EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE FOR DISTANCE LEARNING: SOME ASPECTS OF DESIGN AND PRESENTATION FORMATS

Abstract

In the past many interesting applications of interactive instructional software have been developed by a great number of educational institutions. However there has been done practically no work to compare different instructional packages with respect to design and presentation formats. It is the purpose of this paper to present different solutions for standard elements of instructional software. The examples will be drawn mainly from programmes developed at FernUniversität Hagen. As standard elements we have considered the title, user guidance, menu structure, presentation of authors, historical background of theories, presentation of concepts,  simulations, practical illustrations, exercises and support tools. Each of these elements will be illustrated by several examples taken from CBT-applications in various subjects.