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Multimedia as an Instructional Tool: Perceptions of College Department Chairs

1999; Project Innovation Austin; Volume: 120; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0013-1172

Rebecca Gatlin‐Watts, Joe Arn, William Kordsmeier,

Education and Technology Integration

Introduction A technological wave in pedagogy is beginning to move across the business school community. Advances in technology are increasing our capacity to communicate greater quantities of information to students in a manner that increases learning while providing a more efficient use of time (Holdren and Blankenship, 1998). As technology has expanded, the use of multimedia in an educational role has expanded, too. development of digital technologies impacts on the nature of learning and literacy and how educators respond to this change will affect the students' performance after school, according to Leu (1996). A level of frustration on the correct approach to revitalize classroom instruction exists in business schools. Many efforts have been made to computerize education but so far have not produced sweeping results. Many experts see the personal computer with its speed and power, combined with multimedia capabilities, as the new tool that can transform teaching in colleges of business. Multimedia has the potential to extend and enhance the use of interactive learning modules in teaching (Doughty, 1995). The computer industry is already moving away from number crunching and word processing. Technical publications are alive with multimedia information and descriptive concepts. Simply defined, multimedia is the delivery of information in a computer based presentation that integrates two or more kinds of media including text, graphics, motion video, still video, voice recognition, animation, and sound (Beckman, 1991). Integration through the personal computer is now possible due to high processing speeds and increased memory capacities. The computer simply reacts to software instructions to access a medium such as a laser disk file, retrieve information, and present it in the desired manner (Dvorak and Seymour, 1991). Multimedia will change the character of the personal computer industry and, therefore, its use. It will turn the personal computer into a personal communicator (Lippincott, 1990). Instructional delivery systems will be the exponential tool that will transform education in the same manner the tractor transformed agriculture and the airplane transformed transportation (McKeown, 1991). Multimedia instructional systems provide a way to educate in the same manner society provides entertainment on a daily basis (MacLean, Peterson, and Ackerman, 1995). Multimedia on the Internet enables it to look and function like the television, radio, telephone, newspaper, and magazine. According to Shaffer (1995) derivatives of the Internet video technology may one day offer alternatives to cable and broadcast television which network publishing has the potential to open the publishing business to anyone with a computer. Statement of the Problem If multimedia is going to provide a new pedagogical approach for instruction in business classrooms in AACSB schools, the perceptions and practices of chairs of the colleges of business will be important. These men and women leaders often influence the pedagogical approaches taken by their faculty. The objective of this study was to determine the perceptions and practices of AACSB colleges of business chairs on the integration of multimedia into the curriculum. Review of Literature Many experts believe education and training are distinct users for multimedia capability (Holden and Holmes, 1995). Multimedia is a natural for training because it can blend voice and movement on the screen to provide an almost human-like interface (Dvorak and Seymour, 1991). Many educators believe that well-designed simulations can provide an opportunity for students to apply classroom knowledge to more complex, realistic situations, improving the learning process. A real benefit of multimedia is that the student cannot take a multimedia course passively. The student must interact with multimedia as the course changes depth and direction (Olaniran, Savage, and Sorenson, 1995). …