Figure 1: HyperCard tutorial on Operating Systems
G. J. Ritchie
Electronic Systems Engineering
University of Essex, UK
We present our experience of authoring and running computer-based tutorials in the electronics departments of three universities. Some of the tutorials have been designed to assist students in their (often-neglected) preparation for laboratories, while others support course elements such as lectures and tutorials. The response to these tutorials has been enthusiastic and we found that they complement textbooks, rather than replace them. The tutorials were developed at different times using HyperCard, HyperTeacher, Authorware, Visual Basic and HTML/Java. The paper is an adjunct to the on-line demonstrations that show the benefits and disadvantages of each approach.
The modern technical textbook can be exciting to read with its use of colour, clear figures and clever use of margins for explanatory notes and supplementary diagrams. But it is expensive; few students can buy all the prescribed course texts let alone those recommended for supplementary reading. In the current financial climate within higher education, libraries cannot stock multiple copies of other than essential texts and, even with these on short-term loan or in reserve collections, student access is difficult.
Merely placing your lecture notes, slides, tutorials and answers on the Web may give the illusion of providing additional choices for student learning. HTML authors can make this material somewhat more interactive than paper by providing links to related material and various means of navigating. Additional links to other resources can be provided but with the constant problem of dangling references. For on-line material to compete with paper [1], authors need to prepare resources that complement. For instance, animation may provide insights not available from text alone. Alternatively, the student can be encouraged to experiment with an interactive system to gain new insights. Questions with feedback can check for understanding and provide feedback.
Over the last four years at the Universities of Essex and York in the UK and at The University of Western Australia we have worked to generate computer-based support for electronics laboratories and lecture topics [2, 3, 4]. This has been welcomed by students with enthusiasm.
For these tutorials we have used HyperCard [5], HyperTeacher, Authorware Professional [6], Visual Basic [7] and HTML/Java [8]. The demonstrations at the forum show the benefits and disadvantages of each of these approaches.
Figure 1 shows an example from one of our tutorials where the format is based on the analogy of a card index. This card explains the seek operation for disk input/output in a second year unit on operating systems. Later, HyperTeacher (a package based on HyperCard, and developed for The University of Western Australia) was used to create a new version of this tutorial. It had features that allowed for student feedback in comment forms and the system also provided for simple questions to be asked with the student electing to either take a trial or to have it recorded as a result.
Figure 1: HyperCard tutorial on Operating Systems
The advantages of HyperCard included the ease of creating tutorials, and a great deal of support in the form of prototypes. However, the early version was only black and white; it only ran on Macintoshes; the HyperTalk language required programming expertise; and animation largely had to be done in a separately programmed application in a language such as Pascal or C.
At the University of Essex the tutorials on electronics moved from HyperCard to Authorware Professional for the PC but this retained features of the HyperCard system. These include brief revision summaries where appropriate, gradual disclosure of material on some screens, optional questions, a circuit diagrams library and, despite the flexibility of hypertext, a constrained progression through the material. The PC platform provided colour, larger screens (but still with limited content) and animation as well as having a clear logical structure from the outset.
Figure 2: Navigator bar
Students are expected to make their own notes on the material using pencil and paper (in lab log books, where appropriate). Working on a PC in a Windows environment is potentially very compact - there is scope for a screen-based notebook and calculator - but their physical counterparts as well as the hard-copy textbook are at the moment still much in evidence.
The aim of the laboratory support tutorials is to encourage students to prepare in advance for laboratory sessions by providing them with an attractive alternative to textbook study. Each tutorial is closely linked to the laboratory experiment. A student is guided through methodical processes, reinforcing theory and performing calculations using typical device parameter values. Guidance is close and it may be suggested that there is too much 'spoon-feeding'. However, students earn the answers and, besides, many calculations have to performed again in the laboratory with actual data - a further reinforcement.
Operating these laboratory support tutorials has enhanced student preparation for laboratories to the extent that more efficient use is made of laboratory time and support staffing has been reduced. Using a library approach in Authorware, complete circuit diagrams can be displayed on request while the detail of one part is analysed. One laboratory tutorial, see Figure 3, has even incorporated on-line access to the reference textbook at specific points. Browsing of the text is allowed before returning to the exit point of the tutorial.
Student reaction to the computer-based tutorials has been polled by questionnaires. These tutorials are regarded by students as being time-efficient, easy to use and to understand with their step-by-step explanations and targeted coverage while, compared with formal contact of lectures and tutorial classes, their self-paced nature is widely appreciated. A significant majority (over 70%) of students prefer the computer-based approach over the use of textbooks but accept that the tutorials complement texts, rather than replace them. The same applies to formal lectures: neither students nor staff envisage complete courses being replaced by computer-based material.
Figure 3: Authorware tutorial on FET circuits
Many students have asked for hard-copy of the tutorial material to be provided. We feel that this is symptomatic of the "I've bought the book, therefore I know it" syndrome and is contrary to the spirit of working with the material in a fairly constrained manner on a PC. To achieve a high standard of diagrams, the tutorial screens have SVGA resolution (800 x 600); several students would prefer the lower (VGA) resolution so that they can re-run the material on their lap-top machines. Others wish more background material to be included; this has been resisted on the grounds that the tutorials would then lose their focus.
During 1994 sabbatical leave allowed collaboration between the University of Essex and The University of Western Australia to further develop the Authorware tutorials to include the use of animation. During further sabbatical leave in 1997/1998 we are examining the use of the Web to deliver these tutorials using alternative authoring tools.
The main advantage of Authorware is its high-level graphical method of creating interactive structures. Animation is available, but often difficult to represent complex behaviour. Its ability to work on two different platforms is better than HyperCard's restriction to one. However, there is the relatively high investment cost in the authoring tool itself to consider compared to other approaches.
Figure 4: Visual Basic tutorial on C++ programming language
Visual Basic provides a rapid development environment and the flexibility of a programming language. In a University environment its cost is low and it is an easy language to pick up if you are already familiar with another procedural programming language. However, it is limited to the PC, it does require low-level attention to detail and there is little separation of concerns. For instance, unlike Authorware, it would prove difficult to re-use much of the code from the tutorial on C++ for a quite different topic.
Since 1996 we have been developing a tutorial on the programming language Java. This is based on HTML and the use of Java Applets, and is delivered over the Internet to a web browser. Figure 5 shows the use of frames to provide both navigation and to maintain an overview of progress. It is still not clear whether the cost of using this space outweighs the lack of any overview. Some users have suggested a separate navigation window that can be moved around or even hidden when not needed.
Several technologies are now at a stage where this new method of teaching becomes practical. The Internet with the World Wide Web, together with Java-enabled graphical browsers on low-cost PCs can provide for more interactive multimedia systems in education. There are many ways in which multimedia systems can contribute to effective learning. Alternative technologies lack the interactivity, cross-platform capability, ease of access and updatability. On the other hand using the Web on its own may cause other problems. We have developed an interactive tutorial, JavaLin, on selected aspects of the language Java and we are using this to explore the use of Java Applets to teach Java itself. A limited evaluation of its use has been undertaken and has shown that students using the tutorial showed significantly more improvement when compared to those using a more conventional approach.
Figure 5: HTML/Java applet tutorial on the Java programming language
In addition to the use of applets to illustrate interactively aspects of Java itself there are several sections with Applets that are used to carry out a question-and-answer review run entirely locally.
The Java tutorial offers one-to-one instruction that is simply not cost-effective in the traditional methods. There seemed to be increased motivation in presenting the information through the computer. The system can supplement the limitations of human-memory by providing an overview of where the user has been in the tutorial and what remains to be done. The self-testing at the end of sections and the animations themselves we hope lead to inducing deeper learning than through other methods.
How does the Web differ from previous hypermedia systems? It is in its scale, its global context and the fact that all the technologies are at long last converging. Speed of the net is an important issue - for instance it is not as consistent in its responsiveness as systems running from a local disk. As with conventional hypertext systems there are similar problems of disorientation - lost in cyberspace! How can we improve? We can provide variety in navigation together with richer node/link semantics. Improved authoring tools are needed to allow non-programmers access to the richer functionality. Perhaps we should depart from the simple model that a page is a screen and examine importing some of the rich functionality from Computer Supported Cooperative Working (CSCW).
There is still a lack of functionality that has been present in other hypertext systems, as yet another generation of hypertext authors go around the wheel of reincarnation. There is still too much variability - speed of connection, size of screen, range of colours, what plugins are present, extent of support for HTML and extensions, to assume more than some impoverished common base.
Of course there are drawbacks. Learners can become lost. They may find it difficult to obtain an overview. They may have difficulty in locating information. Links often do not give a good indication of their semantics. There is still the potential for aimless exploration of the material.
The overwhelming student response is that this work should continue despite the high cost of authoring time. Our current effort is directed to the presentation of communication network topics such as LANs and ATM; aspects of which have much to gain from animation techniques. From a student's point of view, computer-based tutorials represent a novel and inexpensive substitute for a textbook. Use of both is self-paced but, while a text is more amenable to browsing or topic access via the index, students are more constrained to the structured flow of the computer-based support material generated by the authors.
A significant difficulty is access to PC laboratories when a whole class is trying to use a tutorial which might require an hour or more of interaction. This is partially alleviated by the expanding ownership of PCs with access by modem from home and may be further improved when all campus accommodation is fully networked. However, access to a PC is usually better than to a library reserve copy of a textbook.
From our experience, multimedia, in the form of computer-based tutorials, complements textbooks and lecture theatre contact, rather than replaces them. Authoring tools that we need should be based on the premise of "write once, run anywhere" and be delivered in a secure way over a network connection.
| Please cite as: Jones, P. E. and Ritchie, G. J. (1998). Comparing development tools for multimedia courseware. In Black, B. and Stanley, N. (Eds), Teaching and Learning in Changing Times, 142-148. Proceedings of the 7th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, The University of Western Australia, February 1998. Perth: UWA. http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf1998/jones.html |