Multimedia Cone of Abstraction - Process Burners Case Study

Advanced multimedia techniques offer significant potential for enhancing engineering education, but there has been little discussion of how to use them effectively in specific learning contexts.Dale developed an iconic Cone of Experience (CoE) which is a hierarchy of learning experiences ranging from direct participation to abstract symbolic expression.This CoE has been updated by the authors for today's technology and learning context, specifically focused on the use of multimedia.This new hierarchy, called the Multimedia Cone of Abstraction (MCoA), can be used as a guide to help engineering educators select appropriate multimedia for specific learning contexts.For example, the learner with little if any knowledge in a subject needs more concrete multimedia such as animations and virtual reality, while the experienced learner may prefer symbols and text.A case study will show an example of how the MCoA can be used to select multimedia including symbols, text, drawings, photographs, videos, animations, and virtual reality.In this example, the subject area is process burners which are used in refineries and petrochemical plants and the typical learners are engineers and plant operators.