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Rich Media >> Get Rich Quick
7/22/2005
The landscape of interactive technology continues to evolve, yet few colleges are employing truly ‘rich’ media. Here’s how yours can be one of them.
The word “rich” means different things to different people. Bill Gates can
rightfully be called rich, with an estimated net worth of $50 billion. But in
the world of academic technology, perhaps the most common use of the word “rich”
is in conjunction with “media.” Rich media has become synonymous with just about
every type of interactive technology, from collaborative whiteboards, video
conferencing, and real-time online tutorials, to Web-based meeting software.
These applications have emerged as the centerpieces of distance education programs
at colleges and universities across the country. However, as these interactive
technologies continue to evolve, experts say that only a handful of schools
are employing rich media that is truly rich. “A lot of what is available through
rich media today is a copy of what we already have in face-to-face education,” says Rich Mayer, a psychology professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara who has studied rich media for the last decade. “What
we need is media that truly promotes learning—media that takes what already
g'es on in the classroom environment and makes it that much better.” Redefining Med School with Rich Media
Technologists at the University of Vermont have answered this call with authority. In August 2003, the university’s College of Medicine—where all incoming medical students receive a laptop when they arrive on campus—unveiled a new integrated medical curriculum that revolutionized the way medicine was taught. Instead of separately teaching subjects such as gross anatomy or the nervous system, the school reorganized its curriculum to embrace a more holistic and interconnected approach.
Under the new system, for instance, students would learn about the physiology of the heart while they dissected one. According to Jill Jemison, eLearning manager for the College of Medicine, the idea was to build a new curriculum that enables students to see, at all times, the medical relevance of every action as it relates to patients.
University officials dovetailed the debut of their new curriculum with a new technology component that revolved almost exclusively around rich media. Working within the confines of a learning management system from Blackboard (www.blackboard.com), IT staffers developed a bevy of new interactive technologies designed to incorporate real-world learning from real-life doctor/patient situations. This effort began with exam-building software from Respondus (www.respondus.com) that enables faculty members to upload existing or new question pools from word processing programs, and combine those with audio or video files in the Blackboard system, to deliver Web-based tests. All questions are approved by a committee, and all questions correspond to 900 “competencies,” or learning objectives that UVM faculty have identified as central to what it takes to become a doctor.
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