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Multimedia Tutorial Production Guide
McKinney Engineering Library
A guide to the production of multi-media library instruction using streaming media technology.
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Table of Contents Is Streaming Media the Right Choice? ........................................... 3 Planning Your Instruction ......................................................... 4 Determining Available Technology/Skill Sets .................................. 5 Script Creation ..................................................................... 6 Visual Media Creation ............................................................. 7 Audio Media Creation .....................................
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Is Streaming Media the Right Choice? ing in online library instruction. Nancy Dewald notes in the Journal of Acadmic Librarianship that “active learning is accomplished with indi- vidual or collaborative exercises, questioning by the librarian... or other forms of practice to 1 reinforce instruction.” Similarly, Brandon Hall states in the Web-based Training Cookbook that “Interactivity makes the difference between a program that simply presents information, and 2 one that actually trai
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Planning Your Instruction Instructional designers spend a great deal of time planning instruction before actually creat- ing any instructional materials. This step is vital 1 2 3 Course Goal: whether you are a teacher planning classroom 1. Acquaint students with strategies for effective Internet searching. activities, a writer developing a textbook, or a course developer for online instruction. Course Objectives: 3.1 1.1 1.2 Before you begin creating your online library 1. Students will be
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Determining Available Technology/Skill Sets The technology with which you choose to deliver something about optimizing them. Optimizing images allows you to reduce file sizes with as your instruction should complement the instruc- tional goals and audience profiles that were de- little image degradation as possible. fined in the first section. This guide focuses on the use of streaming media (using Real® media If you wish to use video in your tutorial, the obvi- delivery tools) to deliver aud
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Script Creation The first step in producing your instructional ma- terials is creating the audio scripts for the indi- vidual sections. The audio will guide the learner through the information in each section of your tutorial, so the script should be crafted with your instructional goals and objectives in mind. Create scripts for each section of the tutorial outline that you developed in the instructional planning stage. Include staging notes in your script that describe what the learner
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Visual Media Creation The options for visual media creation are limited of PowerPoint you use. Refer to the PowerPoint help documentation for further directions.) only by your imagination—and project dead- line! Between static images, animations, video, and text there are infinite combinations of rich, More on Image Creation expressive visual delivery methods for your in- If you are familiar with PhotoShop, Fireworks, struction. or other image creation applications, creating your visual medi
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Visual Media Creation Flash segment itself. Short, simple animations or Website. Screen capture video is not as effec- are the easier to integrate with audio than pro- tive for teaching conceptual knowledge such as longed displays. Boolean logic or information evaluation. Third, the more keypoints in your Flash movie, Regardless of the software/hardware or format the larger the file. Keep keypoints to a minimum. in which your original video is captured, you Complex scripting should also be a
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Audio Media Creation There are as many software combinations avail- be saved in the Real media format (.rm) using able for audio media production as there are for settings appropriate for your server and audi- ence. See Real Networks documentation for visual media production. In addition, a range of details. audio recording hardware is available depend- ing on your needs and expertise. Remember that the quality of your audio is affected by the TIP: When you save your audio files, be qualit
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Synchronizing Your Tutorial with SMIL SMIL, the synchronized multimedia integration language, is an XML-based mark-up language. If you’ve ever used HTML to create a Web page, SMIL will look somewhat familiar. A very simple SMIL file and an included RealPix
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Synchronizing Your Tutorial with SMIL file—called “slides.rp”—is a RealPix file. The contents of the RealPix file appears to the lower right. RealPix is a lot like SMIL; it’s a mark-up language that makes it easy to define transitions like fade-outs and wipes between your images. Notice that the RealPix file contains references to three images, for a total of six visual media files to be played with the audio file. TIP: You may wish to create a skeletal SMIL or RealPix file that sequence
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Publishing Your Tutorial Online The final step in producing your online tutorial is publishing it on the Web. Your tutorial may consist of just one SMIL presentation, or it may be a series of presentations. You must decide how to present these files in a way that facili- tates your instruction. You may wish to provide a link to the SMIL presentation directly from an existing Web page. Or you might create a spe- cial “tutorial” Web page with links to one or more related presentations. Alte
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Evaluating Your Tutorial Evaluation is a crucial step in the instructional determine whether or not users of your tutorial design process. Evaluation allows you to con- are learning the skills you are trying to teach. tinuously increase the effectiveness of your instruction and hone your design skills. Since Be selective when choosing evaluation partici- your instruction is an online tutorial, you’ll face pants. Don’t use staff members or even regular unique challenges in evaluating your work
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Thanks and Credits The redesigned Engineering Communications Tutorial and the development process upon which this guide was based would not have been possible without the contributions of the staff at the Digital Library Services Division and the Dig- ital Information Literacy Office, eLeader Project. Thanks go out to Aaron Choate, Peter Keane, Mason Jones, Carolee Miles, and Susan Rit- tereiser for contributing their technical and creative expertise to the tutorial design and pro- ductio
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References 1. Nancy H. Dewald, “Trasnsporting Good Library Instruction Practices into the Web Environment: An Analysis of Online Tutorials, ” Journal of Aca- demic Librarianship 25 (January 1999), 26. 2. Brandon Hall, Web-Based Training Cookbook (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), 4. 3. Dewald, 26. 4. ACRL Instruction Section Teaching Methods Committee, “Tips for Developing Effective Web-Based Library Instruction,” (accessed 06/05/2002) Other
