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 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

Adding Data

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