International Journal of Electronics, Computing and Engineering Education, Vol. 1, No.

1 (2010) 000–000
© Serials Publications

A MULTIMEDIA APPLICATION FOR TEACHING A

MULTIMEDIA COURSE IN COMMUNICATION STUDIES

Georgios Lappas a, and Alexandros Kleftodimos a.

a
Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Western Macedonia
Department of Public Relations and Communication
Kastoria Campus, GR 52100 Kastoria, GREECE
lappas@kastoria.teikoz.gr

Abstract: This work is related to designing multimedia applications for

enhancing the learning process in demanding information technology (IT)
courses in Public Relations and Communication studies. The designed
multimedia application presented here aims to help students at our department to
better understand laboratory workshops of the course “Creative Multimedia” on
a self-trained basis. This work discusses also the potentiality of designing and
implementing multimedia educational applications using own resources to
support courses in Public Relations and Communication studies.
Keywords: Multimedia in Higher Education, Multimedia Design, ICT in
Education.

1. Introduction

Designing multimedia learning modules in higher education is usually motivated by the

demand to help students learn a wide range of concepts in a short time. Various
multimedia approaches may be used to produce a multimedia learning module. More
often used among them are: a) Multimedia Presentations, where a student is following
over a rich-media presentation a specified time line b) Interactive Multimedia
applications, where students interact with dynamic content allowing various interactive
features for learning and testing their knowledge, c) Multimedia Intelligent Tutoring
Systems, where artificial intelligence tools (like machine learning) are used for designing
complex multimedia applications providing intelligent tutoring guidance decisions on
identified student background and student responses to specific training tasks.
A large number of multimedia applications have been designed to meet course
requirements in higher education over the last decade. Some recent developments discuss
multimedia learning modules in learning object oriented programming [1,2], biology
courses [3], medicine courses [4], foreign language courses [5], geometry courses [6] and
physics[7]. The dynamics in designing interactive multimedia applications for enhancing
the learning process in Multimedia laboratory courses in Public Relations (PR) and
Communication Studies will be presented in this work.


Corresponding Author: Georgios Lappas, Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Western Macedonia,
Kastoria Campus, PO Box 30, GR-52100 Kastoria, GREECE, lappas@kastoria.teikoz.gr.
 Lappas and Kleftodimos.- A Multimedia Application for Teaching A Multimedia Course.

2. Information Technology in Public Relations and Communication Practices

Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have transformed the way Public

Relations and Communication is conducted. Various studies of the past have reviewed
practices using information technology for modern public relations and efficient message
communication [8, 9, 10, 11].
The use of interactive multimedia has been identified as early as the mid-90’s as a
challenge PR professionals had to meet in distributing interactive multimedia newsletters,
brochures or annual reports to specific target groups like employees, customers, investors
and the press [12]. Interactive multimedia applications can be used by PR specialists to
present and communicate messages of corporate and public organisations or of
individuals like artists and politicians. Although such multimedia applications are
designed for offline distribution, a large number of multimedia productions are currently
created to be distributed on the web. Such example is the use of interactive media in
election campaigns (e-campaigns) as an effective means to communicate campaign
messages as studied in [13, 14].
Online and mobile multimedia offer more challenges in designing appropriate
multimedia applications for modern public relations practices. Considering that a) the
web is conceived as a large multimedia application and a large multimedia repository and
b) a wide variety of communication tools currently exist on the web (online meetings,
emails, mailing lists, news aggregators, blogs, social media, etc) with more tools invented
every year, the result is that the modern way to conduct online Public Relations (e-PR) is
becoming technologically more complex as well as more creative. Therefore, designing
efficient interactive multimedia applications is a vital part in Public Relations and
Communication studies in higher education. Providing students with specific multimedia
applications designed to meet their needs for enhancing the learning process in IT courses
is an excellent example on how to use the benefits of multimedia to communicate
knowledge efficiently.

3. Multimedia Applications in Public Relations and Communication Studies

3.1. Meeting course and student requirements

Modern public relations are heavily mediated, becoming more complex as the media
landscape channels in our days have dramatically increased in complexity. IT relevant
courses to PR have been discussed in [14]. The way that PR specialists acquire social
media skills is discussed in [15]. The Commission on Public Relations Education
underlines the importance of integrating adopt the newest communication technology for
public relations courses and practices as discussed in [16]. These three studies underscore
the salience the issue of technology-enhancing teaching methods has for the PR
professionals. Designing such multimedia learning approaches is still considered a
novelty for the field of public relations.
The program of studies in our department includes a number of IT related courses to
develop skills for better public relations and communication practices. Information
technology courses may consist of three components: theoretical classes, mini-project
workshop meetings and computer laboratory workshops for practicing IT skills. Although
multimedia applications may also be designed for theoretical classes and project
 Lappas and Kleftodimos.- A Multimedia Application for Teaching A Multimedia Course.

workshop meetings, our effort in enhancing the learning process is focused in the
computer laboratories exercises for practicing IT skills.
Table 1 shows the IT courses and the specific modules taught in the computer lab.
Apart of the IT courses in Table 1 that are taken by all students as required courses for
their degree, there are also IT elective courses for students that want to acquire a better IT
background for their field of study. These IT elective courses are: a) Video Editing
Principles b) Creative Animation c) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) d)
Political Marketing (e-campaigning) and e) Creative Design for Company Profile.

Table 1 IT Courses in Public Relations and Communication Program of Studies.

Course Name Semester Laboratory Modules Assessed in Laboratory 

Introduction to Computer  1st
Science
Use of Specialized Software 2nd
Applied Public Relations (e­ 6th
PR)
Modern Technologies in  6th
Communication
Creative Multimedia  7th
Workshops Workshops
(hours/ week)
2 Operating System Software, Word Processing 
Software, Spreadsheets Software
3 Vector Graphics Design Software, Powerpoint 
Presentation Software, Desktop Publishing 
Software 
3 Web for research, Social Media Networking, 
Net­meetings, Emails, Mailing Lists, Blogs. 
2 Web Design Software
2 Multimedia Authoring Software

During laboratory workshops, students have a teacher to assist them in practising

specific IT skills. The time students spend in the lab is usually not enough for deeper
understanding of the workshop’s thematic and more exercise is required of them on their
own time without any teacher assistance. Multimedia is an ideal application, which can
be used for creating self-study applications (i.e. learning without a tutor) and for
demonstrating step by step exercises carried in the lab (laboratory simulations). Moreover
in a multimedia application there can be included additional features like questions for
testing acquired knowledge, course references, training materials, advanced examples,
video capturing of exercise demonstration, etc.
Public relations and communication is the application area of interest in our case for
applying IT skills. Figure 1 demonstrates a schematic representation combining course,
student and field of expertise requirements for deciding what multimedia tools, features,
training methods, and related content examples may be used in order to design the
multimedia applications for an IT course.
 Lappas and Kleftodimos.- A Multimedia Application for Teaching A Multimedia Course.

Fig. 1 The Multimedia Design Framework for using multimedia tools, features training
methods and related content to meet course, student and field of expertise requirements.

3.2. Multimedia project implementations

There exists previous experience in our department in designing multimedia applications
for enhancing the learning process in the lab courses. The design of multimedia
applications was successfully implemented for the course “Use of Specialized Software”
of the 2nd semester and the elective courses “Video Editing Principles” and “Creative
Animation” as reported in [18]. There are benefits if such applications are implemented
from members of staff teaching the courses as they are very familiar with most parts of
the Multimedia Design Framework of Figure 1.
Questionnaire responses of students found the specific multimedia applications
motivating, very useful and even suggested that they would like to welcome more
multimedia applications in other courses as well, not confined to IT courses only . This
finding encouraged us to proceed in a second phase designing a multimedia application
for another demanding IT course as the “Creative Multimedia” course. Designing
multimedia applications for non-IT courses requires more effort and the same problem
discussed in [3] of faculty lacking adequate support and training to adopt such
multimedia approach is also emerging here. The final goal is to design such applications
for all IT courses and for a number of other courses of the program of study having in
mind that close collaboration among members of the teaching staff is required for this
approach to work.

3.3. Designing a multimedia application for the “creative multimedia” course

The aim of the laboratory workshops for the lesson “Creative multimedia” is to equip
students with the necessary knowledge and technical skills that will allow them to
develop multimedia presentations for communication purposes. The specific course has
demanding laboratory exercises and students are expected in a 14-week period to grasp
the basics and some more advanced features of the multimedia authoring tool “Adobe
Director” so that they can be able to create interactive multimedia applications which
consist of images, sound video and animation.
To meet student demand for lack of time in demonstrating some skills in the lab as
well as to compensate for lab hours not attended by students, we decided to design a
multimedia application for the specific course to facilitate the learning process.
 Lappas and Kleftodimos.- A Multimedia Application for Teaching A Multimedia Course.

The multimedia application consists of 14 lessons (one for each week) and it is a
browser based application (Figure 2). The video lessons and the documents which are
contained in the application can be displayed in any browser. Each lesson consists of two
or more videos depending on the time needed for the completion of the task. The first
video always describes the task to be accomplished. The following videos illustrate all
the necessary steps that are needed in order to accomplish that task. Taking into account
the fact that a student cannot stay focused if the period of the video is large the
breakdown of the task into steps was considered necessary. More complicated exercises
require more steps in order to be completed and thus more videos. The maximum number
of videos used for a single exercise in the specific application is six. Breaking the
exercise into steps and creating a video for each step makes the learning material more
organized and the exercise steps more comprehensible for the student to follow. It also
makes the application more “light” if we wish to distribute the application over the
Internet since we view a small video at a time rather than one big video that illustrates the
completion of the whole exercise.
All videos were created using the screen capturing software tool “BBflashback” in
order to capture all the steps that are necessary to complete the exercise. The voice which
guides the students through each exercise is also captured using “BBflashback”.

Fig. 2 a) The main screen of the Multimedia application for the “Creative Multimedia” course.
The main screen is partitioned into areas displaying the lesson id, a lesson title and links to a series
 Lappas and Kleftodimos.- A Multimedia Application for Teaching A Multimedia Course.

of videos which demonstrate the lesson steps. b) One of the 14 lessons appearing in the multimedia
application demonstrating a lesson on how to implement navigation features.

The videos are in flash video format and the students can stop anytime and go back to
a point that was not clear or go forward if they wish to skip a specific section. Apart from
the videos the student can alternatively view the necessary steps of the completion of the
exercise in a word document where the exercise is described in written format (Figure 3).
The written version of the exercise steps are accompanied by pictures extracted
(snapshots) from the video that was previously captured and used for the video tutorials.
This feature of the application can also become useful to the teacher in case he/she wants
to print the documents and use them as hand outs in the lab workshops. Furthermore the
application is distributed with all the necessary files (images,sound,video) that will allow
the students to complete the exercises on their own.
Our students found the multimedia material more helpful compared to the usual
written material that was normally handed out during the workshops. This however is
based on the opinions they expressed during those workshops and a more detailed
analysis with questionnaires needs to be carried out in case we want to have more
accurate indications on the effectiveness of the tool.

Fig. 3 a) By clicking at an indicative text label at the top of the application window
saying “the exercises in text” the interface changes slightly and the links display the word
“doc” rather than “flash”. Once clicked a word document opens which contains the steps
of the exercise in written format accompanied with the necessary pictures.

4. Conclusions

Modern programs of studies oblige students in all disciplines to acquire more knowledge
in less time. New theories, tools, scientific discoveries and research results are adopted
every year under existing course modules. Multimedia may enhance the learning process
by interactive applications designed to meet specific course requirements. Designing
multimedia applications by using own resources allow trainers to easily modify existing
multimedia applications meeting new course requirements or meeting student evaluation
criteria.
A multimedia application has been presented here demonstrating an example of using
own resources for designing interactive support applications in IT courses in public
 Lappas and Kleftodimos.- A Multimedia Application for Teaching A Multimedia Course.

relations and communication studies. Information technology laboratory courses require

considerable effort from students who can receive teacher assistance only during the
laboratory workshops. Multimedia applications designed for IT courses allow students to
drill computer laboratory exercises on their own preferred time accomplishing at the
same time the twin goals of comprehending better the laboratory workshops and of
managing time allocated for study in an efficient manner.
Post-experience responses from students found this learning media to be motivating
and very welcome. Post-experience responses from the staff members using the
application found this media stimulating for further development adding more features
and learning material according to students and course needs. More courses are currently
under consideration for adopting such interactive multimedia support. A side effect of the
multimedia experience gained by the staff and students is the significant increase in
quantity and quality of student final year projects in designing their own interactive
multimedia applications for better public relations and communication practices.

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