Multimedia Courseware
Term Project

Over the course of the semester, you will develop an interactive educational application. The purpose of this application can be to teach a new concept, provide practice of skills learned previously, provide supplemental information, or give students a new way of "seeing" the information. In any case, this application must focus on a specific topic or concept, and be targeted to a specified audience. You will apply the principles learned in class, producing several deliverables (and making two presentations). You must use Adobe Flash to develop your application, no exceptions.

The topic and the audience are completely up to you. Choose something you are interested in and knowledgable about: e.g. History of China, Greek mythology, the Pythagorean theorem, states of matter. Your topic should be narrow enough to constitute a single lesson (e.g. "conditional statements" instead of "programming in C"). Teaching someone how to use a particular computer application (e.g. Excel) is NOT acceptable. The audience should be appropriate to the topic, and very specific.

The following table describes your deliverables. The weight column indicates what portion of your final grade is determined by each assignment; any missing or plaguerized assignments will receive no credit. Due dates for the assignments are indicated in the course schedule. You will be penalized for any late assignments (half a letter grade for each week that the assignment is late); presentations MUST be made on the scheduled date to receive credit.

Assignment	Weight	Description
Project selection	5%	Write a brief essay containing the following. Hand it in in class. Describe your topic. What particular skill or information do you expect someone to learn (or reinforce) from using your application? How do people currently learn this topic? Describe your intended audience. Be as specific as possible about their needs, limitations, and presumed abilities or skills. Find 3 web sites that teach/explain your topic (or a similar topic). For each one, Give the URL (web address). Describe the intended audience, i.e. who might learn from this site. Describe how multimedia is used in the site (if at all). Describe how interactivity is used to enhance the learning experience (if there is any interactivity involved).
Project webpage	10%	Design a web site (using Dreamweaver) which will act as a main page for your educational application. The web site must have the following: A main page. This should include information about what subject is being taught, and what audience it is targeted at. Also add links for Background Information, the Game, and Related Links. An image (created with Photoshop), included in the main page. This should help to illustrate what your educational application is about. A Related Links page. This should link to the URLs you found during the project selection phase. Each link should have a brief description.
Project storyboard	5%	Design the main screen(s) for your educational application using ComicLife. For each major scene in your application, include a picture and a description of what the application will do at that point (and what the user can do). Be prepared to show this design in class, and talk about what your application is supposed to teach, and to whom.
Background information	5%	Create one or more webpages with background information for your topic. Have your project webpage link to this page.
Evaluation plan	5%	Write a document that describes how you could conduct an evaluation of this project. In the document, be sure to include: What is the goal (purpose) of your educational application? What data would you want to collect, to determine whether you have met this goal? Who would participate in this study? Include information about who you would recruit, where you would recruit them from, and how many participants you would need. How would you collect the data? Write up a testing plan that describes what you would do when, and how you would analyze the resulting data. Hand in your written description in class. I will then select one of these (possibly with changes) for you to implement.
Final project	30%	Demonstrate your finished project (created in Flash) to the class. Be prepared to talk about what you are teaching, who your audience is, and how your application builds upon the current practice. Your finished project will be judged on ... Educational merit: how useful is your application as a learning tool, compared to the current practice? Usability: how easy is it for someone in the intended audience to use your application? Aesthetics: is the design clean and simple, and is the interface a pleasure to look at? Fun: How much fun is the interactive activity that you developed?