Macromedia Director is a software program commonly known as a multimedia authoring program. The program allows one to create interactive media for CDs, the Web, kiosks, presentations, and interactive TV. I am not going to illustrate a "WOW," look what I can do multimedia presentation-there are literally hundreds if not thousands of sites on the web that have entire departments dedicated to this type of endeavor. Instead I'm going to illustrate a very simple process by which one can take a static information page and add an element of interactivity.

Those of you who have been involved in the remote sensing tutorials on this site may be familiar with the page that illustrates a cold front (opens a new window) sweeping across the United States. The page is very simple in its construction, and the questions asked provide no feedback. Students could answer the questions in the affirmative, or simply say "I don't know." Although providing feedback can be accomplished with a html editor the process can be quite time consuming. Instead I spent an afternoon, using Macromedia's 30-day Director 8 Tryout software, converting the page to provide an element of interactivity. You might want to try it to see the difference. Click on the Activity button at the top or bottom of this page. You will need Macromedia's Shockwave Player 8 installed in your browser. The download takes approximately 20 seconds before the page starts to stream, after that you're on your own.