The creation of good multimedia courseware only creates a potential for quality learning to occur. Quality learning outcomes can best be achieved with the considered application of pedagogy to the design of the learning content as well as to the management of the learning process that revolves around the use of the multimedia courseware. Any particular piece of educational software is not merely a teaching/learning resource; it also carries with it strategies for use, whether explicit or implicit, and one or more underlying theories of learning.

Hence, for multimedia courseware to be successful in practice, instructors/instructional designers must pay attention not only to the creation of the content but also to the broader embedding context within which the courseware will be deployed and used.

The following are several dimensions and issues to which instructors/instructional designers should pay careful attention:

• Make the courseware interactive
• Leverage the special properties of multimedia (e.g. to deal with concepts that are inherently difficult to present in textual mode only)
• Give learners control of design for experiential learning (e.g. create online experiments, what-if scenarios, simulations)
• Know when to be constructivist in orientation vs. instructivist

Ultimately, a piece of multimedia courseware that ends up as an automated lecture delivery mechanism which students merely watch passively will be a failure. For learning to be effective, students need to be roused to generate learning products so as to engage in active learning. The requirement to generate learning products (e.g. a critical essay; a project report, a slide presentation) ‘forces’ a student to bring to bear critical and analytical mental faculties to the learning task. These generative learning activities can be embedded within the broader context of appropriate pedagogical approaches such as collaborative learning, case-based learning, anchored instruction, goal-based learning, problem solving inquiry and so on.