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Boston College. Creating Engaging Multimedia Course Content Through the Use of A Database Driven Template EDUCAUSE 2007 Elizabeth Clark Instructional Design and eTeaching Services, Boston College. The Problem.
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Boston College Creating Engaging Multimedia Course Content Through the Use of A Database Driven Template EDUCAUSE 2007 Elizabeth Clark Instructional Design and eTeaching Services, Boston College
The Problem • Faculty members have lots of content: text, images, audio, video, but too often they are presenting it to students in a linear, disconnected fashion.
The Problem • This seems at odds with: • The goals of the educator • How we think and learn
“We Need A Better Book” • Malleable material • Visual learning • Maximizing class time • Student ownership
The “Rome Project” • Case study: History of Roman architecture from 1370 - 1700 • Main idea: A walking tour of Rome • Complexity: The variety of factors that influenced why, where and when buildings were erected
The “Shelley Project” • Case study: One cultural moment • Ideas: Movement across media • Complexity: Tension and reinforcement
Envisioning the site: Content • Requirements: • Multi-platform use • Small file size • Formats: • Text • Images • Audio and video
Envisioning the site: Structure • Multi-purpose access: • Content relationships • Directed progression • Keyword searching • Dynamic interface • User-driven • Clear navigation
Moving from the Specific to the General • How do we move from creating time and resource intensive projects toward building an application that can be used and sustained by many faculty, one that is usable across a variety of disciplines? • Can we turn this into a template?
MEMEO • My Educational Multimedia Explorer Online • Atoms, widgets and templates • The technology: • PHP/MySQL • Flash Remoting • AJAX
MEMEO • Building an effective user interface • Basic feature: single items are added to a MEMEO instance and the metadata determines where it will “live” • What Rome gave us: Timeline and map elements • What Shelley gave us: Topic and slideshow elements
MEMEO • What we gained: • Comparison function was improved • Tags added: This allows users to cross reference items in the overall presentation • More functional search: It’s contextual, so if an item exists in multiple areas, it will show in the search that way.
MEMEO • What we gave up: • Music isn’t attached to objects as in the Flash-based Shelley presentation • Integration with Library databases • Filtering on the map
Where To Go From Here? • Integrated user authentication • HTML or Drupal “wrapper” • Integration with other databases and systems on campus • Extending content development to students • Sharing this with other academic institutions
Contact Information Elizabeth Clark Director Instructional Design and eTeaching Services Boston College clarkeq@bc.edu 617-552-6826