Model-Driven Development of Interactive Multimedia Applications

The development of highly interactive multimedia applications is still a challenging and complex task. In addition to the application logic, multimedia applications typically provide a sophisticated user interface with integrated media objects. As a consequence, the development process involves different experts for software design, user interface design, and media design. There is still a lack of concepts for a systematic development which integrates these aspects. This thesis provides a model-driven development approach addressing this problem. Therefore it introduces the Multimedia Modeling Language (MML), a visual modeling language supporting a design phase in multimedia application development. The language is oriented on well-established software engineering concepts, like UML 2, and integrates concepts from the areas of multimedia development and model-based user interface development. MML allows the generation of code skeletons from the models. Thereby, the core idea is to generate code skeletons which can be directly processed in multimedia authoring tools. In this way, the strengths of both are combined: Authoring tools are used to perform the creative development tasks while models are used to design the overall application structure and to enable a well-coordinated development process. This is demonstrated using the professional authoring tool Adobe Flash. MML is supported by modeling and code generation tools which have been used to validate the approach over several years in various student projects and teaching courses. Additional prototypes have been developed to demonstrate, e.g., the ability to generate code for different target platforms. Finally, it is discussed how models can contribute in general to a better integration of well-structured software development and creative visual design

KnowledgePro windows: The order of merit?

The producers of KnowledgePro look set with their latest release of KPWIN (KnowledgePro Windows) to fulfil Richard Hale‐Shaw's prophecy that it will become ‘one of the most powerful visual development environments’ (Hale‐Shaw 1992). Comparisons are drawn in this paper between the KPWIN family of products and other authoring tools. The conclusion is that KPWIN is worthy of being included in any courseware developer's tool set. Reasons for preferring a tool from the KnowledgePro family of products for courseware development over three main competitors ‐ Authorware, Toolbook and Visual Basic ‐ are explained, and the merits of KPWIN and KPWIN++ (a version that generates C++ code) are examined

Modelling Reactive Multimedia: Design and Authoring

Multimedia document authoring is a multifaceted activity, and authoring tools tend to concentrate on a restricted set of the activities involved in the creation of a multimedia artifact. In particular, a distinction may be drawn between the design and the implementation of a multimedia artifact. This paper presents a comparison of three different authoring paradigms, based on the common case study of a simple interactive animation. We present details of its implementation using the three different authoring tools, MCF, Fran and SMIL 2.0, and we discuss the conclusions that may be drawn from our comparison of the three approaches

Education vs. Entertainment: A Cultural History of Children's Software

Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning This chapter draws on ethnographic material to consider the cultural politics and recent history of children's software and reflects on how this past can inform our current efforts to mobilize games for learning. The analysis uses a concept of genre as a way of making linkages across the distributed but interconnected circuit of everyday play, software content, and industry context. Organized through three genres in children's software -- academic, entertainment, and construction -- the body of the chapter describes how these genres play out within a production and advertising context, in the design of particular software titles, and at sites of play in after-school computer centers where the fieldwork was conducted

A Pedagogy for Original Synners

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the UnexpectedThis essay begins by speculating about the learning environment of the class of 2020. It takes place entirely in a virtual world, populated by simulated avatars, managed through the pedagogy of gaming. Based on this projected version of a future-now-in-formation, the authors consider the implications of the current paradigm shift that is happening at the edges of institutions of higher education. From the development of programs in multimedia literacy to the focus on the creation of hybrid learning spaces (that combine the use of virtual worlds, social networking applications, and classroom activities), the scene of learning as well as the subjects of education are changing. The figure of the Original Synner is a projection of the student-of-the-future whose foundational literacy is grounded in their ability to synthesize information from multiple information streams

Requirements for an Adaptive Multimedia Presentation System with Contextual Supplemental Support Media

Investigations into the requirements for a practical adaptive multimedia presentation system have led the writers to propose the use of a video segmentation process that provides contextual supplementary updates produced by users. Supplements consisting of tailored segments are dynamically inserted into previously stored material in response to questions from users. A proposal for the use of this technique is presented in the context of personalisation within a Virtual Learning Environment. During the investigation, a brief survey of advanced adaptive approaches revealed that adaptation may be enhanced by use of manually generated metadata, automated or semi-automated use of metadata by stored context dependent ontology hierarchies that describe the semantics of the learning domain. The use of neural networks or fuzzy logic filtering is a technique for future investigation. A prototype demonstrator is under construction