What will society look like under the evolving institutions of interactive multimedia technologies? Well, if the 1980's were a time for media tycoons, the 1990's will be for the self-styled visionaries. These gurus see a dawning digital age in which the humble television will mutate into a two-way medium for a vast amount of information and entertainment. We can expect to see: movies-on-demand, video games, databases, educational programming, home shopping, telephone services, telebanking, teleconferencing, even the complex simulations of virtual reality. This souped-up television will itself be a powerful computer. This, many believe, will be the world's biggest media group, letting consumers tune into anything, anywhere, anytime.

As instruction progresses and intelligent systems are used, the system learns about the student's strengths and weaknesses and then uses this knowledge to make the learning experience fit the need of that particular student. Interactive multimedia has several key advantages. First, students receive training when and where they need it. An instructor does not have to be present, so students can select the time best suited to their personal schedules. Second, students can adjourn training at any point in the lesson and return to it later. Third, the training is highly effective because it is based on the most powerful principles of individualized learning. Students find the program interesting, so they stick with it. Retention of the material learned is excellent. Fourth, the same videodisk equipment can be used to support a variety of training paths. Last, both the training and the testing are objectively and efficiently measured and tracked.

Other common systems include Sim City, Carmen San Diego, and a variety of popular multimedia games created by Broderbound Softwarek, one of the biggest companies in this new field. Rather than old drill and kill forms of computerized instruction that bore students, this new entertaining form of education is far more effective precisely because kids get totally immersed in an exciting experience.

The purpose of multimedia in education as in so many other multimedia applications, is to: enhance the transfer of information, encourage participation, stimulate the senses and enhance information retention. Multimedia uses a powerful combination of earlier technologies that constitutes an extraordinary advance in the capability of machines to assist the educational process. Interactive multimedia combines computer hardware, software, and peripheral equipment to provide a rich mixture of text, graphics, sound, animation, full-motion video, data, and other information. Although multimedia has been technically feasible for many years, only recently has it become a major focus for commercial development. Interactive multimedia systems can serve a variety of purposes but their great power resides in highly sophisticated software that employs scientifically based educational methods to guide the student through a path of instruction individually tailored to suit the special needs of each person.

Neither digitization nor fibre optics is new. But it was only this year

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