AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996
Back to Home Page ...... by Presenter ...... by Paper Title ...... by Keyword
Paper Title:
World Wide Web Controlled
Multimedia Chemistry TutorialsPresenter / Author:
Dr Mark Williams, University of Western Sydney, Nepean.
Keywords: Chemistry, Multimedia
Faculty area: Science - Chemistry
As the background and situation of individual students often varies considerably, the education system must offer flexibility to meet these differing needs. These open learning systems require educational resources where the student's use can be self directed and paced. In chemistry, especially for technique based aspects of laboratory work, the use of video and graphics for the clear explanation of theory and demonstration of techniques is essential for distance education. Another chemistry requirement is the ability to draw and rotate molecular structures. These needs can only be met with a computer based system. While the development of a specialised system is possible, the use of World Wide Web browsers, as a tutorial delivery platform, offers a simpler solution.
The World Wide Web allows the student to explore the educational material at their pace and level of interest or to present the student with clear structured tutorials via Hyper-text links. It also permits freedom of delivery such that a student may work at University, at home or in a distance education situation. More importantly, the ability to incorporate the specialised features, mentioned above, has been accomplished for the educator. Inclusion of pictures, video, animation, question feedback and other specialised graphic features like molecule drawing and rotation is available to the educator in a simple and flexible manner through the use of HTML documents.
At present, the use of World Wide Web browsers as an educational delivery system suffers because of slow transmission of large resources via the Internet. Therefore, the student becomes frustrated with these delays and loses interest. As a consequence, World Wide Web is currently suitable only for the delivery of small text parcels in an educational package. This makes their use in chemistry very limited.
A system has been developed to overcome this limitation. This is achieved by placing the resources, that are data intense and thus slow to transmit via the Internet, on CD-ROM and distributing the CD-ROMs to the students. When viewing the tutorials in the World Wide Web browser, the browser is directed by the HTML document to obtain these resources from the CD-ROM on the local computer, not from the server via the Internet, thus eliminating the transmission delay of these large files. Only the HTML document is therefore transferred via the Internet and, being only a few thousand characters in length, is transmitted in a few seconds. Comparison tests have shown that transmission times have decreased by 300 times using this new system.
A driver has been written which modifies the HTML document sent by the server to the browser. Each HTML document is customised so the browser can locate the CD-ROM, containing the multimedia resources, on the student's computer system. The driver also records the student's identity and whether the person accessing the HTML documents is permitted to use these resources.
An added bonus to the use of World Wide Web browsers, as a delivery platform for these tutorials, is the potential of improved monitoring of student progress. This is a difficult task for the educator in open learning or distance education environments - "How is the student progressing?". Presenting the open learning package to the student via the use of World Wide Web browsers permits the educator the monitor the progress of students. Because the HTML document is always obtained from a centralised server, the system monitors the tutorials that the student is accessing and keeps a track of each student using the tutorials. This monitoring can be simply the student's progress in the tutorials through to the obtaining of answers to questions on the subject.
This project commenced in 1996 under a AUDF grant and the results on this research will be presented in this paper.
Back to Home Page ...... by Presenter ...... by Paper Title ...... by Keyword
Dr Mark Williams,
Department of Chemistry,
University of Western Sydney, Nepean,
Kingswood NSW 2749.Phone (047) 360 810.
Fax (047) 360 742.E-mail: m.williams@nepean.uws.edu.au.
Back to Home Page ...... by Presenter ...... by Paper Title ...... by Keyword
