THE APPLYING OF THE COMPUTER VISUALIZATION TECHNOLOGY
FOR IMPROVING OF LECTURES PERCEPTION
Malcheva R., Korotin Y. & Gurov D. (DonSTU, Donetsk, Ukraine) (DonSTU, Donetsk, Ukraine)
Many years the software used for engineering education had a narrow orientation on tasks of calculation, modeling, analysis etc. The accent was on development of student's skills in the programming of such tasks. The aim of this paper is to show and to discuss the application of the hardware-software decisions in the field of training the students of engineering specialties.
Introduction
Minimum 20 years the computers are applied in sphere of engineering education. Pudlowsky and Kerr in [1] have shown efficiency of use of computer systems at Monash university, where the most software was developed by the personnel of university. In our university the application of the hardware-software decisions in the field of training the students of engineering specialties now is a very popular too. All such decisions can be broken on some categories:
•The hardware-software decisions in sphere of education.
•The computer decisions in sphere of visualization of investigated processes to increase the presentation and interactivity of lecture material.
•The unordinary use of computers in education sphere.
•Software, which can reduce need for professional programming.
•Information resources, accessible through Internet.
Note, that the idea of education with the help of computers already leaves the idea of desktop system, covering various types of electronic devices, such as TV sets, videocameras, tape recorders and slide - projectors traditionally used in education.
The improving of the lecture’s quality
To improve the quality of lectures it is a good idea to use the computer and projective device, that allows to add dynamic stages and sound to a usual slide - show. All that we call multimedia. The main advantage of such approach is, that a lot of the people can watch it at once. Even if the audience very large, everything will be visible from anywhere places. Besides, the students with good computers can use the same material at home. It will lower need in lectures and this time can be devoted to practical lessons. Nowadays such equipment is very expensive, and though the price reduces every day, for many and especially for the students, it remains inaccessible, as against hypermedia, or hypertext information.
This approach of submission of the information is more universal and allows placing a lecture material on Internet. As against multimedia information it does not require any special equipment and powerful computers. Besides this way is more universal, since it allows to look through lectures not only with the help of computers, but also with the help of every possible devices with access to an Internet, such as various Web-devices and mobile telephones.
What advantages does computers give? First of all there is an opportunity to give the students access to huge quantity of free information. The second one is that Internet-technologies allow to update lectures quickly. The updating will take place instantly for all at one moment. Thirdly, the modern Internet-technologies allow to display all necessary information (such as sound, video and graphics) in real time, without large expenses for hardware maintenance.
Specifics if the course “Foundations of Visualization”
Engineering on it's nature is a visual science. We receive about 70 % of all the information using our eyes. This science is based on the drawings, as elementary part of the information. With the help of drawings people communicate with each other. They say that it is better to see once, than to hear 100 times.
Our experience shows that many students have difficulties with understanding how do we get 3D- image on a 2D-display. The situation is very difficult when we show this process using an ordinary board. The process is not evident at all. The board cannot reflect objects dynamics and energy characteristics. Roughly speaking, it is very difficult to understand what turns and from which surface that source of light is reflected. The situation varied a lot, when we saw ready rotating model.
Unordinary use of computer
The computers connected to Internet give access to the necessary information and allow to organize the communication with the whole world. Recently Viewpoint Company [2] developed effective technology of compression and transfer of the three-dimensional models allowing building the 3D-graphics into hypertext (HTML). It gains in comparing with concurrent technologies in that fact that it does not require any additional components. All you need is an ordinary browser and a small (about 300 KB) plug-in to it. You get real-time rendering of objects even without any hardware support, though there is an opportunity to use Direct3D or OpenGL API.
Information Supports
There was shown above that information interchange between the students is a thing of a great importance. Some problems arising with engineering education such as bad understanding of dynamics of processes without an interactive visual information. Internet resources are really great, but the information concerning the 3D-graphics is useless without dynamic examples. The Viewpoint technologies have made it possible to store and to interchange such information effectively.
Using Viewpoint Experience Technology (VET) in practice.
Here you can see an example of using VET. This interactive part of lectures on 3D-graphics explains the location of axises and the name of angles. It also explains students the positive or negative direction of object rotation. You can drag the plane with the help of mouse and see how angles are changed or you can enter their numerical values. Because this object is embedded into a simple HTML-document you can also use all of hypertext’s features such as JavaScript anchors, graphics, Flash etc. In this example there is a short test at the end of each lection that allows students to check themselves.
You can make your lectures in any language you like, all you need is to translate content and that’s all! You don’t need to care about anything else because this technology supports separation of content and it’s presentation. In this example you can select your language from Russian, English and Ukrainian.
Also there is a great opportunity to interchange with such material using any suitable technology. The size of this example is only 59 999 bytes so you can copy it on any modern type of electronic media or you can send it through e-mail and of course you can put it on your web-site so it will be visible all over the world.
Future Directions
In the near future the next part of multimedia course is planned to be developed and include to CD-version of the course “Foundations of Visualization” for the checking of students knowledge and for the preparing to the examinations.
Conclusions
The development of this multimedia course took one year and student’s diploma results and thesis on the creation of the demonstration fragments. Finally, it can be said that the use of new multimedia course in the preparation of a modern course should increase the quality of education.
References:
1. Pudlowsky, Z. J. & Kerr, I.R., Report on the Application of Computer Assisted Instructions for Engineering Students. USICEE, Monash University, pp18(1994).