The concept of 'interactivity' interactivity and interactive learning environments

摘要

In recent years, expectations of 'interactivity' and new 'interactive media' have been pushed to the breaking point in terms of what will become technologically possible, in terms of services that will be offered, in terms of economic gain, etc. Along with terms like 'multimedia', 'hypermedia', 'convergence' and 'information superhighway', 'interactivity' is presumably among the words currently surrounded by the greatest amount of hype. At the same time, it seems relatively unclear just what 'interactivity' means. The positiveness surrounding the concept and the frequency of its use seem, in a way, to be reversely proportional to its precision and actual content of meaning. 'Interactivity' is currently one of the media community's most used buzzwords. These facts also apply to interactive learning environments, educational technology systems, distance education, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning etc. The purpose of this paper is to track the concept of 'interactivity'. The paper starts with a short discussion of the concept's current placement in the fields of media and communication studies and its background in other traditions. This is followed by the presentation of various representative attempts at definitions from academic studies. Finally, based on this presentation, a new definition of 'interactivity' is suggested.