Media Integration

A Computers in Education Chapter

Introduction

Linear presentation models are well represented by many media with which educators are familiar. This media includes books, movies, audio and slideshows. Linear models organize information in a logical sequence in which it is expected that all elements of the sequence will be communicated one after the other. Though users or readers may choose to jump or skip a element, the composer of the presentation designs this work with the presumption that all will be used or examined. 

In this chapter, you are to make a linear presentation using electronic slideshow software, in this case, Powerpoint. Earlier chapters introduced other linear composition editors. In chapter six's focus on merging text and images, a web image table and a two page newsletter were created. In chapter seven, a video and an audio story were initiated, edited and saved to videotape and disk files. These linear models work well for settings in which answers have been found, judgments reached, and/or directions or orders need giving. They imply an orderly world. They might also imply a world ordered and organized by someone else, if we are willing to accept at face value the way others would have the world ordered. 

Teaching within such a linear model and preparing students for a world in which following directions that lead to known answers is the norm, is a relatively simple procedure, simple at least in comparison with real world problems. However, raising citizens prepared for active roles in a democracy, something more is required. This does not mean that linear approaches should be ignored or tossed aside. 

These linear models benefit from becoming part of the building blocks of another model for information organization and comprehension, the model of non-linearity. The nonlinear model is a better fit with the rapidly changing setting of the current cultural and global scene. It requires more questioning and more individual decision making and judgment. In teaching and learning, it requires more open ended problem solving. How do teachers help learners in a world in which the model of how to proceed cannot be ordered in simple manner of first, second, third, fourth, and so on? Fortunately, it is not that models cannot be found, rather it is the approach to the nature of models that must be changed. It is not that patterns cannot be found, but an understanding that how we follow those patterns and which patterns we follow that must change. In nonlinear models, the sequence, the branching, is likely to constantly change even though the overall pattern remains constant. Learners and teachers need to know and understand a richer more complex model, and understand that the sequence or the next step is a judgment call. This requires critical thinking skills to weigh the options about what to do next. 

Curiously, at a time in which such knowledge is needed more heavily than ever, the very nature of our canon of knowledge is being reconstituted in a nonlinear media, the web and the Internet. 

Here the composer assumes that the reader can make quick jumps between related documents, that is between linear objects such as electronic slideshows. Further, perhaps even large portions of the material may not relevant at any one time. Encyclopedias and dictionaries are examples of such designs. Computer technology has made it easy to take the idea of a footnote or a citation and move it from the margins of composition planning to the center of such design. When only computer text was involved, such organizations of information were called hypertext. The World Wide Web was originally hypertext only. Other software applications, such as Hypercard, Toolbook and Hyperstudio had already extended the idea of hypertext to include other media. They made media rich structures easy to create long before the Internet and the World Wide Web were common. Because computers could "play" all media, these software programs made it possible to create multimedia shows, in which all media were integrated. When a wide range of media was added to the hypertext format, it became known as hypermedia. The web sites that have been under development through this online textbook are a form of hypertext and hypermedia used to communicate or present more about yourself, your ability to create professionally useful works (e.g., your  unit plan) and your professional education. The link to ISTE's "Project-Based Learning explores this project concept in further detail. 

The opened ended nature of hypertext and the complexity and composition time required for working in many media can also be used to support and reinforce current trends in education, including student projects, portfolio assessment, and collaborative teams. Projects can allow for much wider ranges of student interest. Utilizing many media moves the learning situation beyond standard text essays, making a portfolio necessary to encompass the wide range of student work. Though good composition in any media takes time, integrating multiple forms of media takes more time. But if different members of the team plan the presentation together then each carrying out different responsibilities with different media, time concerns can be managed much better. 

Whether the driving force is described as computers or information technology (IT), or organized in linear or nonlinear models, this intellectual development is fostering an array of changes important to teachers. The sidebar link to "Ten Powerful Ideas Shaping the Present and Future of IT" in Education briefly summarizes these changes. The long term issue though is not about media. It is about integration and what that really means. It is about seamless and effortless inclusion of electronic media in the same way that textbooks, chalkboards and overhead projectors are included. This of course means that an infrastructure of technology and support personnel should be in place. It does not mean that every student must have their own computer. It does mean that every student should have easy access to computers as needed. It does mean that every teacher must have their own classroom computer with Internet connections. The ISTE article in the sidebar on "Integrating Technology: Some Things You Should Know" explores these concepts in greater detail. 

The theme of media integration was introduced earlier in chapter seven as the concept of comprehensive composition. Comprehensive composition means combining many different composition forms in one media, a phrase that could be more briefly expressed as uni-media. To this point in these chapters several separate forms of composition have been introduced: text, mathematics, still images (from photographs to charts), audio, video and computer programming. Each of these can be active in electronic slideshow programs such as Powerpoint in some way. However, slideshow applications have numerous limitations.  There are other important media that are NOT currently included in standard slideshow programs. These other media must be mentioned in any complete treatment of media integration, animation and virtual reality (e.g., three dimensional images in movement or animation). 

Animation

 

If animation is not appearing, click the Reload btton for this browser.

GIF animation at fast Slideshow speed	GIF animation at Animation speed

As further information is needed on this topic, use web search engines to hunt for "GIF animation."

A new form of animation designed by Macromedia, Flash animation, would appear to represent the future direction for animation in cyberspace. A representative sample of the work done in this new format can be found at the Flash Showcase site . If this animation does not display on your computer, it will be necessary to download and install the Flash player . 

Virtual Reality

The ability to move within and through three dimensional space gives a greatly heightened sense of reality or "real life" hence the name virtual reality (e.g., VR). One simple form of this can be created by using special software to seam together a collection of images taken by a camera that is turned on top of a tripod. With standard cameras this can take from 12-72 shots. New software called cubic VR has reduced this to 6 shots, one for each side of a cube. Special attachments can reduce the number of shots to 1 or 2 per scene and still provide full 360 degree panoramic viewing, but such special equipment costs far more than a digital still camera. 

Links called hotspots can then be created between these 360 panoramas or connected to web pages or any other media. Each 360 panorama is called a node and a collection of nodes creates a scene. The hotspots can also link to 360 degree objects, which can be turned to see all sides.

Several types of special effects can be added to these scenes and objects, including directional stereo sound, animation that adds or subtracts  from the scene, spinning at different speeds and navigational or directional markings. See some of the examples of each of these effects and learn how to find more of such media.

Click the image below to launch yourself into VR panorama space and visit the New Talk Walk scene. "Hot buttons" are embedded in the panoramas that enable you to move between locations. 

Map making skills can be taught as well. As a simple first step, one could ask students to create a map of this scene of a set of buildings in the Appleworks Draw program which correctly labels each node as an extra credit activity. Other areas could be studied as potential VR sites. For example, participants could create a Draw map of the campus jogging trail and mark on the map how many nodes should be used to visually capture the entire trail, including where to park. 

With just a software VR panorama program such as VR Worx and a digital still camera, students could be more directly be involved and compose their own scenes. Beyond maps of connections between and within buildings and outdoor trails, VR scenes could include a VR map of houses (as used in realty sales), fictional scenes created in three dimensional graphic programs such as Bryce, and 3D graphic mind maps of ideas. The expense of such tools however should not be a barrier to their use as significant educational activity can be carried out with such media creations on the web if one knows how to find and bookmark their web pages or link them to the instructor's web pages.

Other more dynamic three dimensional tools are appearing. Carnegie Mellon's free Alice tools and environment provide another way to create virtual 3D worlds (http://wonderland.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/). Other examples appear in the sidebar section on VR. New forms of VR will continue to emerge as no single approach appears to be a compelling winner over other designs at this time. 

What cannot be demonstrated in class is full immersive VR. This currently requires putting on goggles of some kind so that the psychological effect is of being in the computer created scene.
 

Click image area for more.  Image courtesy of the National University of Singapore, School of Computing

The holodeck in Star Trek movies that is used for entertainment and training is in this category of immersive VR, but such hologram technology is beyond our current abilities. If you can handle a short piece of "horror flick" scenes, the movie Lawnmower Man has some excellent Hollywood footage of the concepts of immersive virtual reality. Work in immersive VR is being carried out in countries around the world but has been given special attention at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill

When all of the forms of composition, including animation and VR, are merged into one, a new level of composition and story telling emerges. Click the web page image below to review this piece that was introduced in Chapter Seven. 

Media Integration in Communication

Beepers, cell phones, and other messaging systems are increasingly being integrated into one product sharing different media as well. A voice message might become a digital file that is sent as a message attachment, combining both text and voice. For example, cell phone cards can be inserted into handheld computers and combine their functions. A look up in an address database could lead to immediate dialing through the cell phone chips. Chip developers (Intel, 2001) have recently announced new chip designs that will increasingly put separate specialized communication and CPU chips onto one chip (Very Large Scale Integration or VLSI) which will make handheld and smaller electronic systems cheaper, lighter and consume less electricity and yet be even more powerful. For example, a camera could include cell phone chips, or the cell phone include handheld computer and camera chips. Either way, the system could automatically dial and transmit the image as soon as it is taken to individuals or groups anywhere.

Personal computers have not only increased the number of media that can be used together in one display and increased the distance from which we can almost instantly receive archived information, but through the increasing integration of communication systems, computers have increased the direct interaction that we can have with the intelligence of others. This increases our overall ability to identify and solve all manner of problems. Recall, that it is brains that are at the top and most powerful level of the information pyramid, a concept introduced in chapter six's exploration of the Look stage of problem solving .

Thinking and CROP

It might look like this - The CROP Model.

The SUP branch focuses on media integration involving different communication technologies. The LEAP branch focuses on the media integration involving different media composition technologies. The think branch is focused on integrating wetware with the skills to develop perceptive questions. Each of these branches have their own sub-models. 
 

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