A GOOD PRESENTATION STYLE SHOULD BE SELECTED, AND USED CONSISTENTLY...

7. A good presentation style should be selected, and used consistently from start to end. The presentation style includes layout, spacing, the mix of font styles, font sizes, colors, background colors; the use of acronyms; the position of the figure and table captions; the use of the upper case letters; etc.

3 Non-textual Contents

There are three types of technologies that can be used to create, store, transmit, and view non-textual contents. They are visualization technologies, audio technologies, and simulation technologies. Each of these can potentially make e-learning more effective by conveying concepts that are difficult to convey using only the textual contents. Each of these can also make the e-learning experience more enjoyable by stimulating the senses of the e-learners and by breaking the monotony of e-learning. We discuss each of these below. The visualization technologies can be used to add 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional graphics, motion graphics (animation), images (including screen capture, and digitized photographs), videos, etc. to the learning contents. They include content creation technologies, such as screen capture programs, graphics software, motion graphics software, video cameras, digital cameras, Web cameras, etc. The visualiza-tion technologies also include a wide variety of devices and technologies that can play the visual contents, such as the Web browser with plug-ins, PC and smaller com-puters, digital televisions, DVD players, smart phones, PDAs, e-readers, beam projec-tors, etc. The visual contents can serve as a new medium for helping to convey concepts to the e-learners. Screen captures, images, graphics, motion graphics, and videos can convey complex concepts or details much more clearly than are possible using text alone [2]. Although such contents can be very effective for a variety of learning top-ics, their use must be carefully planned. They tend to come in very large files, and so can require high-speed Internet connection, a computer with a large amount of mem-ory and high-speed CPU, and can take a long time, and visual quality may suffer. The visualization technologies can add interactivity to the otherwise lifeless textual contents. We will discuss this in Section 4. The audio technologies can be used to add music, sound effects, podcasts [3], etc. to the learning contents. The audio technologies include devices and technologies that can record audio, and those that can play the audio contents, such as the PC and smaller computers, smart phones, Web phones, etc. Audio contents are of course essential for learning languages. [4] makes an inter-esting proposal for the use of music as background to the textual contents in e-learning. For example, musical theme, called leitmotif, may be defined for each of a few key situations or characters in the text contents, and may be played in the back-ground. For example, For example, in a customer service training course, a different leitmotif can be associated with a different type of customer: a playful theme for the inquisitive customer, an ominous theme for the angry customer, a rushed theme for the demanding customer, a happy theme for the satisfied customer. This is akin to the use of leitmotif in movies or even video games. Simulation technologies can be used to create simulations or demos of products and situations [5]. The popular Excel spreadsheet may be used as a simulation tool. Learners can use it to learn how changing one parameter can affect the overall results. There are various elaborate simulation tools that e-learners can use to learn to operate products and experiment with various hypothetical situations without causing any undesirable side effects. They include complex and expensive systems, that duplicate every key, button, and function of the actual products, such as Global Knowledge On Demand (kp.globalknowledge.com), X.HLP Designer (https://traloihay.net), XStream Software RapidBuilder (https://traloihay.net). They also include less expensive tools, such as CamtasiaStudio (https://traloihay.net), ViewletBuilder (https://traloihay.net), and RoboDemo (https://traloihay.net), etc. These offer limited interactivity, and some only allow the e-learners to see demos. Although the use of technologies opens up great possibilities for helping e-learners learn, bad use of technologies can actually confuse and frustrate e-learners instead. Un-fortunately, e-learning content designers and creators too often end up making bad use of technologies. The bad use of non-text technologies comes in several different flavors. 4 W. Kim and O.-R. Jeong