🚀 go-pugleaf

> Are there legitimate studies that show multimedia to be effective to learning?

The best example of multimedia-based materials I know of that are
actually used to teach real subjects to real students in my field
is the set of lessons intended to replace about half of the laboratory
sessions in a first-year Chemistry course with simulated experiments.
This is something in which motion (and to a smaller extent, sounds)
are essential.  (If someone could come up with a card that could
reproduce the odors that are a part of the chemistry experience,
we would really be in business!).  These materials allow students
to "experience" experiments which are too complicated or too dangerous
to carry out in the laboratory, or to re-run experiments they have
to carry out in the lab.  They can also re-run experiments they
have done in the lab under different conditions.  In the end, the
students gain a broader range of experience, and we can get twice
as many students through the real laboratory each semester.
These materials are part of the Smith & Jones "Comprehensive
Chemistsry" series published by Falcon Software.  They are available
for both CD-ROM and laserdisk.

--
Steve Lower - Dept of Chemistry - Simon Fraser University  (lower@sfu.ca)
Burnaby BC  V5A 1S6  Canada   (604)-291-3353