Architecting multimedia environments for teaching

Thus far, developers have created only partial solutions for using computational equipment in education. Research must focus more effort on developing architectures capable of combining technologies that target the classroom and that allow specifying "what" rather than "how" tasks should be done. The difficult task of architecting multimedia environments for teaching must start with a needs analysis. The most challenging task involves warranting reliability on the one hand, while accommodating opportunities for innovation on the other. Thus, we propose building a reliable, ubiquitous, adaptable, and easy-to-use technology-integrating black box. Placing this system atop a service-oriented component model implemented on a platform-independent layer such as a virtual machine provide the adaptability developers need. Loosely coupled components accommodate a nonmonolithic approach and ease reuse. By reusing and enhancing components, the system become increasingly reliable, while a building-block architecture keep it manageable.