This study examined the learning benefits of a learner-as-designer environment simulating a real-world multimedia production house and its impact on at-risk high school students. It was found that the students showed a significant growth in their value of intrinsic goals. The experience helped students to acquire several critical design skills. What was most encouraging was that this experience of designing multimedia programs for real audiences provided many students, who were considered at-risk and could not otherwise succeed in schools, a way to pursue their own goals. It also appeared that such an environment offered a promising opportunity for students to exercise and develop their higher order thinking skills. RESEARCH FRAMEWORKA distinction has been made between learning from computing and learning wirh computing [ 13. According to Jonassen, learning from computing refers to situations in which computers are tutors. Computers "direct the activities of the learner toward the acquisition of prespecified knowledge or skills" [l, p. 41. Learning with computing, on the other hand, emphasizes the use of computers as cognitive tools to extent human minds and help learners to construct their own knowledge. In this article, we will examine one way of learning wirh interactive *An earlier version of this article was presented at the 19% annual conference 146 I LIU AND RUTLEDGE multimedia/ hypermedia technology: Engaging students in designing multimedia programs. Specifically, we intend to investigate the effect of a learner-asmultimedia-designer environment, constructed using the cognitive apprenticeship model, on students' learning.Research indicates that in a learner-as-designer environment, learners, instead of merely receiving information from computers, become an intellectual partner with the technology and engage in a constructive learning process [ 2 ] . The emphasis is on using multimedia tools to assist in processing information meaningfully and in integrating new knowledge with prior knowledge. As designers, learners are given the opportunity to be creative and pursue actively their own intended goals. According to Seymour Papert, "better learning will not come from finding better ways for the teacher to instruct but from giving the learner better opportunities to construct" [3, p. 31. Because of its nonlinear and associative characteristics as well as its use of various media, interactive multimedia is considered to be capable of assisting information presentation, representation, and construction [4], and capable of facilitating this learner-as-designer process [ 1,5].Designing interactive multimedia programs is, however, a complicated and challenging task. This designer role calls for many critical thinking skills. Sixteen major thinking skills have been identified that form five categories: 1) project management, 2) research, 3) organization and representation, 4) presentation, and 5 ) reflection [6]. Each skill in these categories has its own place in the entire development process, and is needed for ...

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