A high-tech outfit from California's Silicon Valley? Nope, these creative minds
are in a master's degree program in interactive and new communication
technologies at Florida State University.
By Mark Pudlow
Special to the Florida State Times
Imagine a place where groups of creative minds work on an array of projects for the World Wide Web and CD-ROM. One group is developing a CD-ROM using characters from a children's TV show; another is building a Web site for a popular restaurant; a third is testing a fully interactive CD that would allow middle-school students to learn algebra at their own pace.
A high-tech outfit from California's Silicon Valley? Nope, these creative minds
are in a master's degree program in interactive and new communication
technologies at Florida State University.
The program in the Department of Communication, one of only a handful like it in the nation, is the brainchild of Edward Forrest, an associate professor with the department.
The centerpiece of the master's program is the Interactive Lab, where students design and produce multimedia projects. They learn by developing real products for businesses and institutions of all sizes, which help to equip and support the lab through private contracts and donations.
Forrest, who has been with FSU for 18 years, blends traditional seminars and hands-on lab work. He and his students discuss ideas and theories in class. "Then we go and put it into practice," Forrest said.
The idea of preparing students for the job market with practical experience comes from the advertising program Forrest taught at FSU for 10 years. All his students had portfolios when they graduated.
"Companies didn't care if students got an A in a particular course," Forrest said. But portfolios give prospective employers clear examples of the work the students have done.
So it is with his program in interactive communication.
And what kinds of portfolios will Forrest's current students have? Here's a sample:
* One group is developing a site of the Worldwide Web for Norwood's Seafood Restaurant in New Smyrna Beach. Customers can see daily specials, make reservations and visit a "virtual vineyard" with information on the restaurant's wine cellar, which contains more than 1,100 different labels. And with a single key stroke, out-of-town readers of the restaurant's Web page can explore other attractions in the area.
* Another group is working on a series of CD-I disks that help middle-school students learn algebra at their own pace with plenty of opportunities to interact and test what they have learned.
How is this different from a book? Well, instead of type on paper, this technology incorporates text, pictures, audio and video. Also, the user decides what to learn next. In a book, the author takes the reader through a linear explanation of the subject matter. In a CD, similar subjects will be grouped together, but it's the user who decides which path to take.
The first disk in this project, produced in conjunction with a French company, recently won a worldwide competition .
* Students are working with the American Bar Association to produce a companion CD-ROM for the PBS program "Inside the Law," a 30-minute round-table discussion among prominent lawyers. The disk will provide more depth to the issues discussed on the television show. Viewers interested in a particular show could send off for the CD-ROM, just as public-broadcasting programs often make transcripts or cassettes available.
* Another group is working on a CD-ROM companion for the syndicated television show AJ Time Travelers. The children's show marries entertainment with history -- sort of a Whatever Happened to Carmen Sandiego for historical figures. The companion disk provides more breadth to the history lessons on the show.
The common link of these projects? Interactivity. Students choose what they want to know about a topic -- and when.
"Interactive media is a technique, a process; it's the opposite of mass media," Forrest said, adding that interactive media is more interpersonal and gives more control.
We'll all be seeing much more of interactive media in the future. By using a personal computer or a television, we'll be able to pay our bills, continue our education, fashion the news and entertainment programming we wish to view, and plan our travel. The information explosion our society is experiencing will change our lives. And Forrest's graduate students are learning to be leaders in this exploding field.
One of them, Reinhart Lerch, said he loves the program's emphasis on participation.
"This graduate program is very project-oriented," said Lerch, coordinator of the ABA project. "It's not theory-oriented. It's not textbook-oriented. It's project-oriented."
Lerch speaks highly of Forrest's leadership in the program.
"Unlike other academicians, he has a positive, real-world orientation. He is optimistic that what he's bringing across to students is something they can bring to their work after school," Lerch said. "He believes in preparing (students) for their later work, and for the rest of their lives."
GLOSSARY
Terms like CD-ROM and multimedia are bandied about these days more and more frequently. But unless you're a fan of the growing cyberspace, you may not know exactly what these terms mean. Don't reach for the dictionary, though. The lexicon of the information age hasn't made it into many of the dictionaries on the shelves of Americans' homes. These words may not even be in the dictionary that came with the computer you bought this year.
So we took a page from the old-fashioned foreign-language textbook, which follows each reading with a glossary of words that may be new.
Here's your glossary for the story on this page about interactive communication:
CD-ROM. The letters stand for Compact Disk - Read Only Memory. A CD-ROM is like an audio CD that's used in a computer. But instead of just sound, a CD-ROM can also incorporate video, pictures, text, drawings and animation.
Interactive.Allowing users to interact with the computer or television to control what they see and where they go in a program.
Multimedia. A combination of media -- sound, video, animation, pictures -- that tells a story more completely.
Worldwide Web. Interconnected group computers. Part of the Internet computer network, the Worldwide Web allows users to see graphics and pictures and hear sounds along with text.
Virtual. Simulated. Virtual reality, for example, is a rendering on a computer that mimics reality.
CD-I. The I stands for interactive. It's like a CD-ROM except that it's designed to be used with a television instead of a computer.