Each new advance in educational technologies heralds new possibilities, often before fully realising the potential of the previous technology.
Interactive multimedia promises interactivity.
Anyone who has looked at run of the mill computer software or branching videodiscs that continually interrupt the viewer with multitudes of unappealing choices understands that interactivity is not a sufficient condition for a good experience. Similarly, those of us who have sat on the edge of our seats in lecture halls and theaters, enjoying a non passive experience even though we have no control over outcomes or opportunity for any interaction, must acknowledge that there is really something to the crafts of rhetoric and storytelling. Interactivity is not necessarily inherent in the technology itself. Multimedia marketers would have us believe that the ability to point and click is a far more interactive experience than the ability to turn pages in a book. Books do not have to be, and in fact often never have been, only used for linear presentation.