( 1993) reports that students who build and use hypermedia apparently develop a proficiency in organizing knowledge about a subject in a more expert-like fashion. They are able to represent multiple linkages between ideas and organize concepts into meaningful clusters. In turn, these superior knowledge representations support more complex arguments in written essays. These studies indicate that the conceptual organization skills acquired through building hypermedia / multimedia are sufficiently robust to allow students to generalize these skills to content that they acquire from other sources.
The studies reviewed above support the conclusion that designing multimedia is a complex process that engages many skills in learners. Carver, Lehrer, Connell, and Ericksen( 1992) list some of the major thinking skills that learners learn and use as multimedia designers:
Project Management Skills
• Creating a timeline for the completion of the project.
• Allocating resources and time to different parts of the project.
• Assigning roles to team members. Research Skills
• Determining the nature of the problem and how research should be organized.
• Posing thoughtful questions about structure, models, cases, values, and roles.
• Searching for information using text, electronic, and pictorial information sources.
• Developing new information with interviews, questionnaires and other survey methods.
• Analyzing and interpreting all the information collected to identify and interpret patterns.
Organization and Representation Skills
• Deciding how to segment and sequence information to make it understandable.
• Deciding how information will be represented( text, pictures, movies, audio, etc.).
• Deciding how the information will be organized( hierarchy, sequence) and how it will be linked.
Presentation Skills
• Mapping the design onto the presentation and implementing the ideas in multimedia.
• Attracting and maintaining the interests of the intended audiences. Reflection Skills
• Evaluating the program and the process used to create it.
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