Design and development of multimedia web photography courseware based on the theory of self-directed learning

The course of photography is one of fundamental courses for college students who are majored in educational technology. The key to gain the wonderful works for students is to master the theories of photography expertly and do practice regularly. However, there are not adequate equipments for students to do exercises, so, the college students learn the skills of photography slowly, and performance of instruction is dissatisfied. We know the courseware of photography is defect in our nation. We summarize the design rules based on the theory of self-directed learning and other theories related it. We developed the courseware of photography based on the design rules. The design rules were tested by the process of development of the courseware. The results prove that the design rules are feasible and exercisable. Now, our college students develop into principal part in instructional context of self-directed learning. We satisfied the courseware of photography by its instructional effects. The design rules works very well. It proves that they are reasonable. We can harvest good productions and realize the self-directed learning if we put the design rules into practice properly. © 2011 IEEE.