What Is an Example of Multimedia in Games, Simulations, and Microworlds?
I begin by presenting two software examples to show the similarities and differences between games, simulations, and microworlds. Both are examples that have been the basis of much research. The first is a simple simulation that I designed for use in some of my own simulation research (see Rieber & Noah, 1997; Rieber, Noah, & Nolan, 1998). It also includes a simple gaming feature. The second example is a microworld called ThinkerTools (White, 1993; White & Frederiksen, 1998). The class of software referred to as microworlds is very diverse, so it is difficult to capture it with one example. For example, many microworlds can be thought of as programming languages, such as Logo (Papert, 1980b) and Boxer (diSessa, 1997; diSessa, Abelson, & Ploger, 1991). However, ThinkerTools largely uses a graphical user interface allowing point-and-click methods to programming the computer. Both ThinkerTools and the software I designed are designed to learn about simple mechanics, namely Newton’s laws o
