Integrating
World Wide Web technology undergraduate education
into
G. Scott Owen Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia 303030, USA
[email protected] students. This material will supplement, and partially replace traditional classroom lectures. Eventually an entire course can be delivered in this fashion with only a few scheduled cllass meetings. The teacher will mostly interact with students via electronic conferencing, and students will work together collaboratively on problem solving as a way to make their understanding of the material more real and relevant.
Abstract The rapid emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW) and its associated tools has provided educators with an opportunity to incorporate this technology into their courses. We need to create interactive multimedia instructional materials that can be delivered, via this high speed network, directly to students. We need to give our students the opportunity to create their own WWW documents and to use the resources of the WWW for collaborative learning.
In this paper I will discuss the experience we have had at Georgia State University (GSU) in incorporating Internet and WWW technology into our computer science courses. I will also discuss current and planned future activities, problems we have had, and extrapolate these possible activities to other academic areas. (he salient feature of our work is that it is broadly based, i.e., several of the faculty have or are using WWW based teaching methc~ds. These materials cover several different topic areas, and are all interlinked and accessible to the students.
In this paper I will discuss how the use of HTML and the WWW can be integrated into undergraduate courses. I will not discuss searching the Web for external material but will focus on the following: ●
How HTML
documents
and as the primary ●
How student assignments as HTML
●
Cross-linking Using
newer
VRML, Problems
text in the course
and examinations
can be submitted
2 Educational
documents
●
●
can be used for in-class presentation
or supplementary
material WWW
from different technology
Java, and collaborative
courses developments
such
environment
Georgia State University, which has 24,000 students, is primarily a commuter institution with few dormitories. The average student, especially in Computer Science, is older (late twenties to curly thirties) and has a part time or even full time job. The primary machines used on campus are Intel-MS Windows and UNIX Workstations, The computer center has several laboratories of the Intel-MS Windows machines that are available seven days a week, twenty-four hours per day. However, almost all of our students have their own home computers, primarily Intel-MS Windows machines. Since our students live off-campus, they prefer to do their assignments and study at home rather than on campus.
as
software
we have had in this process
1 Introduction The rapid emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW) and its associated tools has provided educators with an opportunity to incorporate this technology into their courses. The USA is in the process of enhancing the Internet to create an ‘Information Superhighway’. The goal is the high speed delivery of information and entertainment into homes, offices, and schools. Educational institutions need to take advantage of this technology to deliver instructional materials, to allow students to create their own WWW materials, and to facilitate Computer Supported Cooperative Learning (CSCL).
The students access the campus UNIX machines, where the WWW materials reside, via telephone and modems. The students with home computers all have high speed modems (14.4 or 28.8 KB). The computer center has ninety-six dial-up lines for access to the campus computers. While this is currently adequate, it is realized that these will soon be saturated, i.e., the students will have a difficult time dialing into the campus computers. However, the current plan is not to increase the number of telephone lines but to use an outside Internet provider who will charge students a minimal fee of about $1 S/month. Thus, GSU will spend its money on computer resources to serve the students and let the students pay for their own access to the campus computers. Also, the TV Cable company in Atlanta has announced plans to connect its users with Ethernet speed (4- 10 mbits/see) cable modems, which will provide students with much higher speed access to the
We need to create interactive multimedia instructional materials that can be delivered, via this high speed network, directly to
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Www.
Integrating Tech. into C.S.E. 6/96 Barcelona, Spain 01996 ACM 0-89791 -644-4/9S/0009... $3.50
To summarize
101
the GSU situation:
Modeling Language (VRML). The students use text editors to create the VRML files and view them with public domain VRML browsers. We are developing a 3D interface to our WWW materials using VRML. This 3D interface may make it easier for the students to navigate through the set of WWW documents for a course or set of courses.
our students prefer to study at home our students have their own Intel-MS
Windows
computers
the students have ready high-speed access to the GSU campus UNIX computers that are WWW servers
3 Previous
We are also trying to add interaction to our WWW materials by using the new language, Java. Java allows us to create a program that can then be downloaded to a Java aware browser, e.g. Netscape 2.0, and executed on the student’s own machine. This will allow us to add interactive simulations to our WWW courseware.
experience
In the past several years my courses have been moving from a conventional lecture format to an Intemet-based hypermedia format, both in instructional delivery and in student assignments [1]. I primarily teach three different courses: Computer Graphics, Advanced Computer Graphics, and Data Visurdization. The primary text in the courses are the WWW based hypermedia systems HyperGraph [2] and HyperVis.
I have used a set of computer graphics demonstration programs for several years. Some of these programs, originally written by Dino Schweitzer (U. S. Air Force Academy) in Turbo Pascal, were converted to Microsoft Windows C++ by a GSU undergraduate student, Olga Natkovich. Other students are now converting them to Java.
Initially HyperGraph was developed in a Microsoft Windows based authoring system. Then the birth of the WWW occurred and it became clear that this was an important technology that our students should learn. Since there are many free WWW tools, this meant that I could easily integrate HTML and the general technology of Hypermedia/Multimedia into my courses. I started to incorporate HTML into my Computer Graphics course in the summer of 1994 in the form of a special project for the students.
We have created a general instructional WWW page for all of our Computer Science WWW materials. There are links to all of our course material from this single page. In his way a student can examine not only the materials for their own course but can look at related materials in another course. For example, students in the graphics courses are also interested in the Scientific Visualization information, the HCI materials, the Java materials or parallel programming materials.
This experiment was successful so the next quarter (Fall, 1994, Data Visualization) the course involved no paper. All student projects, and even the midterm and final examinations, were done as hypermedia documents in HTML format. The student projects were accessible for all the students to view, so that they could learn from each other.
We are in the process of integrating this material more closely by linking and cross referencing the WWW course notes for different courses. For example, there are several areas where courses such as Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Graphics, and Scientific Visualization overlap, e.g., human perception issues. There are other natural overlaps, e.g., the use of parallel processing techniques for rapid graphics rendering and the use of techniques for graphics software software engineering development.
In all of my subsequent courses the student projects, including examinations, were based on HTML. In the winter quarter, 1995 Computer Graphics course I started converting HyperGraph to HTML and the special project of the students was to create new modules or convert some existing modules into HTML. This conversion is continuing and HyperGraph is updated every quarter.
5 Problems
who teaches our Human Computer Dr. Morgan Morris, Interaction (HCI) courses, has taught multimedia design in his courses for several years and has recently switched to WWW based systems. He has had his students create WWW based HCI materials that future classes use and enhance [3].
4 Current
HTML, especially the current version (2.0), is quite limited in its formatting capabilities. A major drawback in teaching scientific topics is the inability to use Greek symbols or create mathematics equations. There are some partial solutions to this problem. One is to create a mathematical expression in another system, make the image into a GIF file, and embed it into the HTML document. This is somewhat feasible for equations, but if one needs an occasional math symbol in the text it is very unwieldy.
activities
Other faculty in the department have started to develop and use WWW based materials. The Software Engineering course, taught by Dr. Martin Fraser, includes a section on Java. Dr. Fraser has created an extensive document that explains Java that has been converted to HTML format and linked into the Departmental Dr. Ross Gagliano, who teaches the Instructional System. Modeling and Simulation courses, has graduate students working on converting some of his notes into HTML format. He also plans to translate some of his simulation software into Java. Dr. Sushil Prasad, who teaches Parallel Programming Algorithms, is doing the same.
We have started to use the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) system to overcome the limitations of HTML. The Adobe Acrobat reader is freely available for all platforms and the software to produce PDF documents while not free is not very documents in a word expensive. PDF allows one to create processor, such as Microsoft Word, that has a mathematics equation editor, and then print to a PDF file. We can also insert links into the documents so they retain the hypertext characteristics of HTML.
In the first Computer Graphics course we have the students write a ray tracer and also use a scan line graphics package. Previously we used the PIXAR Renderman Development system [4]. In the winter, 1996 quarter, I switched to teaching the Virtual Reality
A general problem with the use of Java and VRML is that these require 32-bit drivers, which can be very complicated in MS Windows 3.1, i.e., different programs want different versions of the drivers. In addition, the Java development system requires MS
102
Visualization, Springer-Verlag,
Windows 95 or NT. As our students and computer center migrate to the newer operating systems these problems will disappear. 3
Papers
The students have responded quite favorably to the use of WWW materials in the courses. They especially seem to like creating heir own WWW documents for projects and examinations. Many of them feel this gives them a greater chance to show creativity and inject some of their own personality into the course. For example, inmanyof thecourses the projects are team projects, so the teams will take group photographs and include these into the project reports. They will also provide links to their own home pages.
on Computer 4
7 Extension
to other academic
Technical
areas
activities
We are making a major effort in our department to move towards WWW based instructional materials. We are integrating and cross-linking our course materials so that the students can more easily perceive the integrated nature of the field. We are moving from a pure HTML environment and are adding documents in PDF and enhancing the capabilities by using Java and VRML. We are having students create and submit their own assignments in HTML format and also create materials that future students can use. We have not yet used any WWW based collaborative software to support CSCL. However, in the Spring quarter, 1996, I have two graduate students taking an independent study course. The objective of this course is to investigate what collaborative software is available, to install some of it on our WWW servers and to test it for CSCL. We are planning on doing this in conjunction with a similar independent study course being taught by Dr. Cathy Beise at Kennesaw State College, which is another unit in the University System of Georgia and is located within twenty-five miles of GSU. References 1
Owen, G. S. Integrating Courses in Computer Computer
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World
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Wide Web Technology and Scientific
into
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Vol. 29:3, pp. 12-15, August,
G.
S.,
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Owen, G. S. HyperGraph - A Hypermedia System for Teaching Computer Graphics, Interactive Learning Through
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More advanced methods, e.g., CGI programming, VRML, or Java programming, may require some assistance from computer science faculty or students. This might be an excellent opportunity for interdisciplinary student projects.
and future
Owen,
Renderman,
The specific examples given above are all Computer Science courses. However, much of this technology can be applied to other academic areas. There are free tools that allow one to directly convert word processing documents to either HTML, for example the Internet Assistant for Microsoft Word. Similarly, to produce a PDF file, one can install a virtual PDF printer that creates a PDF file from a word processing program. Students and faculties in all disciplines can easily produce WWW documents using these technologies.
8 Conclusion
Experiences
of the Twenty-Sixth
pp. 292-296,
There is also some frustration associated with the problems discussed in the previous section. However, most of the students accept the frustration as a price for using leading edge technologies.
2
J. M. Morris,
6 Student response
S. Cunningham& 1992
Computer of
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1992.
the
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Twenty-Third
Computer
Science
Using SIGCSE
Education.
