WebCT, PowerPoint, and Tegrity: What works, for whom, and why?

PURPOSE: This workshop seeks to help instructors realize the potential of emerging technologies for online learning. Instructional resources such as Blackboard or WebCT for organizing a course, PowerPoint for delivering slides and narrated text, and Tegrity for showing animated images of the instructor teaching the course, are increasingly the norm. Technological advances continue to outstrip our theoretical understanding of how they work (i.e. Mayer, 1997; Reiber, 1990). Models of best practices must take into account the boundary conditions of the effects of multimedia tools on learning. TEACHING METHODS: A wide range of teaching styles and methods are demonstrated using WebCT, PowerPoint, and Tegrity. Multimedia combinations afford different types of learning among different types of learners. Principles of multimedia design from metaanalytic studies by Mayer (2009) will be described as they relate to instructor design choices. IMPACT: Online learners can anticipate ever increasing use of multimedia techniques for enhancing learning. Online instructors must keep informed about ongoing analyses of the impact of various combinations of content, media, and learners