Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science

UECS2023 Multimedia Technology

Group Assignment

Student’s Name, ID, : Saw Thean Eak 1102819 3E T4

Course and Tutorial : Lee Ru Rui 1101807 3E T4
Group : Chai Kim Yoke 1107164 AM T1
: Pala Khartikeyan a/l Periasamy 1003452 3E T4

Date of Submission : 9 April 2015

Lecturer / Assessor’s : Ms Beh Hooi Ching

Name
INTRODUCTION

Title: Educational Courseware for Children

Since technology has become part of the educational process, and is being integrated
into class curriculum. Besides, there are more on-line courses offered in many educational
institutions. These provide a chance for children to study and learn effectively via online at
home. The Information Communication and Technology (ICT) play a role in multimedia
industry. It could make the teaching and learning process more effectively in order to save
time and energy and to avoid the boredness among the students. The purpose of developing
this courseware is to help children in recognizing animals and learning English. This
courseware consists of educational module, exercise module and games module. It uses the
integration between the pictures and videos to approach kids to recognize animals and
understanding well in English. The interfaces are developed and designed in a colourful way
in order to achieve the mission of the courseware.

Role of Authors
1. Thean Eak as the Interface Designer.
Responsibilities
• Makes interface “transparent” users
• Structure of the content and select presentation media
Background/skills
• Basic drawing skills
• Familiar with different multimedia interfaces
• Knows authoring system, user testing

2. Kim Yoke as the Information Designer.

Responsibilities
• Determine user pathways and feedbacks
• Provides access to media and control the people who use it
Background/skills
• Able to look at the information from different points of view
• Familiar with different multimedia interfaces
• Interpersonal skills
3. Ru Rui as the Multimedia Designer.
Responsibilities
• Overall content and structure
• Overlap with Interface Designer
• Prepare blueprint for project
Background/skills
• Able to analyse content structurally and match it with effective presentation
• Expert with different media types such as Macromedia Flash MX
• Solid organizational skills
• Understand resources include both technological and human

4. Pala Khartikeyan as the Multimedia Writer.

Responsibilities
• Create actions, characters, interactivity and point of view
• Write proposals and text screens
• Script voice covers and actors’ narrations
Background/skills
• Able to work within tight deadlines
• Background in marketing

Problem Statements
1. High attention from parents and teachers are needed for traditional learning. They have to
figure out the ways to gain the children’s interest, such as on reading.
2. Lack of the learning materials that can improve the knowledge of animals and attract
children’s interest on learning English effectively.
3. The condition of traditional materials such as the book is not in a good condition due to
man-made damaged.
4. The kids who have not been in school.
5. The understanding ratio of children toward multimedia interactive is much more effective
compared to traditional learning such as on reading.
Objectives
• To be eco-friendly and go green by saving the expenses on a lot of books. Let the children
start with only a CD or a computer instead of buying a lot of books.
• To help children below 7 years old to learn how to recognize animals and learn English
by developing learning software that emphasizes the multimedia element and the
information.
• To integrate modules into a learning and games software for children. These modules
have created interesting and effectively learning software.
• To provide benefits and convenience to target parents and teachers. The learning
materials and interactive game act as a medium to fulfill the children’s free time and
parents or teachers can get closer to the children all the time.

Target Audience
Children age 5 – 7 years old.

Scopes of Application
The learning software focuses on recognizing animals and learning English for
children by inserting graphic and animation. Besides that, there are also games based on
picture, videos and words in English in order to introduce this recognizing concept to the
children. This is the purpose to enrich children’s nature interest of games.

In learning process of this software, a lot of animation and video is inserted purposely
for attracting and increasing the children’s interest of learning. This software could be used
by teachers as a medium or an interactive material in their learning and teaching process.
Other than that, it also could be used by parents to educate their children anytime at home to
fulfill their free time as well as to improve the relationship among them.

This software only needs a computer that using the operation system of Windows XP
and above. It uses a CD to run the system without the needs of an external supported system
or an installation.
Hardware/Software Specifications
This courseware is developed by using multimedia software, Macromedia Flash MX as the
main platform and other supporting software. Hence, it is assured that the developing of this
courseware will help children in recognizing animals and learning English in an effective
way.
ANALYSIS

Evaluation of Choice of Tool

In the current market, there are a lot of software can be used to design and develop this
educational courseware for children. Yet, we need these two types of tools to be used in our
educational courseware, there are media editing tools and authoring tools.

Media editing tools play the role to help user on creating or editing any effect that
they need for the images or products. They have a lot of choice containing these editing tools
in the software in the market such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Both of the
Adobe products have met the requirements for this multimedia application. Adobe Photoshop
is a graphics and image editing tool. It is “bitmap” image processing and manipulation software.
(Fryer & Umstot, 2012) It is famous to use by digital photographers around the world. If the
users wish to design a webpage, to create a PowerPoint presentation slides or to edit a photo,
Adobe Photoshop can easily help them to complete their work by polishing the look in a more
professional way. Besides, there are plenty features on Photoshop, such as the colour changing of
the images, remove the unwanted resource, the adding effect to the images, and etc. are also
easily to learn by the tips and tutorials in this software. Within the cooperation of these amazing
tools, images transformed to a better look compare to the photo snapped by any digital cameras.

Whereas, Adobe Illustrator is a vector based drawing software that designed to create
and edit vector images (Jin Wu, 2007). Its function is to generating the curve paths connected
by modifiable anchor points. Adobe Illustrator creates vector graphics that made of lines and
curves defined by mathematical objects called vectors. (Design Center) Adobe Illustrator
basically has the same features of drawing and vector art tools with Adobe Photoshop. It is
also possible to use Adobe Illustrator to create the unique graphics and artwork. Also, this
software is user-friendly. It also has abundance tips and tutorials over the internet for the user
to learn and use it.

Both Adobe products have their own pros and cons. After discussion, we decide to
choose Adobe Illustrator to design and develop this educational courseware. If you want to
enhance your courseware to make the courseware’s images look perfect, you may proceed
with Adobe Photoshop, which is a best tool to use it. Instead of just make the images to look
better, we also creating a new unique presentation of our own design. Hence, we choose
Adobe Illustrator to develop our educational courseware. The advantages of the Adobe
illustrator in our courseware is it can design our own layout for this courseware, but Adobe
Photoshop cannot support that feature. Overall, Adobe Photoshop is more to a photographer
and Adobe Illustrator is more to a graphic designer.

Apart from media editing tools, we also use authoring tools. Authoring tools provide
an integrated environment for binding together the different elements of a multimedia
production. Authoring tools containing the features such as create the multimedia
components by editing texts, creating of graphic animations and recording of sounds. It also
can integrate the multimedia components by placing, linking and sequencing to any part of
the product. In addition, it also builds interactivity of the product to allow the users to jump to
another part of the application by clicking some particular icons. Furthermore, authoring tools
can package the application for delivery.

For our courseware application, we decide to use Macromedia Flash MX as the

authoring tools. Macromedia Flash MX is software that allowed designers and developers to
use for authoring of vector graphics, animations and games that deliver a great performance
for interactive presentations, educational courseware and other useful applications (Rue,
2011). After the product is done, it can be executed, played or viewed by Adobe Flash Player.
Adobe Flash Player also an Adobe product, it developed by Adobe for browsers on the
Macintosh and Windows. The animations of texts, drawings or still images are due to the
manipulation of vector and raster graphics. Adobe Flash Player allows bidirectional
streaming of audios and videos, and it can capture user’s input via mouse, keyboard,
microphone and camera. (Adobe, 2011) To design and develop our product, Adobe Illustrator
is used to design the graphics or icons and the layouts we want. Together with Macromedia
Flash MX, to manipulate the content and link all of them to desired situations. Hence, we
conclude that the Macromedia Flash MX is a perfect tool to design and develop our
educational courseware.
Feasibility study
1. Technical Feasibility

Technical feasibility considers the technical requirement of a proposed project.

(O’Brien & Marakas, 2011) In this full advanced technology century, the development of
education courseware seems to be worked. In order to develop a educational courseware for
children, Macromedia Flash MX is used. It is a software to make the animated interfaces for
the web or just to create simple animations. Macromedia Flash MX is one of the most basic
ways to do animations and users are easily to cope with it. Instead of purchasing this software
from retailers, we can actually download it for free from the web. Therefore, developing this
courseware would be feasible in technical term provided that we have the ability to access the
Internet in our home. In fact, this task is more possible nowadays as telecommunications in
Malaysia have come out with Unifi and most of the citizens would have installed Unifi in
their house. Hence, tis project is even more feasible since the Internet accessibility is very
convenient nowadays.

In terms of technical expertise, we are well-equipped with the required knowledge to

develop the courseware. After attending the Multimedia Technology course in Universiti
Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) for 10 weeks and about 20 lectures, we are equipped with the
knowledge on how to create interactive multimedia applications by using appropriate tools,
the file formats and the principles of multimedia design. In addition, our lecturer and tutor
have given us a lot of guidance that help us in educational courseware development.
Therefore, to develop this educational courseware with the knowledge that we have and
guidance from lecturer and tutor is feasible.

2. Economic Feasibility
Economic feasibility is used for evaluating the effectiveness of a proposed project. It
is commonly known as cost or benefit analysis. (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011) There is zero
cost involves in this educational courseware development because the software needed, for
instance, Macromedia Flash MX can be downloaded from the web for free. Although the
courseware does not required any cost, but it does brings many benefits to the users
especially children and the related parties.

Students considered being "Digital Natives" since they were born, rose in a digital
environment and inherently think different because of this exposure to technology. (Gu, Zhu
& Guo, 2013) Since our target users are the children age between 5 - 7 years old, our
educational courseware may motivate children to learn English and recognize animals in an
effective way. It also enhances their learning process as our courseware containing not only
description module but also games module. Nowadays, they love playing games and they
would learn faster through video games. This is supported by the study of (Perrotta,
Featherstone, Aston and Houghton 2013), where video games have great impact on problem
solving skill, broader knowledge acquisition motivation and engagement. On top of that,
younger children in the early stage of learning process may touch the game based learning
through website faster than reading from a book. So, our courseware has the ability to assist
the children to learn to use the technology everyone is using now, apart from learning English
and recognizing the animals.

In addition, our education courseware helps the parents to be eco-friendly and go

green by saving the expenses on a lot of books for the children to study. With a computer or a
tablet on hand, they can actually find some study materials from the web instead of buying a
lot of book for their children to study. Hence, with the technology in education, we can
actually reduce the dependency on using papers to help in protecting the environment.

Even though there might be some disadvantages such as abusing internet privileges
for non-school activities, however, with the guidance of parents and teachers, we believe the
advantages are largely outweigh than the disadvantages in long-term. Thus, the development
of the educational courseware is feasible in economic term.
 Conceptual model

Design and development of an educational courseware for children

Target Objectives Teaching and Interactivity Teaching Learning

Users Learning and Strategies Theories
Medium Navigation

5-7
Multimedia • Educational game
years old
Elements • Story videos for each
children
type of the modules

• Text
• Graphic
• Audio • Behaviorism
• Video • Cognitivism
Learners • Constructivism
• Animations centered
environment

• To be Eco-friendly and save the

expenses on buying books.
• To integrate modules into a learning
Learning Modules
and game software for children. Responds • Description
through modules
• To provide benefits and convenience
application • Games modules
to target parents and teachers.
• To recognize animals and learn
English.
DESIGN

Storyboards
1. First page of the program.
- Welcome Screen.

Title

Graphic

Clickable button
Games Videos
to go for Games or
Videos
2. After clicked the “Videos” button on the Welcome Screen, direct the user to the
following page.
- Video Page

Videos

Image 1 Image 2
Clickable
image
Text 1 Text 2 buttons of
the four
categories
of animals
Image 3 Image 4
Clickable
buttons back
Text 3 Text 4 to Welcome
Menu Screen.
3. After clicked any of the clickable image button on the Video page, direct user to the
following page.
- For example, clicked into Image 1 (selected the first category of the animal)

Videos of the
Video Title selected
category

Image 1 Image 2 Image 3

Text 1 Text 2 Text 3 Clickable

image
buttons for
Image 4 Image 5 Image 6 the story of
the selected
Text 4 Text 5 Text 6 category

Clickable Menu
Image 7 Image 8 Image 9
button back to
Back
Welcome Screen
Text 7 Text 8 Text 9 and Back button
Menu
to previous
screen.
4. After clicked the clickable image button, direct user to the selected video.
- Video

Selected story
Video
video will be
display once the
“play” button is
clicked.

Clickable Back
Back
button back to
previous screen.
5. After clicked the “Games” button on the Welcome Screen, direct the user to the
following page.
- Game Instruction Page

Instruction

Clickable buttons
either to Start the
Start Menu game or back to
Welcome Screen.
6. After clicked the Start button, direct user to the following page.

- Game Application

Score will be
High Score displayed at
here.
Game Application

Time is set to
be 3 minutes
Time Frame
for the on-
going game.

Back button
Back to previous
screen.
Implication of Design Guideline towards Application
Although our educational courseware application filled up with most images with limited text,
but the file size of the images are not going to be the issues to the whole application. Indeed,
we can present them either in black and white or in colors, with clear outline. At the same
time, we also can reduce the file size of the application. The games application also not an
issue to the whole application since it is just a random game without saving the file into the
computer. The only issue is the file size of the videos that displayed to make the children as
well as their target parents and teachers to understand more towards the animals in our
courseware application. Hence, our educational courseware is designed to be either in the
format of CD or website. For the CD format, there is always a suitable storage for the
application. But for the website, it also does not affect the loading speed as the (estimated)
entire size of the application is not going to exceed the streaming speed in our home. In
addition, the use of the navigational buttons and suitable images are easy to describe the
content as a picture speaks a thousand words.
Flowline

Start / Welcome Screen

Game Videos

Game Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4

Application

Images of Images of Images of Images of

Category Category Category 3 Category
1 chosen 2 chosen chosen 4 chosen

Video Video Video Video

End

Instruction of the Game Application

In our educational courseware, the game application is useful for the children or the target
parents to catch back what they have learned throughout these videos from different animals’
categories. Before the game starts, children or the target parents have to read through the
instruction so that they would not able to miss any scores from the game. The time frame for
this game is set to be three minutes. The words that learned from this educational courseware
will be drop down with various speeds, and target users have to move the cursor either to the
left or to the right, then continued by pressing the space bar to shoot the same categories’
words. Every correct answer earns 3 points, while wrong answer deducts 5 points from the
score. The score is displayed on the screen. A “Game Over” screen will pop out after the time
frame is over.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

In short, the animal educational courseware application gives significant effects to the
children as well as the target parents and teachers in order to have a better understanding
towards the animals. However, there are still many problems faced from many aspects such
as from the teachers, from the courseware itself and so on. Thus, the questions of what are the
effective criteria for this animal educational courseware still remain unanswered. So, to have
a better understanding of the courseware, the main aspects need to be concerned to the design
and development of the courseware need to be investigated. It is hope that the effective
criteria will be identify so that the courseware application can best fit to the needs of all
parties and use it as a tool in kindergartens or schools.
REFERENCES

Adobe. (2011, July 24). Introducing the Adobe Flash Platform. Retrieved from
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/articles/flashplatform_overview.html

Design Center. (n.d.). Photoshop Tips and Tricks. Retrieved from http://www.graphic-
design.com/Photoshop/best.html

Fryer, W. A., & Umstot, M. (2012, September 16). Introduction to Adobe Photoshop.
Retrieved from http://www.wtvi.com/teks/ps/

Gu, X., Zhu, Y., & Guo, X (2013). Meeting the “Digital Natives”: Understanding the
Acceptance of Technology in Classrooms. Educational Technology & Society, 16 (1),
392–402.

Jin Wu. (2007). Introduction to Adobe Illustrator CS2 . Retrieved from

https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/technology/tutorials/graphics/illustratorcs2/index.php

O' Brien, J. A., & Marakas, G. M. (2011). Developing Business/ IT Solutions. In Management
Information Systems. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Perrotta, C., Featherstone, G., Aston, H., & Houghton, E. (2013). Game-based Learning:
Latest Evidence and Future Directions (NFER Research Programme: Innovation in
Education). Slough: NFER.

Rue, J. (2011, March 22). UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism:Introduction to flash.

Retrieved from http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/introduction-to-flash/