Development

Your first task in developing educational technology is finding a way to avoid it. Developing any software is a challenging proposition. Developing educational technology is at least as complicated as building any other large software project -- and can be even more complicated by the demands of gathering domain knowledge, assembling this knowledge (perhaps in multimedia), and connecting it into the software. By using off-the-shelf software, you can hopefully avoid the whole task of development. If software doesn't exist for just what you want, see if some of the flexible and programmable software for education (e.g., MATLAB, Mathematica) can be used with minor tweaks.

If you can't avoid the task, look for toolkits or authoring tools that help you with the development, taking care of as many of the details as possible. There are a variety of tools (each with its own strengths and weaknesses) that can help with making development as cheap and easy as possible.

Finally, if nothing else fits what you want to do, go ahead and build it yourself. But we aware of the host of difficulties and challenges that you'll be facing.

Below we summarize some of the issues and approaches of each of these options. Below, we can only touch upon the possible choices. I suggest raising questions and making specific comments/suggestions in the Development Comment Area.

COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf Software)

Options Strengths Weaknesses Examples
Using Existing Software You don't have to develop anything! You find something that helps you in dealing with an existing Learning Problems, and integrate it into your classroom Software varies widely in quality and how easily it can be integrated into your class. You may find the software that deals exactly with your problem of students understanding vectors, but they do it in completely the wrong domain The range of existing software is ENORMOUS. Your best bet is with one of the many academic and professional organizations that have created pointers to available software (e.g., for Chemistry, http://www.inform.umd.edu/UMS+State/UMD-Projects/MCTP
Using Programmable Software You have to develop only a little -- basically, examples and starting points. Software in this category includes MATLAB, Maple, Mathematica, and the variety of simulation packages (e.g., ASPEN) Your students have to learn how to use the programmable software, at least, how to start it and run the example and starting point you've created. This can be a good thing, but it's one more learning task There are lots of pieces like this already in existence. Go to the bookstore and see the range of books with titles like "How to do INSERT YOUR DOMAIN HERE in Mathematica/Matlab"

Authoring Tools and Toolkits

Options Examples Strengths Weaknesses
Multimedia Authoring Tools Macromedia Director, Adobe Premier Easily create multimedia: Synchronized video, graphics, audio, text (sometimes -- that can be hard in these tools) "Brochure-deep" -- it's easy to create something shallow and attractive. Real deep content requires big investment.
Educational Authoring Tools Authorware Designed for creating interactive educational software: With multiple choice buttons, drag and drop things, ties to multiple media, cross-platform support. You have to buy into their model. Authorware is designed for question-and-answer ("drill-and-kill" as it's sometimes called) educational software. Case libraries and collaboration tools, for example, are hard to do with these.
Web-based Authoring Tools Adobe PageMill, ObjectDancer, Macromedia Flash, Coda, Microsoft Frontpage Easily put content on the Web, often with animations, interesting interactive widgets, audio, etc. It is easier to put more content on the Web with these than with multimedia authoring tools, but not more sophisticated. You're not going to build a design tool with these, for example.
Presentation Tools Persuasion, PowerPoint Easiest way to get nice quality information available for distribution across a wide variety of mechanisms, from transparencies to the Web. Easiest way to get started with electronic media production. No interactivity. Weak multimedia support compared to something like Director. May not have much impact due to paucity of features.

Development Issues

Development Issue Why is this important? What are my options? How do I decide?
Platform independence Not everyone has one kind of machine: Mac (well, maybe not for long), Windows (including Win3.1, Win95, WinNT), UNIX (including LINUX on PC boxes). The student computer initiative doesn't specify what platform has to be purchased. So, anything goes. You can require one platform, and those students without access use a lab. Or you can go platform independent with tools like Java, Python, Squeak, or Tcl/Tk, or simple Web-based tools What do you need your students to do? If it's a matter of running a simulation for 30 minutes, platform dependence is fine. If it's something they have to use daily, being independent will make access easier for them.
Language selection Platform dependent or independent, the choices for programming language are huge. Pick one that (a) you can find programmers for and (b) lets them easily express what they need. If you need multimedia, choose a language with MM support Java, Python, Squeak, or Tcl/Tk are all platform independent programming languages, where Java is probably the hardest to use, and Tcl/Tk or Python are probably the easiest. C/C++/Fortran are platform dependent choices. Decide what you want to develop and who can develop for you. What do your programmers know? What can they learn easily? What can you maintain in the future?
Maintenance You will want to change your software in the future. Period. Whether it's to add new knowledge, change what's there, or fix bugs, software is bound to change. You have to pick a language that you can find programmers for in the future. It's great if someone will build you something in Perl or Visual Basic today, but can you find somebody to change it tomorrow? Talk to your students and fellow faculty. What are the languages that you can find programmers for? Then make your prediction for the future.

Options	Strengths	Weaknesses	Examples
Using Existing Software	You don't have to develop anything! You find something that helps you in dealing with an existing Learning Problems, and integrate it into your classroom	Software varies widely in quality and how easily it can be integrated into your class. You may find the software that deals exactly with your problem of students understanding vectors, but they do it in completely the wrong domain	The range of existing software is ENORMOUS. Your best bet is with one of the many academic and professional organizations that have created pointers to available software (e.g., for Chemistry, http://www.inform.umd.edu/UMS+State/UMD-Projects/MCTP
Using Programmable Software	You have to develop only a little -- basically, examples and starting points. Software in this category includes MATLAB, Maple, Mathematica, and the variety of simulation packages (e.g., ASPEN)	Your students have to learn how to use the programmable software, at least, how to start it and run the example and starting point you've created. This can be a good thing, but it's one more learning task	There are lots of pieces like this already in existence. Go to the bookstore and see the range of books with titles like "How to do INSERT YOUR DOMAIN HERE in Mathematica/Matlab"

Development Issue	Why is this important?	What are my options?	How do I decide?
Platform independence	Not everyone has one kind of machine: Mac (well, maybe not for long), Windows (including Win3.1, Win95, WinNT), UNIX (including LINUX on PC boxes). The student computer initiative doesn't specify what platform has to be purchased. So, anything goes.	You can require one platform, and those students without access use a lab. Or you can go platform independent with tools like Java, Python, Squeak, or Tcl/Tk, or simple Web-based tools	What do you need your students to do? If it's a matter of running a simulation for 30 minutes, platform dependence is fine. If it's something they have to use daily, being independent will make access easier for them.
Language selection	Platform dependent or independent, the choices for programming language are huge. Pick one that (a) you can find programmers for and (b) lets them easily express what they need. If you need multimedia, choose a language with MM support	Java, Python, Squeak, or Tcl/Tk are all platform independent programming languages, where Java is probably the hardest to use, and Tcl/Tk or Python are probably the easiest. C/C++/Fortran are platform dependent choices.	Decide what you want to develop and who can develop for you. What do your programmers know? What can they learn easily? What can you maintain in the future?
Maintenance	You will want to change your software in the future. Period. Whether it's to add new knowledge, change what's there, or fix bugs, software is bound to change.	You have to pick a language that you can find programmers for in the future. It's great if someone will build you something in Perl or Visual Basic today, but can you find somebody to change it tomorrow?	Talk to your students and fellow faculty. What are the languages that you can find programmers for? Then make your prediction for the future.