Computer-based Education Software Development Process

A main focus of TDG’s software strategy is to develop online multimedia products rather than standalone software products on disk or CD. We have developed substantial in-house capability for producing online multimedia products, and we collaborate routinely with skilled specialists in programming, digital graphic design, image generation, and various subject content areas.   
 

TDG Development Process

Our standard development process for an online module includes the following main steps:

• Topic outline for module
       Define topics
       Detailed outline for each topic
• Develop content and structure
       Storyboards – containing content, sketch graphics, and     
       proposed interactivity
       Database development in support of storyboards
• Graphics development
       3-D modeling and images
       2-D and 3-D graphics
• Online graphical user interface (GUI) for module
• Online scripts and computer code 
• Online publishing
• Debugging and quality assurance

We use Macromedia Shockwave as the web platform for most of our online multimedia modules, including main graphic user interface (GUI) interactions, 2-D and 3-D graphics, animations, problem-solving exercises, database queries and scripting. We do develop some shorter products directly in HTML, ASP, and JavaScript. Also, an early online module (1999) uses Macromedia Authorware Player.
 

We routinely use object-oriented programming whenever possible. This object oriented approach is applied to (1) the writing of computer code, (2) the development of standard user interface objects (buttons, images, popup menus, etc), and (3) database structures for multimedia content (e.g., building elements, energy conservation opportunities, building design strategies, etc.). We have found that the use of such object-oriented approaches saves us considerable time and effort on all subsequent applications. We are able to either directly re-use major portions of computer code or modify it only slightly.

For more information about TDG work with online learning, see Computer-based Education Online.
 

Last edited 27 July 05