CHEMMAT: Adaptive multimedia courseware for chemistry

Abstract

The trend towards Multimedia technology in Education is exemplified by the growing number of "multimedia ready" classrooms. Besides using the conventional computer-based training techniques, courseware has included multimedia capabilities, such as graphics, sound, animation, and video clips. This paper illustrates the development of such multimedia course-ware. Additionally, this courseware employs sound instructional and learning strategies; thereby making the courseware not only educational, but also captivating. The other unique feature of the courseware is its adaptability. Teachers who are not computer experts can use the "Teacher" module to modify and add content to the courseware. By selecting the predefined objects, and/or filling in a form, the teachers can create simple animation by using the module. Another good feature is the ease of customizing the content in different languages. This is illustrated by the translation of a module in CHEMMAT into Chinese. © 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation.