Curriculum Development in Internet and Multimedia Technology

Employers in business, entertainment, and education seek employees to help them meet the demands for web-based interactive technologies. This paper describes a thirty-credit, community college certificate program in Internet and Multimedia Technology (I/MMT), and plans to expand it to an associate's degree program. Detailed descriptions of two courses, Multimedia Authoring I and Internet Programming, central to the program are provided. The program immerses students in a / technology-rich environment for their general education courses, and provides internships with local multimedia nd web firms. 1 Certificate Program Development With the explosion of web-based interactive technologies, employers in business, entertainment, and education are seeking employees who can help them keep pace with the demands of global communication. As noted in the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, businesses look for programmers with a technical specialization i areas uch as multimedia technology, and graphical user interface, as well as business applications of Internet echnologies [11]. According to Heller and Fox, "The serious lack of trained personnel in this field is due in large part to the lack of education and training available at the undergraduate level " [2]. Under its Advanced Technological Education program, the NSF has funded several projects in the last few years to prepare students for such careers. Such projects include