Multimedia
Multimedia is the convergence of many technologies delivered via a variety of platforms, such as multimedia personal computers (MPCs), video game console, and kiosk. Entertainment, communication, and computer industries are the engines that keep the multimedia business running. As one of the most powerful forms of communicating ideas and delivering information, multimedia attracts more and more players everyday, a fact that contributes to the phenomenal growth and development of the field itself.
Multimedia owes its popularity, in part, to the CD-ROM technology that emerged in 1985. Since then, CD-ROMs have been the most cost-effective storage and delivery medium for multimedia titles. However, not all multimedia titles make use of CD-ROMs, and are played via proprietary consoles. Also, emerging technologies such as digital versatile disc (DVDs), which can hold from seven to fourteen times as much data as data as today’s CD-ROMs are likely to be the medium of choice for multimedia storage and distribution, and will enrich the quality of the interactive experience.
Multimedia is a term that generally describes a computer based program that integrates several forms of media that may include video, sound, animation, graphics and text. The term "interactive" implies that the media responds to some input from the user. While a high level of interactivity is common in computer based games, interactivity in educational applications is frequently reduced to the level of page turning. Interactivity in educational applications should attempt to engage the learner so that a deep approach to learning is encouraged. This contrasts with a surface approach where the student may recall rules, procedures and principles but does not reach a level of understanding that allows knowledge to be abstracted to new situations, or allow for the development of the skills of analysis and synthesis. If a computer is to be used to support or enable learning, the power of the technology should be employed to achieve the level of interactivity that best suits the learning task. At the highest level this represents a dialogue between the program and the user. Unfortunately it appears that much computer based interaction in an educational context rarely extends beyond electronic page turning.
A taxonomy of interactivity is proposed by Sims (1995) that sees each classification as "not mutually exclusive events, but elements which can be integrated to provide comprehensive and engaging instructional transactions". The levels of interactivity in this model range from "object interactivity", where the system respond to a mouse click to display an image or play a sound, to a form of interactivity that allows the user to play a role in a simulated environment, and where input from the user provides the opportunity to experience changes in environment that that result from the manipulation of conditions.