The heart of the product, of course, had to be its ability to instruct and illuminate concepts that were either seminal, or difficult for the textbook to present without multimedia interaction or animation.

The content team at Dynamic Minds, as well as several freelancers, were held together stylistically and pedagogically by refined scripts and storyboards, as well as formal specification documents for visual and interactive elements, and rules for the use of common code such as the "control bar" at the bottom of each animation.

The entire product was assembled in a backend relation database/architecture... a crucial component, since from that one repository we could generate audio scripts, debugging reports, structural exports, and so on.

Sample Animation of Activity 13.1, Transcription

There were many factors that made the design and execution sound for learning, including an instant glossary function (dynamic over top of the on-screen text), and the control bar (allowing fast-forward via slider and stopping on key visuals... essential for instructional use).

Data-Driven Quizzes

Assessments were peppered throughout the product, though not everywhere to avoid structural boredom. They were driven completely from the database... naturally.

What Does the Content Look Like?

Why not preview some of the content that was developed?

How? Simple. We designed the product such that each level of learning object might be separately exported and used by instructors or students. The Instructor's Resource CD enables anyone to delve into the book and media content and create customizable web pages that can be used as mini "index" pages of instruction.

Follow this link to preview some of the content on the Student CD.
IMPORTANT: for best results, please use IE on the PC or Netscape 4.7x on the Mac.

Follow this link to see what the interactive standards Flash file looked like.

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