These are excerpts from an article I found in "Software Development", April '97 issue.

Interactive CD-ROM-based tutorials provide a friendly learning environment to help you keep up with today's development tools. Computer-based training (CBT) and computer-aided instruction (CAI) were one of the bright promises of early computing.

There is a long list of available such products today. Four of them by MindQ ("Java Programming & Core Class Libraries", "Hands On Java Programming") and Microsoft ("Mastering Microsoft Visual C++" and "Mastering Internet Development") are reviewed in the mentioned article.

The major concept behind these CBT products making use of multimedia and other emerging technologies is that the interface combines audio, a pleasing visual background, hypertext, and an application simulator.

A tour is a set of topics that educate the user on a concept. For instance, "Hands on Java Programming" contains nine tours, spanning a comfortable subset of Visual J++ and Java capabilities. The tour operates with audio, animation, and graphics that help simulate Visual J++ (what is referred to as an "application simulator"). The interface makes good use of hypertext, which can take you to definitions, lists, explanations, and similar topics.

The audio voice-overs are well done. Also, the material is presented in the topic frame and consists mostly of dense text. There are some animations, but they are rather simple and do not really add anything to the information. However, no program tutorial would be complete without screen shots. For audio-impaired, closed captioning is available for the voice-overs. Also, the interface is instantly familiar to anyone who has used a browser or Windows help.

Of course, you could probably get all of this information from reading the manual and help file, but retention might be better from this multimedia approach.

The state-of-the-art in instructional software has certainly advanced since days of mainframes and green screens. With the right user interface, the retention rate would be higher than printed material. However, books are still more portable (and cheaper, too), so don't give up on the traditional methods yet.


"I view it [education] as the most important subject which we, as people, can be engaged in." - Abraham Lincoln