Exploring the Multimedia Landscape from a Training and Professional Development Perspective.

The move by training and educational institutions in Australia toward the use of multimedia to facilitate effective and cost effective training and professional development has grown at a substantial pace. This paper focuses on the impact of multimedia on the areas of training and professional development. Benefits of the technology are described, including: cost and time savings; high student-teacher/trainee interaction; immediate feedback; consistent presentation; improved management of the learning process; content change management; flexible delivery; safe simulation environments; privacy; and increased instructional availability. Additional discussion LIcludes professional development and training on the World Wide Web; differences between education and industry based training; the multimedia development process (job analysis, training needs analysis, instructional materials development, assessment, and evaluation); and criteria for evaluating computer assisted learning