MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS FOR FOOTWEAR DESIGN.

The aim of this article is to present an innovative tool of multimedia applications for footwear design. The challenges of this multimedia tool is that the content of virtual lessons has to be designed/adapted to the identified training needs and the manual method for designing and getting patterns has to be understandable by using computer simulations or animations. The main stages followed in achieving a proper pedagogical tool are: development stage, correction stage and internal evaluation stage. It will be a new kind of training application for students, trainers from VET schools or tutors from industry. The main advantage of this training tool is that it gives the opportunity for practice and the trainees/students can adopt their own rhythm for learning. Each lesson is given step-by-step. The knowledge regarding footwear design is progressively transferred to learner, from simple to complex. These multimedia applications have been developed in English but it will be soon available in five other languages: Croatian, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian. It has immersive approaches in order to deliver a high demanding practices and exercises content. The modules offer theoretical knowledge and practical demonstrations. This multimedia training tool can be used by universities, footwear companies, colleges and training institutions all over Europe and elsewhere, because the authors are integrating in an organized and illustrative way, all the steps required to acquire quickly and in a technologically advanced manner the skills necessary for shoe design, and pattern construction and which will be a more effective educational approach than in an ordinary classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]