Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning: Visual Principles (c)1997



SUBJECT:    Assignment #1, Response Paper #3
COURSE:     MCTE 625 - Survey of Courseware
Textbook:   Instructional Media and
            Technologies for Learning
            Heinich, Molenda, Russell, Smaldino (1996)
Chapter 3:  Visual Principles
Professor:  Dr. George Fornshell
Student:    Leanne C. Boyd
Usercode:   boydl
Due date:   October 12, 1997


            Response to Chapter 3, Visual Principles

     This chapter provided one of the most concise 

overviews of graphics and presentation processes that I 

have ever seen. As a multimedia and audio-visual and 

presentation specialist, both in the academic world and in 

traditional business settings, I am quite familiar with the 

pathway necessary to obtain a working set of skills for 

providing effective, attractive, usable presentations. 

Within this chapter, I was amazed to find a couple of 

decades of in-house and academic training encapsulated into 

34 pages! The authors covered topics ranging from a 

definition of visual literacy to all the components of 

providing content for instructional purposes. I was allowed 

to peruse my past roles as Audio-Visual Specialist for a 

Denver high school; Art Director for a design agency, a 

publishing house, and a national sportswear company; and 

several editorial and technical documentation positions. 

Each line of work called for most, if not all, of the 

skills outlined in this chapter.

     It would be beneficial to look at each of these 

components in greater detail, for anyone truly considering 

a position in graphical presentation. The book reviews such 

diverse elements as the cultural effects of visuals, the 

goals of visual design, the tools used in production, the 

correct use of cameras, and also the processes of visual 

design. I must insert at this point that I have taken full-

semester courses in JUST the Visual Elements, or 

Typography, or graphics and multimedia courses that 

specialized in utilizing patterns of alignment, shape, 

balance, color and style. This chapter provides a very tidy 

starting point for diving into these rather extensive 

subjects! My personal and professional reaction to this 

chapter, however, is that one necessary element seemed to 

be avoided by the authors: providing visual content for any 

project, whether in the print world or electronically, 

demands a precise and severe set of skills as well as an 

innate sense of design. If it were otherwise, the cost of 

multimedia and illustrative services would be much lower, 

as more people would be capable of doing it.

     In taking a closer look at the wide range of topics 

discussed in this chapter, I think it would be wise to 

consider a viewpoint written by specialists in this field. 

Vaughn Tay, on page 34 of his book, _Multimedia: Making It 

Work_, states:

     "Consider Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance man who 

     was scientist, architect, builder, creative designer, 

     craftsman, and poet folded into one. To produce good 

     multimedia, you will need a similar diverse range of 

     skills -- detailed knowledge of computers, text, 

     graphic arts, sound, and video. These skills, the 

     multimedia skillset, may be available in a single 

     individual or, more likely, in a composite team of 

     individuals." (Vaughn, 1994)


     It is excellent that our textbook has included so much 

pertinent information concerning the visual side of the 

production of educational content. I just believe that a 

better rounded and realistic assessment needed to be given 

before students rush off to attempt to complete an 

excellent visual production. This probably would end in 

total frustration with the final product, and a person with 

much potential giving up on the whole process. If taken 

more slowly and with much study, that same person would be 

able to build on the skillset and become quite adept at 

providing qualified visual materials.

     For a moment, let's peruse what actually goes on in 

the real world. A process for judging the time required to 

design, develop, and evaluate interactive courseware (ICW) 

was created and appraised by 20 ICW experts from business 

sectors and the government. Their results will appear in an 

Air Force Handbook, "Information for Designers of 

Instructional Systems, Volume 5, Interactive Courseware 

Design, Development, and Management Guide." According to 

Katherine Golas, the writer of the on-line article, 

_Proceedings of the 15th Interservice/Industry Training 

Systems and Education Conference, Orlando, Florida_, the 

courseware experts who performed this review had an average 

number of 18 years of experience in developing computer-

based training (CBT) materials. This means that every one 

of them have been proficient in traditional methods of 

presentation (such as slides, overhead projectors, etc.) 

and have seen the transition to multimedia efforts via 

electronic (computer-based) means. The article shows that 

they made designations of levels of multimedia/CBT 

presentation difficulty that ranged from Levels I to III:

     "Level I is the basic presentation. It is the lowest 

     level of ICW development in that Level I lessons are 

     linear (one idea after another) and are used primarily 

     for introducing an idea or concept. There is little 

     interaction other than the student touching the screen 

     or using a keystroke or mouse click to continue. The 

     media used are primarily graphics (not complex) and 

     text." (Golas, 1993).


     The results of this study were presented in a table. 

We should keep in mind that the study was done in 1993 and 

that equipment and software have gone through massive 

changes in four years. Costing and budgeting a multimedia 

presentation has become more of a supreme effort because of 

major advances such as the Internet. Let us peruse just one 

example: A best-case situation in estimating the hours 

needed to develop just ONE HOUR of interactive courseware 

would be 50 to 200 worker hours! This will depend on if the 

final output was analog (example: video, slides, etc.; 200 

hours) or digital (example: computer, electronic; 50 

hours). Other factors would be the type of educational 

content being developed and the skill level of the workers 

involved in the project. (Golas, 1993).

     It is easy to see that if a project was several 

hundreds of hours in the preparation, including the 

essential stages of evaluation, review, and subsequent 

revisions, this is a project that would necessitate many 

years of combined, refined skills. If our multimedia 

project were to be more than a basic effort, the time and 

cost factors would accelerate rapidly.

     Those who produce and use multimedia productions are 

very accustomed to the drawbacks as well as the benefits of 

these presentation materials:

     "The fact that multimedia presentations are not in 

     common use shows there must be a number of problems... 

     It is well known that producing any multimedia 

     materials can be expensive and time consuming, and 

     materials for presentations are no different... A good 

     multimedia presentation will require considerably more 

     time and resources to produce than a traditional one, 

     making it impractical for individual presenters to 

     develop suitable material alone." (Hewitt, 1996)


     It definitely should be noted that many resources give 

an accurate representation of the TEAMWORK involved in the 

making of educational materials. As students of interactive 

courseware, it is necessary that we understand the place 

that production of graphical content plays in our studies 

and careers. My purpose in this writing was to give a more 

realistic overview of the intense level of skill required 

for creating such artful, educational forms.


---
REFERENCES:

     Golas, Katherine C. _Estimating time to develop 

interactive courseware in the 1990s_. (1993). Paper 

reprinted with permission from the _Proceedings of the 15th 

Interservice/Industry Training Systems and Education 

Conference, Orlando, Florida_. [On-line]. Available: 

http://coedu.usf.edu/inst_tech/resources/estimating.html.


     Hewitt, Terry. _Workshop Report: Supporting the 

teaching of computer graphics, visualization, multimedia 

and virtual environments -- Using multimedia in teaching_. 

(1996) [On-line]. Available: http://www.agocg.ac.uk:8080/

agocg/TechReports/Twentyeight/Hewitt_conts.html.


     Vaughn, Tay (1994). _Multimedia: Making it work_

(2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: Osborne McGraw-Hill.