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Theories about learning with multimedia can be positioned at different levels. At a basic level, psychological theories describe memory systems and cognitive processes that explain how people process different types of information and how they learn with different senses. Examples of such theories are Paivio’s (1986; Clark & Paivio, 1991) dual-coding theory, Baddeley’s (1992, 1997) working memory model with a central executive and two slave systems, the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop, and Cowan’s (1997) model of attention and memory. At a higher level, theories for instructional message design identify multimedia principles and provide guidelines for devising multimedia messages consisting of, for instance, written text and pictures, spoken text and animations, or explanatory video with a mix of moving images with spoken and written text. Examples of such theories are Mayer’s (2009) cognitive theory of multimedia learning (see Chapter 3), Sweller’s (Sweller, Ayres, & Kalyuga, 2011; van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2005) cognitive load theory (see Chapter 2), and Schnotz’s (2005) integrated model of text and picture comprehension (see Chapter 4). At an even higher level, theories and models for course and curriculum design prescribe how to develop educational programs, which contain a mix of educational media, including texts, images, speech, manipulative materials, and networked systems. Well-designed educational programs take both human cognitive architecture and multimedia principles into account to ensure that learners will work in an environment that is goal-effective, efficient, and appealing. The main goal …