Discusses the correspondence between constructivist design and the creation of multimedia projects. Argues that if students and teachers are exposed to multimedia presentations and are offered opportunities to participate in workshops or classroom activities using multimedia technology, those with interest will use it to demonstrate content area knowledge, generating further interest among faculty and students.

Key words: active learning, constructivism (learning), educational technology, educational theories, multimedia, multimedia materials, student motivation, student projects, technological literacy.

Excerpt: In this introduction, I explore the constructivist teaching fallacy by drawing on a distinction between high cognitive activity during learning (which according to constructivist learning theory leads to deeper learning) and high behavioral activity during learning (which according to a constructivist teaching theory leads to deeper learning). Second, the chapter reviews exemplary research on when active instructional methods lead to passive cognitive learning (i.e., high behavioral activity and low cognitive activity), including ways that discovery methods can fail. Third, the chapter reviews exemplary research concerning when passive instructional methods lead to active cognitive learning (i.e., low behavioral activity and high cognitive activity), including ways of designing multimedia lessons that promote active learning. Overall, constructivism can be successful as a theory of active learning but not as a prescription for active instruction.

Purpose: This paper aims to mediate Josef Mitterer’s non-dualistic philosophy with the claim that speaking is a process of embodied experience. Approach: Key assumptions of enactive cognitive science, such as the crossmodal integration of speech and gesture and the perceptual grounding of linguistic concepts are illustrated through selected performance pieces of multimedia artist Laurie Anderson. Findings: The analysis of Anderson’s artistic work questions a number of dualisms that guide truth-oriented models of language. Her performance pieces demonstrate that language is both sensually enacted and conceptually reflected through the integration of iconic signing (e.g. sound play, dance) with symbolic communication. Moreover, Anderson’s artistic practice demonstrates that media such as voice, gesture and recording technologies realize different forms of embodied language. Benefits: Media aesthetics in the vein of embodied cognition can overcome a number of the dualisms that inform analytical philosophy of language, linguistics, and communication studies, such as perceptual/conceptual meaning, iconicity/symbolicity, emotion/cognition, body/technology and voice/script.

Key words: language, embodiment, media, aesthetics, performance art.

This paper introduces a new way of evaluating instructional strategies by using computers. Two basic theories, instructivism and constructivism, are discussed and critically evaluated in terms of their effectiveness in conceptual learning. Despite the current popularity of constructivism, the radical form of it is criticized in this paper. The advantages and limitations of these two approaches, especially the radical forms of constructivism, are outlined. After borrowing some ideas from other effective conceptual change models, an integrative model for conceptual learning (the Inventive Model) is introduced. Two versions of multimedia physics software are developed by the authors. The first version is based on the Inventive Model and the second version based on a radical constructivist model. The effectiveness of the Inventive Model was compared with the radical constructivist approach and conventional science instruction. Students’ log files were analyzed to investigate the nature and the processes of the conceptual change. A conceptual test and a knowledge test were used to compare the groups. The quantitative results showed the superiority of the Inventive Model over the other models in conceptual learning and the superiority of conventional instruction in learning the basic knowledge. The qualitative analysis showed that only the Inventive Model lead to coherent conceptual learning. It was concluded that the process of conceptual change is gradual and continuous. Analysis of students’ log files revealed no moments of dramatic change in students’ conceptions.

Key words: conceptual learning, conceptual change, computer assisted instruction, constructivism, inventive model.