Teaching on the World Wide Web

Geoffrey Fox

Workshop on Educational Training Technology

March 25-26 1996

NIST (Gaithersburg, Md).

(Find this at http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/teachingmar96.html)

Abstract

The World Wide Web offers the potential for revolutionary changes in education at all levels from K-12, undergraduate, graduate and continuing (lifelong) levels. We describe four significant activities where we have used Web Technologies to prepare and deliver education. These are the Living SchoolBook -- 6 K-12 schools in New York State connected by the high-speed ATM network NYNET to HPCC resources at NPAC; undergraduate science education for non-science majors; graduate computer science courses both at Syracuse and remotely with students in China. These curricula development and delivery activities build on a suite of Web Technologies. We will describe how text-indexed video, Perl, JavaScript, Java, VRML (in current and future 2.X version)and object databases can and are being woven into a novel interactive educational technology base. We speculate on the implication of pervasive availability of such capabities on Universities or more generally the current educational establishment.

Some Existing Relevant Online Resources at NPAC

• Master Foilset for this Workshop
• Same Material as above but Presented from a Technology not Application Point of View -- This talk was given a Joint Spring Meeting of New York State APS/AAPT sections.
• Professor Vidali's Presentation on Phy105/106
• Physics 105/106 Pictures
• The Virtual University
• The Living SchoolBook Pictures
• All Possible Foils now available or indexed by area.

Further Details

Educational Outreach and Delivery Projects involving NPAC:

1. At the K-12 level,

The Living Schoolbook projects involves 6 schools connected via ATM to NPAC. Our partners are the teachers in the schools, the Syracuse University school of education and several content providers including Reuters and Discovery Channel. I believe that both technology and content (through partners) are very good here. This is likely to be expanded more broadly involving both ATM and ISDN delivery. Our Web-based digital library KidsWeb for children is highly rated.

2. At the Undergraduate level,

We have partnered with the University Physics department in their course 'Science for the 21st Century' which is taken by 250 non Science majors each semester. This was just awarded an NSF metacenter regional affiliate grant. We offered this semester the first Undergraduate (on-line) course at the University ECS400 focused on Web Technologies.

3. At the graduate/continuing education level,

We have several on-line courses including CPS615/CPS713 (basic computational science) as well as CPS616 (Web Technologies). The latter has been adapted for several tutorials.

4. Our "Education in the Box"

This course/lab set ICPS700,701,710,711 is prototyped this semester with graduate students at Harbin Institute of Technology in China who will get certificates in computational science from Syracuse University. We can better implement this by shipping a Windows NT PC server to remote site rather than using NPAC's server. This allows good delivery even without good bandwidth connection.

Education Technology Activities Technologies that we are using/developing in the above projects include:

1.Text Indexed Video:

Oracle database search engines for text files (close captioning and programming material) which are used to Index digital video allowing teachers to choose one minute (or so) segments from Discovery channel (etc.) to use in classes. This interfaces to in-house and the growing standard video server streaming technologies

2. Java and JavaScript frontends for structured information

We have developed a HotJava prototype and now a Javascript Netscape 2.0 implementation of a hierarchical information system with PERL using suitable templates to prepare information for different browsers with data obtained from a rich information database. This general concept can be applied in several areas -- in particular to Presentations. We have over 6000 foils stored in this system -- most of which were originally prepared in Persuasion. We expect to use this WebFoil system built on Netscape/HotJava as primary preparation and delivery environment for education material. This just requires suitable HTML editors / VRML plug-ins to be available which is only a matter of time!

3. Use of VRML in Interactive Scientific Visualization

VRML can provide interactive front ends to 3D simulations which are packaged for use in education. Typical applications are to delivery of lake effect snow predictions from HPCC weather simulations to be used as part of K-12 class. We see this approach as clearly superior to customary video delivery of HPCC results as it allows one to annotate output in helpful fashion for education

4.Use of Java Client Applets

We have several innovative Java projects including a prize winning interface to Visible Human database as well front ends for display of performance information. We also see Java animations as very valuable for explaining the flow of information in difficult algorithms such as parallel FFT and matrix problems.

5.Object Databases and Geographical Information Systems

We have developed an Illustra object database for VRML (and other) objects which has been used to develop the 'Interactive Journey' -- a 2D (Java) or 3D(VRML) virtual field trip through New York State using standard terrain data. A tutorial is available.