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He has published in diverse fields of information technology research, including, IT use in teacher education; interactive multimedia and learning; instructional design in on-line and multimedia environments; interface design; and human-computer interaction. He is currently developing performance support systems for teaching and learning. AbstractInteractive multimedia provides a useful vehicle to reconsider the place of educational theories in the design of interactive learning environments. This paper serves to address a number of such theories, especially those centred on student learning, and in particular, attempts to draw out the implications they present for designing effective instructional multimedia. It is argued that we need to develop coherency rather than divergency, in our theoretical perspectives so that we might optimise the development of new technologies in teaching and learning. This rationale is then used to advance one such perspective, based on the role of dynamic modelling tools. IntroductionAs technological advances offer new learning opportunities, there must be recourse to educational theory to guide design. Indeed, a number of themes emerge in any discussion about educational theory, learning and instruction, any one of which may be of use in informing our application of these technologies for pedagogical ends. It is growing important, however, to look for a synergy in our educational deliberations, to use a range of coherent theoretical perspectives to optimise the use of new technologies

Educationin different communication media takes place with functional differences that have consequences for the course of instructional interaction.In this paper, we examine instructional interaction among people using a computer-based electronic message system, contrasting it with conventional face-to-face discussion in a college level class. Interaction via the non-real time message system contained multiple "threads of discourse," a higher proportion of student turns to teacher turns, and other deviations from the "initiation-response-evaluation" sequences usually found in face-to-face classroom interactions.Based on the results of our contrast, we describe ways to organize instruction using electronic message systems to take advantage of new properties and to avoid shortcomings of these new instructional media.Electronic message systems are possibly important new media for education because advances in microelectronics have lowered the cost of computing dramatically and made the cost of telecommunications increasingly independent of distance. The uses of these new media for instruction raise several issues. The initial uses of any new media almost always follow the forms of usage of existing media, even though these uses may not be well suited to the properties of the new media. We have compared the differences between instruction in non-real time interaction inherent in an electronic message system and real time interaction found in face-to-face interaction. The results of this comparison are used both to propose ways that the new non-real time media can be fruitfully used for instructional interaction and to illuminate the social organization of existing face-to-face instructional interaction.* We would like to thank the students of Sociology 117 for their patience with our project.TWO common types of electronic message systems are text teleconferencing and electronic mail. Text teleconferencing systems are mod&d on face-to-face meetings, and can be used to conduct meetings in "real time." Each participant types on a computer terminal, and sees the text typed by other participants. Messages generally are seen by all participants (unless the sender specifies otherwise), and the system is designed so that a message can get an immediate response.Electronic mail systems are modeled on letters and memos typed or written on paper. In these systems, a person addresses a message to another person and transmits it, and then sometime later may receive a return message. Generally the sender does not expect to receive an immediate response. Thus, a key difference between text teleconferencing and electronic mail systems is whether the interaction is in real time (with immediate response expected) or in non-real time (without immediate response expected).However, it is possible to add features to allow electronic mail systems to be used for real time interaction, and to add features to teleconferencing systems to allow non-real time interaction. For example an electronic mail system can immediately inform a user whenev...

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Certain design opportunities stretch the boundaries of established procedure and when members of a working party on 'After Care' came to us seeking a computer component for a multimedia package we were confronted with just such a challenge. Faced with the unusual instructional goal of training independent-living skills, an unusual target population of low-literacy youth, and hardware limitations of lowest-common-denominator microcomputers, naturally, we developed a computer game. Using a cognitive approach, we developed 'Quest for Independence', a computer-based simulation game to develop independent-living skills. In this paper we discuss the approach, the resulting game and the current status.