Cartoon-style multimedia application
For the construction of the cartoon-style multimedia application, cartoons where designed from scratch using appropriate programs.
Therefore the application was enriched with narration, dialogues, static graphics, and animation, and was addressed to the fifth grade
of elementary school students. The narrations, texts and questions of the multimedia application were based on the books of science that
are used in the 5th grade of the Greek elementary school.
The cartoon-style multimedia application that was created consists of two major parts. In the first part, the presentation and the ana-
lytic explanation of the involved basic science concepts of volume, mass, and density was attempted via animated cartoons and hearing
dialogues, thus aiming at both the comprehension and the assimilation of the above concepts. In particular, a fifteen-minute story with
animation and narration was presented. The story takes place in the interior of a house, with basic heroes the wise old male-owl Aristides
and the young female rabbit Chloe. A specific script was followed whereas Aristides answers Chloe’s questions, grabs the opportunity to
explain the meaning of mass, volume, and density and, at eventually, he resolves Chloe’s indirect queries. Chloe asks questions and, through
the answers that she gets, her misconceptions regarding the aforementioned basic science concepts are corrected. Nevertheless, specific
animated cartoons have been drawn for the needs of the story presented so that, in combination with narration and dialogues, are func-
tioning as auxiliary material for the user-student. In the second part of the application, a series of seven closed-type questions are pre-
sented. The questions are of the multiple choice type, and each student has three choices and one attempt to make in order to give his/
her answers to each question.