Interactive Multimedia Learning Environments: Human Factors and Technical Considerations on Design Issues (Nato ASI Subseries F:, 93)

Multimedia environments suggest to us a new perception of the state of changes in and the integration of new technologies that can increase our ability to process information. Moreover, they are obliging us to change our idea of knowledge. These changes are reflected in the obvious synergetic convergence of different types of access, communication and information exchange. The multimedia learning environment should not represent a passive object that only contains or assembles information but should become, on one side, the communication medium of the pedagogical intentions of the professor/designer and, on the other side, the place where the learner reflects and where he or she can play with, test and access information and try to interpret it, manipulate it and build new knowledge. The situation created by such a new learning environments that give new powers to individuals, particularly with regard to accessing and handling diversified dimensions of information, is becoming increasingly prevalent in the field of education. The old static equilibrium, in which fixed roles are played by the teacher (including the teaching environment) and the learner, is shifting to dynamic eqUilibrium where the nature of information and its processing change, depending on the situation, the learning context and the individual's needs.