Distributed Multimedia Learning Environments: Why and How?

Abstract We outline the societal prospects and business opportunities for much more extensive use of interactive multimedia technologies (IMT) connected through telecommunications to create distributed multimedia learning environments (DMLE). A theoretical framework is provided with a distinctive communications perspective on learning emerging from research in the cognitive and social sciences. A major consequence of this communication emphasis is the special need for rich communication technologies to support highly interactive teaching and learning activities, especially those at a distance but even within a classroom or school. Examples of existing projects using IMT for remote learning communications are among the most dramatic examples of these new possibilities. Based on these foundations, we first depict a vision of IMT for schools that establishes the kinds of DMLE designs that appear from research to offer promising improvements. We then characterize how current educational spending trends and educational technology research and development attitudes could be transformed so that such distributed multimedia learning environments could become a reality more rapidly. Short‐term progress in closing the gap from current practices to this vision is possible in specific IMT application areas described.