DESIGNING INTERACTIVE SELF-LEARNING MODULES USING MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 28, 2001 DESIGNING INTERACTIVE SELF-LEARNING MODULES USING MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR Newell E. Chiesl, Indiana State University mk1@befac.indstae.edu ABSTRACT This paper describes the use of Macromedia Director 8 Studio, a software program that allows professors to easily develop student interactive learning modules. A marketing based learning module is presented. INTRODUCTION The primary purpose of this paper is to disseminate information to the university world concerning the usefulness of Macromedia Director 8 Studio when developing interactive self-learning modules. The intended audience of this paper is Business professors who innovate, and, for a variety of reasons, need to place interactive type lectures onto a storable electronic medium. An interactive lecture will be defined as class time that requires student participation, such as experiential exercises. Participation can take on many forms, such as student perceptions being mapped on a blackboard during a product positioning interactive in-class exercise. Macromedia Director Studio provides a software vehicle allowing professors to perform a variety of tasks. Macromedia Director Studio affords an opportunity for a designer/professor to create visual presentations, computer games, or interactive multimedia software containing audio and video that can be developed into interactive lectures. Macromedia Director Studio combines graphics, sound, animation, text, and video to create multi-user, interactive content that is easy to deploy into CD-ROM and future DVD technology. Macromedia Director Studio streamlines the authoring process with centralized, automated functions making it easier to manage assets, edit complex animations, build graphics on the fly, and create content for CD-ROM delivery. In less complicated terms, “ Director”, is similar to a movie director who has the responsibility of assembling cast members, building a stage, and determining the sequential order of the scenes the audience will view. For our context, the cast members could be a lecture, text material, graphs, charts, tables, spreadsheets, databases, equations, JPEG still images or MPEG video images. Each cast member appears on the stage for a time period determined by the author/director/professor. Director also allows the viewer/students to select the time period by the use of click-able “next” or “Back” buttons. The Director authoring Metaphor is based on movie production, complete with a Cast, Stage, and Score. A professor simply imports various media into the Cast window, and then places cast members onto the Stage. The Score controls the sequence of your presentation. To make movies quickly, just drag and drop media objects on the stage. To add interactivity, simply apply behaviors and view the actual media elements in action on the stage. Actually, it is as simple as pressing play on your home VCR. Seriously, as a first time user, I found Director to be very simple to learn, and within the first day I developed my initial movie/lecture. The focus of this paper will be on Macromedia Director Studio’s ability to allow a professor to easily create interactive lectures. THE TECHNICAL SIDE OF MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR 8 The more germane characteristics of Director include: 1) The Cast Manager sorts cast members by name, size, creation and modification date, type, and comments, making it easy to manage the projects (with hundreds of assets). 2) Image compression. Multimedia productions consist of many media types, such as audio, video, images, text, and vectors. Image compression allows optimizing images individually or for the entire movie. (Set JPEG image compression per-cast member, or set JPEG compression for the entire movie.) 3) Store and reuse media objects in the cast. 4) Drag-and-drop cast members from the cast to the stage window. 5) Lingo a robust programming and scripting language. Lingo, Director’s object-oriented language, includes over 800 commands to control things like imaging, sound, vector shapes, scaling, rotation, alpha channels, and internet connectivity. Lingo’s dot syntax is extremely comfortable for programmers familiar with languages like JavaScript or Visual Basic. 6) The “Authoring” hardware and software required is the minimum System needed to author Macromedia Director Studio Movies: An Intel II Pentium 200 processor running Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0 or later; 32 MB of available RAM plus 100 MB of available disk space, a color monitor, and a CD-ROM drive. 7) Student Playback. For Director Movie “playback”, students require an Intel Pentium 166 processor running Windows 95/98 or NT version 4.0 or later; 32 MB of installed RAM; Netscape Navigator 4.0; Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, or America Online 4.0 Web browser and a color monitor. 8) Macintosh. For Macintosh authoring: A Macintosh 180, running System 8.1 or later; and for Macintosh playback: 37 Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 28, 2001 A 120 Macintosh running System 8.1 or later. 9) Authors, or in this case, professors, are allowed by the company Macromedia to freely distribute 1000 copies of their work to students. APPLICATION AND USE OF DIRECTOR BY STUDENTS The author wishes to acknowledge: “The subject material contained in this paper could not have been explored without a grant received from the State of Indiana.” To date, three MBA classes and one New Product class have experienced the use on interactive self-learning modules. It is important to note that the developed Macromedia Director movies/learning modules have been extremely easy for business students to use. Several self- contained modules (written in Director 8) have been developed and placed upon CD-ROMs. These modules play automatically when double clicked. I have been experimenting with this software, and students in four classes have had zero problems getting the interactive learning modules to work. This is because each module is a stand-alone executable file. NO software is necessary. There is nothing to download. Students need no software. Because the learning modules are interactive, students are able to input variables and instantaneously experience the resultant output. The inputs, for example, could be in the form of points plotted on an X and Y-axis. Students, working on their own in computer labs, or at home on their PCs, input data points, or answer questions and instantly view the resultant output. Students are also able to input Business variables into predetermined equations that calculate and output into visual or table form results. The interactive experiential exercises are stored (written/burned) on CD-ROMs for distribution to students. CD-ROMs cost approximately .50 each, and store an enormous amount of information, 650 Megs. By using CD- ROMs there will be no involved lengthy download times for students, as experienced on the Web. This is because all of the student interactive portion of the course could be stored on a single CD-ROM. AN INTERACTIVE SELF-LEARNING MODULE Featured in the exhibits #1 and #2, will be the essence of an interactive self-learning module, “Product Positioning”, designed for the marketing courses, New Product Strategy and the MBA Marketing Management class. Exhibit 1 illustrates the “score” for the Director movie. Cast members, such as text material, lectures, graphs, illustrations, equations, still photos, videos, sound clips and other material, are easily dropped into a frame sequence. In this example, cast member #4, a red 911 Porsche, makes an appearance on-stage in frame 16. The other cast members on stage will be the grid component of an X and Y coordinate drawn on a perceptual map. When viewed in total, the topic of Product Positioning will be presented. In the first scene, designed to grab attention, a tire screeching (audio) red 911 Porsche zooms through the grid. (Via animation, it took a minute to program.) The intention of presenting Exhibit 1 is not to confuse the novice user of computer software. The purpose is to illustrate the simplicity in the process of designing interactive self paced lectures on CD-ROM. Anyone using a Window computer environment today understands the ease of “Drag and Drop” technology. Another point to examine in Exhibit 1 would be the sound capabilities. Notice the tiny speaker icons located in the upper quarter of the exhibit, labeled with a 1 and 2 channel designation. Director Studio allows sound to be incorporated easily into the learning module. I simply found a sound clip of a Porsche 911 car racing its engine, on a free web site. Then, I downloaded the AVI file to disk, opened the file as a cast member, and “dragged and dropped” the sound into the Score. Alternatively, I could have “dragged and dropped” the AVI file directly onto the Stage. Exhibit 1 Exhibit 2 illustrates the windows available to the user in Macromedia’s Director 8 Studio. Each window mirrors the operational functions of a movie director, included are: The stage; Score; Internal cast; Control panel, controls similar to a VCR; Text, a place where a professor can insert lecture material; Paint, for the ambitious and artistically talented program designers; and the property inspector. I know what you are thinking, “What a confusing state of affairs this is! It’s such a complicated mess!” But, Exhibit 2 is not as complicated as it appears to be. Every window screen has a purpose. A professor/designer does not have to simultaneously open each window. Director 8 Studio has been developed with various levels of built in sophistication. Professor at all levels of ability are able to 38 Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 28, 2001 navigate through the system of commands. With a mentor’s assistance, a novice professor can create a lecture and stored it on CD-ROM in one day. Exhibit 2 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Using CD-ROM technology versus web download technology generates enormous timesavings for the student, at least 100 times faster, and theoretically (I’ve been told) approaches1000 times as fast. For example, when a student accesses a large file on a CD-ROM taking 6 seconds, the same file would take at least 600 seconds (ten minutes) to download over the Web. I can’t imagine waiting 10 minutes for anything to download. With CD-ROM technology, this is not much of a problem. It only takes an additional 6 seconds to download the correct program. This is not the case with Web downloads. Any error would mean an additional 10 minutes of waiting for the students. Not much learning would occur for today’s MTV’s now generation in the latter example. In conclusion, based upon twenty years of developing experiential interactive classroom exercises and computer based business simulation games, the next decade will witness the majority of University professors using Macromedia Director Studio, in some type of capacity, as a source of supplemental lecture material. The Macromedia Director studio software is simply too easy for professors not to develop interactive lecture material. However, the merits of using Director must be disseminated to academia, which has been the primary purpose of this paper. 39 Table of Contents Volume 28, 2001 Using A Web Based Tutorial Program To Enhance Student Learning Reflecting On Reflection: An Examination Of Reflective Learning And Assessing Outcomes Overcoming Obstacles To A Cross-Global Collaborative Classroom Panel Discussion On Building And Maintaining Trust In The Abselesque Classroom Cosmopolitan-Based Cross National Segmentation In Global Marketing Simulations Strategic Management And The Case Method: Survey And Evaluation In Hong Kong Designing Interactive Self-Learning Modules Using Macromedia Director Teaching Financial Markets Using The Wall Street Journal Core Course Outcomes Assessment And Program Continuous Improvement Using An Integrative Business Plan Œ An Empirical Evaluation Using A Mock Trial Activity For Interdisciplinary Learning Fidelity, Verifiability, And Validity Of Simulation: Constructs For Evaluation 2001 International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition: 37 Years Of Collegiate Competition Motivating Students: An Initial Attempt To Operationalize The Curiosity Gap Model E-Learning: The Next Wave Of Experiential Learning Helping New Game Adopters: Four Perspectives An Initial Validity Invesitigaion of A Test Assessing Total Enterprise Simulation Learning Administering A Marketing Simulation - Common And Varied Practices Among Instructors Issues In Case Method Instruction: Class Discussion Leadership Sex Composition, Cohesion, Consensus, Potency And Performance Of Simulation Teams Integrating Management Curriculum: Linking Courses With Frontpage Absel: The Way We Talk! Teaching Strategic Management: A Case Study In The Diffusion Of Innovation In Education A Demonstration Of Bussim Strategy A Total Enterprise Simulation Teaching Methods: Etic Or Emic Antecedents Of Work Team Performance In A Business Simulation: Personality And Group Interaction When Experiential Educators Reflect Upon Their Craft: A Qualitative Research Report Strategic Sensemaking In Organizations: Model Formulation And Operationalization Panel Discussion: A Model For Initiative Development: Discussion And Ideas Of Individual Spirit Harmonics Assessing The Efficacy Of Experiential Learning In A Multicultural Environment Are Business Schools Producing 21st Century Managers? Blue Horizon Cruises: An International Simulation Exercise To Illustrate Conflicting Economic And Cultural Models Different Perceptions Of The Same Thing: An Experiential Exercise Current Use Of Agribusiness Simulation Games: Survey Results Of University Agribusiness And Agricultural Economics Programs Team Building 101 For Accountants An Online Evaluation Of The Compete Online Decision Entry System (Codes) Total Enterprise Simulation Winners And Losers: A Preliminary Study Gilding The Lily, Enhancing The Pedagogical Experience, Or Fixing What Isn™t Broke: The Dilemma Of New Simulation Versions The Absel Endnote Database: The Perfect Tool For The Bernie Keys Library Decision-Making Exercises (A), (B), And (C): Examining The Role Of Conflict In Group Decision-Making Group Decision Simulation (A)-(F): Examining Procedural Justice In Group Decision-Making Processes Evaluation Of Performance In Business Games: Financial And Non Financial Approaches A Framework For Evaluating Simulations As Educational Tools Congruence II™: A Strategic Business Board Game The Tournament Concept: Extending The Idea Of Using Simulations As Instruments Of Assessment The Economic And Political Transition Of The Mexican State In The Threshold Of Twenty First Century: From The Entrepreneurial State To The State Of Entrepreneurs. Experiential Learning For Accountants: The Not For Profit Project An Investigation Of The Environmental Awareness Attained In A Simple Business Simulation Game A Daily Exercise In Theory Application: Is This Why I Had To Take Marketing, Management, Finance –? An Alternative View to Scoring Selected Simulation Games and Experiential Exercises