How Multimedia Content Can Contribute Towards Enhanced Learning

Nygard, Atle, Jonny Hesthammer, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

In 2000, Statoil ASA initiated a collaboration agreement with the universities in Norway. Under this agreement, Statoil sponsors good research and learning projects. A focus at the universities has been to modernize learning by combining technology and alternative peda­gogic principles. The main pedagogic principle pursued is that of a flexible (or blended) learning environment where students (learners) work in groups, solving real problems while working with real data. Knowledge resources are a mixture of lectures, text books and arti­cles, but also web links, e-learning modules and geosimulators.

Two aspects of modernized learning will be discussed. Firstly, an e-module project which uses multimedia to present learning material in an attractive form for the learners. E-learn-ing modules can be described as interactive, multimedia learning experiences and thus dif­fer significantly from text-based documents. Each module is designed as a 30-60 minutes work entity. In order to provide for quality control and incentives for authors, the e-module project established learningGEOSCIENCE as a journal for the best e-learning modules. The journal, which is the first of its kind, is after its Statoil initiation currently managed by EAGE and can be accessed by the geoscience community at www.learninggeoscience.net. A sec­ond aspect is the implementation of inexpensive 3D geosimulators in the classroom, as an educational parallel to what the oil industry already has long appreciated, that relevant 3D visualizations significantly improve understanding of geological structures and processes. 3D visualizations are particularly used as a supplement to field courses, where the field area is studied in advance.