First draft

THE DIDACTIC VALUE OF MOVING IMAGES IN DISTANCE EDUCATION AND WWW COURSES

1. Introduction

Teaching at a distance used to be criticised for what it could not teach. As the years have passed distance educators have found answers to most of these problems.

2. Television and videocassettes

A first major solution to teaching content with moving images was provided by television and this was quickly followed by provision on videocassette, either of recordings of the teaching by television or of tapes specially made for distance learners.

Thus we have a range of training situations in which it is claimed that the content cannot be taught or cannot be taught properly without the use of graphical moving images. These would include:

· demonstration of scientific experiments
· illustration of principles of dynamic change
· economic and other simulations
· to demonstrate causal relationships between system components
· graphical representations changing over time
· content involving movement
· teaching two-, three-, or n-dimensional space
· computer animations and cartoons
· teaching telecommunications concepts using animation, models, visual representation of change or movement
· substitution for a field visit
· demonstration of machinery, production processes, giving students primary source material
· demonstration of decision-making processes
· teaching material in a novel way or involving students emotionally in the teaching
· teaching about people, wars, events, geographical content that are far away , dead, destroyed or will soon disappear
· to teach students to study at a distance - installing programmes or doing experiments
· to synthesise telecommunications or other operations that would be too lengthy in print
· to demonstrate how instruments, tools, or machines work.

It would certainly be possible to add today to the television and videocassette list from the teaching of subjects like telecommunications, computer programming and WWW design

3. Application

In ILT the teaching of these skills and content can be achieve in the classroom by a competent instructor. The challenge is to teach content from the lists above, or similar content, at a distance.

Print-based, audiocassette-based, and floppy-disc-based learning materials have proved successful for the training of students in a range of subjects. A listing of subject content, however, has been given above (and the list could with ease be added to ) in which print, audio and floppy disc strategies are inadequate.

For skills and contents of this type the presentation of change or movement is essential to the accuracy and depth of student learning. Unless moving images can be provided, the content and skills cannot be learned or cannot be learned well enough for competency.

In recent years new standards for moving images in didactic material have been set by multimedia CBT or TBT courses. In telecommunications courses, for instance training in signalling, the use of moving image is considered essential and it would be difficult to understand the course content without it. This is because when dynamics or movement is the content to be learned it would be difficult or impossible to represent the content otherwise.

Linked to moving image is the use of sound in TBT. It is difficult to study moving images on the screen and at the same time study text explanations of what is being studied. If there is no sound, the explanation of the linking of nodes in complex screens becomes problematical.

4. Conclusion

In what follows these analyses are applied to CBT packages and WWW courses. CBT packages typically use Visual Basic animations usually with a static background and a box which runs along a determined path for standard animations. More complex animations can use .flc or .avi files with Animator Pro or ED Studio sometimes with sound files and .flc files timed to play synchronously.

On the WWW bandwidth will be a problem. Animated gifs will be used when needed and there is the possibility of using video clips. Depending on what needs to be done one can then consider Java applets or Shockwave, but the synchronisation of sound and image when transferring TBT packages to the WWW will not be possible. The basic strategy will be to decide on the content to be learned and then the technologies to present it. thinking always of the need to keep bandwidth down.