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 Flashbased Shelley presentation
– Integration with Library databases
– Filtering on the map
Adding Data
Adding Data
Adding Data
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
[email protected]
617-552-6826