and standards.

2) Establish centers for work on multimedia or Internet applications. For instance, the new language center and Media Services might become the institutional hub on upper campus for multimedia work (including locally developed and commercial examples). CIRRUS in Chemistry represents an existing Internet center on lower campus. In conjunction with these centers, maintain up-to-date databases on local expertise in and perhaps examples of multimedia and Internet applications.

3) Though multimedia applications most likely will appear in disciplinary areas exhibiting "hierarchical, linear, stable and adaptable" characteristics, all such applications at PLU should be chosen or developed that stimulate conceptual growth in students rather than the mere conveyance of canned information. Applications with these characteristics will require a higher level of interactivity and sophistication than most individual faculty have the time or technical expertise to develop.

4) Multimedia ToolBook works by allowing developers to "sketch" working multimedia programs through various graphical options on the screen. (Note that Word for Windows and WordPerfect for Windows both offer elementary forms of this capability.) Developers with programming knowledge can also work directly in the scripting language provided by MMT/CBT. Interested and technically talented faculty might explore MMT/CBT's capabilities, but ordinary faculty will do better to learn Visual Basic for Applications as it represents a standard programming interface across Microsoft Windows applications. Encouraging standards, except for special applications, amplifies our common efforts at CMI literacy.

5) Encourage Internet explorations in lieu of dedicated multimedia application development. For most humanists, the Internet and World Wide Web are perhaps more appropriate directions for pedagogical experiment. The tools to build web pages are readily available: Dedicated HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) editors can be accessed over the Internet; even general word processors (Word and WordPerfect) now are offering add-on HTML templates. WWW pages are easy to create and update on a regular basis. It is much easier to link multimedia materials "on the fly." Again, the "Education on the Internet" section of my PLU web page (http://www.plu.edu/~oakmande) indicates what might be done in this direction: For instance, O'Donnell's "Cultures of the Book" syllabus includes materials and discussions of issues that are of paramount importance for the humanistic disciplines. Although lacking the interactivity of dedicated multimedia applications, O'Donnell's hypermedia approach (i.e., with links like footnotes that lead to elaborating material) indicates a key strength of using the WWW.

6) Acquire a more robust WWW server that permits password-protected local distributed computing. Lewis and Clark College provides a model: Course materials are isolated from the World Wide Web and distributed locally. A delegation might visit Lewis and Clark for instances of how PLU can enhance its own computing situation.

7) Foster the use of HTML or SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) on campus. Humanists should also become familiar with TEI (Text Encoding Initiative). In the future, papers and books will be tagged in such systems to facilitate sharing of multilingual and graphical documents without loss of information between different computer systems.

8) As with multimedia applications, recognize that standards are emerging in Internet programming. If Java assumes that standard role, find students and faculty who have or can develop Java (or similar) competency. Such Internet programs hold promise of powerful, multimedia educational applications in the near future.

Conclusion

Despite failure to produce a working multimedia example, I have not given up on multimedia. The difference between multimedia databases and canned tutorials is clear. I will continue looking for important and useful versions of the former; training applications or tutorials, however, ought to find very limited application in humanities pedagogy.

As a proponent of the new language center, I hope to explore multimedia materials (on CD-ROM disk or the Internet) for use with my own Languages Across the Curriculum module. I also plan to develop more profound programming skills for working with the newer object-oriented software in Windows.

I want to thank the Provost's Office for funding this exercise. The financial support proved indispensable in providing the multimedia tools and underwriting the time to explore their educational viability. I hope my two-part report is an adequate return.