Principles of Interactive Learning Multimedia

4 Video: up to 10 or 3 minutes, whichever is less. 5 Numerical data: up to 10 or 2,500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less. The theories above indicate that in developing learning multimedia, the researcher must consider the portion and the choice of the media used to result in an appropriate and effective learning multimedia. There shouldn’t be a media that appear too dominant. All the media used in developing appropriate learning multimedia have to be well balanced and selected carefully. The appearance of the multimedia also takes an important role in supporting its appropriateness. There shouldn’t be too bright colour in the multimedia. Consistency and optimality are very crucial for the navigation system as well. The theories above will play important role in the developing process. 2. Theories of Learning An effective learning multimedia must be developed based on a learning theory that is suitable for the users. “Cognitive psychology learning paradigm include learning theories which consider the nature of individual learning as well as how knowledge as constructed in social situations,” Sanders 2001: 2. It includes behaviorism perspective, cognitivism perspective, and contructivism perspective. 1 Behaviorism Perspective The main idea of Behaviorism perspective is that language acquisition will occur due to behavioral practices, drills and exposure to the target language. As students get used to the language, they will learn the language. There is nothing to do with internal matter such as aptitude, natural talent, brain’s LAD Language Acquisition Device, memory capacity, and so on, when learning occurs. Behaviorists believe that everyone has the same chance in learning second language. The things that will determine the success of the learning result are practices and drills. In addition to that, they only rely on observable behaviors as their source of research. As the result, behaviorists have lack on describing how the input that students get from practices and drills is processed and turned into output. There are a lot of pros and contras related to this theory since behavioural concepts are not necessarily acceptable to all types of learners, but many people still strongly believe in this theory. 2 Cognitivist Perspective In the other hand, Cognitivist perspective has contrast point of view against the Behaviorist perspective. In the late of the twentieth century, a Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget made a big breakthrough in the theory of learning. Based on his work on in 1977, cognitivists create a model of how learners can acquire language through internal process. It explains how people can think, solve problems, and make decisions. In contrast with the behaviorists which believe that language is the result of drills and practices, cognitivists believe that language is the result of mental process that individual does. New input will be stored in the short term memory. Some of the input will be successfully stored in the long term memory, where learners can combine and manipulate this new input with their previous knowledge to develop cognitive strategy and skillto solve problems, or to give responses to the environment. This individual process will make students more independent in encountering problems that occur in the learning process in the classroom by manifesting available sources and their own cognitive strategies, rather than fully rely on the teacher’s guidance. 3 Constructivists Perspective Constructivism is developed based on the ideas of cognitivists perspective. Instead of believing that learning will occur due to the passive transfer of information that is decoded and processed internally, constructivists believe that learning will only occur when it refers to the experimental learning. Information is not transferred directly to the learner, but implicitly. Teacher must provide learners with language experiences, so that learner can construct their own understanding about the problems, and make inferences and interpretation about the problems as their main input. The learning process should be in the form of discovery and problem solving. The main purpose of teacher’s instructions is not to give students information, but to create environment that enable learners to identify problems and make interpretations to solve the problems by themselves. There is a process of understanding and interpreting which make information