The student newspaper this year began to use Pagemaker for pre-press layout. A growing number of classes in the sciences and the business college require a working knowledge of the GIS software packages ArcView and ArcInfo. The PC software of today is powerful yet rarely used in the classroom. When I teach the American Civil War, I project outline notes of the Battle of Fredericksburg that I typed into Macromedia Director. I am able to talk and lecture and answer questions as the computer screen moves through the outline, just as a salesman would give his pitch with Microsoft Powerpoint or Adobe Persuasion.
Director is a nonlinear program that makes it a favorite authoring platform for CD-ROMs.
By clicking on a variety of screen buttons, you can jump to a map or photo during the presentation of your outline notes, talk about the images, then click back to the notes. With at least a rudimentary knowledge of these programs, I can help students work on their own multimedia projects . I have been using Photoshop to scan pictures into a database of images that students can use. Each image is indexed with its http address into Filemaker Pro, the same software that I use to keep a record of class grades. I have found that practice makes perfect.