Learner-Centered Focus
A critical perspective to maintain while designing multimedia lessons according to CTML is that the multimedia instructional methods are learner-centered—they are not technology-centered approaches. Mayer (2009) reminds us that multimedia can be as simple as a still image with words and that it is the instructional method, not the technology that matters. Multimedia instructional designers often fall victim to letting the technology drive the instructional design, rather than looking at the design from the perspective, and limitations, of the learner.
Moreno (2006a) expressed this idea when she distinguished between a method-affects-learning hypothesis versus a media- affects-learning hypothesis. A media-affects-learning approach
could best be described as what occurred in the 20th Century when state-of-the-art technologies such as radio, television, computers, and the Internet were introduced into education with the assumption that they would improve education simply because they were better tools than had previously been available.