Human-Computer Interaction Design for Instruction
Term Project

Over the course of the semester, you will develop a set of multimedia instructional materials, which will be integrated in a single term project. These instructional materials must therefore have a common theme, focused on a specific topic or concept, and targeted to a specified audience. 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, sentence structure, states of matter.

You will develop your term project in six (6) assignments, described below. Assignments must be posted on your digication e-Portfolio and made visible within Stony Brook (in Settings). I will review and comment on your assignments. 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. A final assignment will be used to integrate all of the previous assignments and make any necessary adjustments. The final grade for each assignment will be determined by the final version as it appears in the integrated term project.

Grades for the project will be based on the following criteria:

• Compliance with all stated requirements
• Usability of the interfaces
• Clarity of the information presented
• Appropriateness for the intended audience
• Aesthetic qualities
• Educational value
• Novelty

Multimedia Assessment

Identify a web site or page that, in your opinion, effectively uses multimedia to teach/inform. Describe what it is that makes this a good example of instructional multimedia. Discuss what characteristics make a topic suitable for teaching with multimedia. Then, identify a topic you would like to focus on for your term project. Indicate the common theme of your term project in one or two paragraphs. Be sure to include 1) a brief description of the topic or concept being taught, and 2) a description of your target audience, i.e. who will be learning from these multimedia materials. Try to be as specific as possible in both of these descriptions.

Instructive Video

Create your own instructional video explaining some aspect of your topic. You may incorporate video of yourself or others, screen captures, demonstrations, still images, voice overs, music, etc. Your video should be no more than 3 minutes long.

Informative Graphic

Design an informative graphic that helps students to better understand some key concept or data related to your selected topic. You may create this using any tool that you are comfortable with, but the result must be a digital image or graphic that can be displayed on the web (gif, jpg or png).

Illustrative Animation

Create an animation (using Flash) that illustrates some key concept in your topic. Be sure to incorporate some audio into your animation (e.g. a voiceover, music, and/or sound effects). Extra credit: add interface elements that allow the students to control the animation in some way.

Interactive Quiz

Create an interactive quiz using Flash's Quiz Template and/or Learning Interactions components. Note that this is to be used for self-assessment only, as results will not be stored.

Integrated Web Site

Design a web site (using BlueGriffon) for your selected topic and audience. The main page should include a descriptive title and a brief summary paragraph indicating the purpose of the site. The main page should also integrate all previous assignments into a single cohesive website designed to teach your intended topic to your intended audience. Any improvements made to earlier assignments should be apparent in this final product.