Multimedia in sch ools must bridge from its
The Future of current role of augmenting data delivery in
Multimedia: Bridging to
Virtual Worlds
Christopher I. Dede
Contributing Editor
In a world where data increases exponentially
each year, a major challenge for schools is to
prepare students to access and use information
effectively. Learners frequently become lost in
a morass of data from texts and from inquiry
projects. Without higher-order thinking skills, they
cannot synthesize large volumes of information
into overarching knowledge structur.. As rich
techn ol og ies such as mu ltime dia provide
increasing amounts of data in which learners can
drown, this shortfall of current educational
practice is being repeated across the crowded
curriculum.
The same technologies that are swamping
students in information can help learners master
thinking skills for assimilating this data. This
requires a refocusing of current uses of multimedia
in the curriculum, from engin. for transmitting
massive amounts of data to tools for structured
inquiry based on higher-order thinking. Such an
approach is generic across a range of disciplines,
from science and mathematics to social sciences
and humanities.
Reconceptualizing multimedia now is important
because, over the next decade, the fusion of
computers and telecommunications will lead to
the development of highly realistic virtual
en vir on me nts that are col lab ora ti ve and
interactive. As discussed later in this article, the
evolution of this "meta-medium" will enable
artificial realities that immerse students in
information-laden virtual worlds. Such learning
environments risk overwhelming their users unless
Christopher ). Dede is Director, Center for Interactive
Educational Technology, George Mason University,
Fairfax, Virginia.
they incoporate tools that help students and
teachers to master the cognitive skills essential to
synth.izing knowledge from data.
conventional instruction to instead f.tering a new
model of teaching/learning based on learners'
navigation and creation of knowledge webs. Such a
transformation requires evolving today's often
fragmentary multimedia applications into more
structured inquiry approach. that build on web-
like architectures from hyperrnedia. As a further
stage of development, through advances in
visualization and virtual communities, multimedia
can become the basis for rich virtual "worlds" that
p r ovid e b oth i n te ll e c tu al a nd e moti on a l
stimulation.
This article briefly describes two stages of
multimedia's Ntential development: incorporating
hypermedia to enable knowledge construction by
learners, and using visualization and virtual
communities to create artificial worlds. Such an
evolution would make multimedia the core of an
i nf or ma ti on in f ra str u c tu r e th a t c ou ld be a
driveshaft for educational reform. Without such a
transformation, multimedia risks continuing its
pre se nt sta tu s a s a h ood orn ament f or the
c on ven tional c lassr oom, con tr ibuting some
motivation at the risk of causing intellectual
indigestion through information overload.
Multimedia and Hypermedia
Multimedia technologi. have great potential to
e mp owe r l e ar n e r s' ma ste r y of h i gh e r - or de r
thinking skills. The leverage that sophisticated
multimedia provides stems from a synthesis of
mul tipl e a ttribu tes rather th an any sing le
characteristic: leaming via structured discovery;
moti v a ti on a l powe r ; ab i l i ty to ta p mu l ti p l e
learning styles; web-like representations of
knowledge; enhanced mastery through learner
authoring of materials; the collection of rich
evaluative information; technology-supported
c ol l ab or a ti v e i nq u i r y . A t a ti me wh en the
edu cational reform mov ement is provid ing
m om e n tu m f or c h a n g e , th e s op h i s ti c a te d
multimedia devices that are nec.sary to support
these instructional attributes are finally becoming
affordable for schools. The availability of this
technological infrastructure enables extending
beyond current multimedia implementations to
new types of instructional strategies that take
advantage of multimedia's unique capabilities.