THE NEED FOR EFFICIENT AND FLEXIBLE EDUCATIONAL IMAGERY — WHEN AMBITIOUS VISUALIZATION PRODUCTS MEET THE CONTEXT OF ACTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Maria Spante
PhD student
Chalmers University of Technology
Sweden

Thommy Ericsson
PhD student
IT University
Sweden

Maria Sunnerstam
Gothenburg University
Sweden

Cammy Huang-De Voss
Virtual Labs Project
Stanford University
USA

Michael Axelsson
Department of Zoology
Gothenburg University
Sweden

This paper reports findings from a project implementing the Virtual Labs site featuring Flash- based animations developed at Stanford University. The main conclusion in this paper stresses the need to design for flexibility and adaptability of interactive media to better suit the specific situation teachers encounter in their everyday work in order to allow them to build their own audiovisual presentation kits based on various available resources. Ambitious but rigid visualization products might otherwise end up not being used at all.

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