Interactive use of audio-visual program

Interactive use of audio-visual program Interactive Multimedia YOU MAY HEAR IT CALLED "new media," "hypermedia," "integrated media," or more commonly "interactive multimedia," but whatever you call it, it's the next giant step in classroom technology and potentially a powerful tool for environmental education. The term "interactive multimedia" covers a lot of territory. "Interactive" means that this new tool offers multiple choices or scenarios, and as the program unfolds, the viewer chooses which sequences or subjects to explore. The presentation "interacts" with the viewer by responding to these choices. "Multimedia" means graphics, music, sound effects, voice, video, and animation, in any combination, in the same program or presentation. These various media are the building blocks of a multimedia product or presentation, but the cornerstone is the student's ability to interact spontaneously with the information or images by using the computer. Beyond assembling pieces in an electronic version of cut-and-paste, multimedia tools can provide tremendous stimulation and resources for development of critical thinking and problem solving skills. Ten Reasons to Use Multimedia PC World magazine (October 1993) outlined "Ten Reasons to Use Multimedia in Education." While in many cases unproven and overstated, they also underscore the potential of multimedia in education. Multimedia is: fast -- learning speed accelerates. cheap -- the program never asks for a raise; the more you use it, the less it costs per use. consistent -- no mood swings, yawns, or lapses. private -- ask what you want; no one will laugh, no one will scold. safe -- experience nuclear meltdowns without fallout; experience drunk driving accidents or electrocution without blackouts or death. personal -- it never tires of praising and motivating through positive feedback, any time, day or night. a strong foundation -- on which to build mastery. a tool to make remembering longer, easier -- many parts of the brain are stimulated. more information faster -- on things a school couldn't afford to teach: like space-shuttle repair, brain surgery, black hole sailing. fun -- like a game: yes, like Nintendo, which, with a joystick and a screen, has already captured the brains and fingers of an entire generation. Reasons to Use Multimedia in Education Definitive research on the positive impacts of multimedia in education has not yet been assembled. While many would argue that the jury is still out, here are some important reasons to utilize this technological tool in EE: •	It facilitates student-centered learning allowing choice in the pathways for learning and the rate at which new material is introduced. •	It can address several learning styles and modalities -- providing a rich variety of instructional approaches which can teach in most of the ways that students learn best. •	It motivates student interaction, experimentation, and cooperative learning. •	Students often work together on computer projects as they never did on paper-and-pencil projects. •	It facilitates "storylines" or thematic learning -- where a pathway for exploration can easily be woven around a particular concept dynamics. •	It promotes the "constructivist" view of learning.

Audio-visual Program A process is disclosed to construct an audio-visual program in real-time, which is customized to each individual's specific needs. The process is applicable to many types of electronically recorded materials, whether produced for training purposes, entertainment, or other use. The system can be packaged and delivered in products via local media, such as a compact computer disk (CD-ROM) or through a telecommunications network, such as an Intranet or Internet Web site. The system's components include special needs assessment materials, subject matter selection logic and control software, and a library of appropriate, recorded audio-visual snip-its (segments), from which the customized content is constructed.

Audio-visual Education Audio-visual Education, educational instruction by means of materials that use the senses of sight and hearing to stimulate and enrich learning experiences. The successful use of motion pictures and other visual aids in the U.S. armed forces during World War II demonstrated the effectiveness of this medium as a tool of instruction. The use of audiovisual materials—formerly confined to maps, graphs, textbook illustrations, and museum and field trips—now includes all the developments of the photographic and film industries as well as radio, sound and videotape recordings, computers, and television. The field of programmed instruction programmed instruction, method of presenting new subject matter to students in a graded sequence of controlled steps. Students work through the programmed material by themselves at their own speed and after each step test their comprehension by answering an ..... Click the link for more information. employs computers and other types of audiovisual teaching machines. Many local school systems in the United States have their own film and videocassette libraries that are often supplemented by films and other media rented from universities and government offices. Business, industry, and government also use audiovisual materials for training and informational purposes. The growth of educational television and multimedia computer programs has greatly expanded the concept of audiovisual education. In 1952 the Federal Communications Commission reserved the first channels for public educational purposes. The Public Broadcasting Act (1967) set up the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an independent agency responsible for the distribution and support of educational television programs. With the development of closed-circuit and cable television systems, students were able to receive more specialized programming. The advent of multimedia multimedia, in personal computing, software and applications that combine text, high-quality sound, two- and three-dimensional graphics, animation, photo images, and full-motion video. ..... Click the link for more information. computer programs made learning even more individualized, as students gained the ability to participate in the creation of their own materials and learning programs. Visual Programming language A visual programming language (VPL) is any programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually (also known as dataflow or diagrammatic programming [1]). A VPL allows programming with visual expressions, spatial arrangements of text and graphic symbols, used either as elements of syntax or secondary notation. Many VPLs are based on the idea of "boxes and arrows," where boxes or other screen objects are treated as entities, connected by arrows, lines or arcs which represent relations. VPLs may be further classified, according to the type and extent of visual expression used, into icon-based languages, form-based languages, and diagram languages. Visual programming environments provide graphical or iconic elements which can be manipulated by users in an interactive way according to some specific spatial grammar for program construction. A visually transformed language is a non-visual language with a superimposed visual representation. Naturally visual languages have an inherent visual expression for which there is no obvious textual equivalent[citation needed]. Current developments try to integrate the visual programming approach with dataflow programming languages to either have immediate access to the program state resulting in online debugging or automatic program generation and documentation (i.e. visual paradigm). Dataflow languages also allow automatic parallelization, which is likely to become one of the greatest programming challenges of the future.[1]

Interactive Video: Foundations of Multimedia/Hypermedia What is Interactive Video? Historically, the term interactive video referred to a pioneering form of interactive multimedia. While there was never a precise, agreed upon definition of interactive video (experts in the field had their own concepts and individual definitions), most definitions shared the common notion that interactive video involved the use of a video delivery system, usually videodisc or sometimes videotape, designed in such a way that it responded to choices made by the individual user. (Note: the literature on distance education has a separate and distinct meaning of interactive video -- a video delivery system capable of full two-way audio and video interconnection between two or more sites. The term is also sometimes applied to interaction television, some forms of virtual reality, and other applications of video technology. These meanings of the term are not addressed in this paper.) While interactive video need not imply the use of a computer, the term is usually used to refer to a computer with a video delivery system, most often a videodisc player. Today, some authors also apply the term to newer digital forms of video delivery including but not limited to: CD-ROM, DVD, QuickTime, MPEG, and others. This document focuses primarily on laser videodiscs and systems involving laser videodiscs interfaced to computers. While now an "old" and largely obsolete technology, this form of interactive video still exists in some school and training settings, still offers some important advantages, and helped to launch today's multimedia revolution. Levels of Interactive Video The degree of interactivity or what is sometimes called "intelligence" of systems varies. There are three commonly accepted levels of interactive video. Level 1. These systems are the least interactive. They consist of a video player, generally capable of random access to video segments, a video monitor or TV, and a means of user selection, most often a hand-held remote control device or bar code reader. In level 1 systems, all information presented comes from the video source (except where it is used to augment printed materials or lectures, for example), and the user must operate the basic controls of the videodisc or videotape player to access the information. Such systems are relatively inexpensive, yet can be powerful classroom video tools. Level 2. These systems, which are exclusively videodisc-based, use a player with an on-board microprocessor. A program "read" from the video source permits limited question and answer interaction and branching. But, like level 1, all of the information is contained in the video source material; level 2 videodiscs have both video information and the control program on them. Popular for many training applications, such systems are somewhat more expensive than level 1 because of higher player costs. They are rare in K-12 or college education settings. Level 3. These systems utilize an external computer interfaced to a videodisc or videotape player. The result is a powerful system, which uses the video source augmented by the computer's text and/or graphics and by its powers of interaction. Simple level 3 systems may feature separate computer and video monitors with only a serial cable to connect the computer to the player. The most complex systems allow computer text and graphics to be overlaid on the video display and may include enhancements such as touch screens. Level 3 systems are the most expensive because they include the cost of the computer. Either videotape or videodisc may act as the video source in a traditional interactive video system. The primary advantages of videotape are the availability of quality videotape material, the availability of inexpensive yet powerful recording and editing equipment, and the relative ease with which video materials can be produced. But, the linearity of tape makes information access difficult, and tape wear can be a problem. Although some videotape players, like NEC's PC-VCR, were designed for this sort of use, videodisc-based systems best represent the full capabilities of interactive video.