Classification of Software Types

Gibbs and Tsichritzis (1994) classify the following types of multimedia applications: Everything that has do to with multimedia directly or indirectly is gathered here. They throw together operating systems, hardware aspects (laserdisc, desktop video, desktop conferencing), aspects of contents or function (games, presentations, browsers), and tools (authoring systems, mail, conferencing) as well as aspects of infrastructure (services) in a motley collection. In addition, they suggest classifying multimedia applications according to type of composition, synchronization, interaction, and database integration, with composition embracing the following characteristics: Gloor (1990, 198ff) distinguishes four categories of multimedia programs, clearly with a view to the pedagogical construction of the applications: drill & practice, tutorials, educational games, and simulations. Bodendorf (1990, 48ff) distinguishes programs according to their interaction methods in help (learning by pointers), passive tutor (self-controlled learning), training (learning by exercise), active tutor (guided learning), simulation (discovery learning), game (entertaining learning), problem-solving (learning by doing), intelligent dialogue (Socratic learning). Ferguson (1992) subdivides multimedia forms of learning on a scale according to the degree of learning control allowed by the programs, into drill & practice, tutorials, parameter-based simulations, micro discovery activities, ITSs, microworlds, programming environments, application tools (34). The criterion of learning control as a parameter for a scaling of learning methods is not new (s. chapter 2). One can classify multimedia application either according to didactic principles of construction or the degree of learner control [Schulmeister (1989)]. I would like to distinguish between the following types of multimedia learning programs, with the distinguishing characteristic always one concerning theory of learning, namely the degree of freedom of interaction that the learner is allowed in interacting with the program, vs. the degree of control that the program exerts over the learner, and with a stress on learning programs, i.e. all tools, utilities etc. are excluded: I do not want to describe the individual categories in detail here, because they are discussed at length in the respective chapters of this book. But a few explanatory remarks are in order: drill & practice programs owe their origin to the behaviouristic model, which works with small steps of learning and frequent feedback. The type of software that is called courseware descends from that model, but has abandoned the behaviouristic concept. Courseware mostly uses frames, fixed learning units that cannot be influenced by the learner. Kiosk systems and guided tours are likewise frame-based, but offer the learner more options of individual navigation. Since they are basically restricted forms of hypertext, they do not offer as much freedom of learning as a hypertext, on the other hand. Hypertext systems allow an active dealing with information, but not the construction of individual hypertexts. Such a type of software is called a cognitive tool and belongs to the class of interactive programs, which ranges from programming environments to working with all kinds of programs. Simulations are often named as an individual category because of their distinctive characteristics; they alternate between the simulation of biological systems, physical laws, mathematical or abstract models (modelled eco-systems or business models), and the simulation of machines (cars, ships, planes), the so-called simulators. Simulation programs belong to the type of interactive learning programs, even if machine simulators are often used for drill & practice purposes irrespective of their design.

Similarities to the scale proposed here can be found in the approaches to a description of learner control by Merrill (1980), Laurillard (1987), and Depover and Quintin (1992):

I have a feeling that such differentiations rather overtax than help the simple task of the classification of programs. This impression is confirmed when I look at the attempt of Jonassen (1985), who sketches a model for the design of interactive lessons in the form of a cube with 6 x 4 x 4 categories, whose three dimensions he designates as interactivity, internal adaptivity, and external adaptivity, with an additional rising scale for each of the three dimensions. This model, quite contrary to the tetrahedron model by Fischer and Mandl I have mentioned, belongs to the less convincing attempts of trying to create plausibility through graphic models in my opinion [s.a. the attempt of Baumgartner/Payr (1994)].

Software systems that serve as a basis for multimedia are essentially authoring systems, the wide field of courseware, programs from instructional design, intelligent tutorial systems, and hypertext (apart from databases, tools, and communication programs). In this book, I am going to describe these basic types of systems on which multimedia can build – after a short introduction into theories of learning in the next chapter – in order to be able to discuss their pedagogical and organizational advantages and disadvantages. The following diagram depicts the development of the various directions and their relations to each other:

Development of Multimedia Systems