Student Driven Multimedia Instruction

Multimedia can be a powerful tool in exploring the nature of the world around us, including its technological systems. This paper describes the design, development, and evaluation of self-paced multimedia and web-based modules that are used in an advanced General Education (GE) course in the College of Engineering at San José State University. The design and development cycle of these modules began in 1994 and spanned nine years. The General Education course, Technology and Civilization (TECH 198), is designed to introduce students to the realm of history and usage of technology in society and to increase their awareness of both the uncertainties as well as the promises of the utilization of technology as a creative human enterprise. The goal of these multimedia modules is to have the students use technology as they explore its impact on our society over time. Although the web and multimedia materials were developed by one instructor, they are used by all instructors in this class in different ways. The continuous improvement of the multimedia is driven by the evaluation of the multimedia by students and other faculty. Each year, the multimedia and web-based modules are revised to reflect the evaluative input gathered from the various constituents (students and faculty). The evaluation process and the subsequent revisions of these materials have created a new type of resource analogous to an e-book but including a rich environment of video clips, audio clips, text, and graphics. Another shift is in the sharing of expertise. In the twice yearly meetings focused on course development, input from faculty content experts is integrated into the multimedia modules for the subsequent revision