Graduation Committee:
Prof. dr. J. Moonen
Dr. ir. R. Min
Enschede, The Netherlands
University of Twente
Faculty of Educational Science and Technology
August, 2002
Summary
Teaching at Cantho University (Geography Department) is currently facing a number of challenging developments. Teaching time limit is not balanced to the pressure of information explosion. Students have to adhere to tight study program to graduate in fix allowed time. On the other hand, due to the Government Policy about free tuition for students enrolling the Educational university, the number of student population is rapidly increasing in recent years, the more number of enrollments the higher requirements of school resource support. However, budgets for Education are always under constant pressure and far less to the students’ demands. In response to these developments, school searches for improvement in methodology of teaching and technology that make teaching and learning more efficient and effective. In among of various forms, ICT (Information and Communication Technology), CBT (Computer-Based Training), e-learning, telematics and so on are deployed and in which Web-Based Training (WBT) is introduced since it can bring many benefits and create a learning environment that could not exit before. The implementation of Web-Based Training (WBT) contributes several promises, however, it also faces many problems currently. This paper will analyze the teaching and learning context of the Geography Department to carry out whether the Web based training could be successfully implemented or not. Its aim is also to discover what the possibilities and potentials of the WBT are in the context of Cantho University. Then, the paper will discuss techniques how to design a best practice interactive web site with animation and simulation for Web Cartography together with several prototypes as an example for applying Web-based training at the Department.
Introduction
In recent years, we have witnessed a great number of using ICT in higher education. It can be predicted that information technology would play an important role, or become a powerful tool in the process of teaching and learning. Multimedia based curriculum materials can enhance and improve learner’s motivation, cooperation, active learning, and transfer of learning.
Considering the current usefulness of the multimedia based curriculum materials in the learner-centered environment the web-based material has been designed. Then, we try to apply animation and simulation to the web site to bring it more attractive and easier gain students’ attention. This means that every component of the instruction is governed by the learning outcomes, which have been determined after a thorough analysis of the learner’s needs.
This paper has been logically arranged for purposes of well structure and simplicity. The construction of a Web-based material like any technical or instructional design can be broken down into 5 steps: analysis, design, implementation, evaluation and maintenance. As a result, the thesis is also organized so that the chapter will follow these steps. The research focuses mainly on the design approaches as well as the technique have been using in the Web course. The structure of the thesis is as :
Generally, the guiding question for this thesis is how can an interactive multimedia software product with animation, simulation, maps, graphs, and audio contribute effectiveness to teaching Cartography in higher education.
Acknowledgement
Over the time I spent working with the thesis, I had the privilege of meeting and working with many individuals from all around the world. Finally, the thesis is completed, I dearly extend my thanks to each of you. I wish I could write better sentences to show my gratitude to:
Hopefully, this research will fulfil its aims to give a significant contribution to implementation at the Cantho University.
Contents
Acknowledgement
Summary
Introduction
Chapter 1: Problem description and analysis
1.1 Problem description;
1.2 Organizational context analysis;
1.2.1 Teacher characteristics;
1.2.2 Analysis the curricula;
1.2.3 Analysis the instructional materials, classes and facilities;
1.2.4 Target group analysis;
Chapter 2: Design Approach;
2.1. Introduction;
2.1.1 Geography department desired the web site;
2.1.2 Advantages of the web site;
2.2 Background of designing web-based materials;
2.2.1 Design structure;
2.2.2 Design process;
2.3 Instructional strategy decisions;
2.3.1 Chunks;
2.3.2 Content;
2.3.3 Examples;
2.3.4 Practice;
2.4 Design approach;
2.4.1 Media selection (dimensions);
2.4.2 Input devices;
2.4.3 Asking questions and getting feedback;
2.4.4 Interactivity;
Chapter 3: Technical Approach;
3.1 Introduction;
3.1.1 World wide web;
3.1.2 Tools;
3.2. Basic techniques;
3.2.1 HTML;
3.2.2 Flash;
3.2.3 Java;
3.2.4 JavaScript;
3.2.5 JavaScript and Java-applets;
3.2.6 ActionScript in Flash;
3.2.7 DHTML;
3.2.8 ArcView and Flash;
3.2.9 VRML and Cosmo Worlds;
Chapter 4: Evaluation;
4.1 Introduction;
4.2 Respondent evaluation;
4.3 Evaluation methods and instruments;
4.3.1 Expert evaluation;
4.3.2 Student evaluation;
4.4 Evaluation procedure;
4.5 Data analysis;
4.5.1 Expert data analysis;
4.5.2 Student data analysis;
4.6 Discussion;
4.6.1 Expert evaluation discussion;
4.6.2 Student evaluation discussion;
4.7 Conclusion;
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations;
References;
Appendices;
Appendice 1: Expert questionnaire evaluation;
Appendice 2: Student questionnaire evaluation;
Figures
Figure 1. Four stages in hypermedia designing, Kommers (1998)
Figure 2. Mind map about our web site
Figure 3. The structure of the web site
Figure 4. Homepage as an introduction
Figure 5. Animation compilation environments
Figure 6. Client-server architecture
Figure 7. Connection through a route
Figure 8. An example of an interactive animation with Flash.
Figure 9. Example of a simple dynamical animation of angles and vectors build with Java
Figure 10. Possibilities of background and foreground color should be considered
Figure11. Example of an interactive animation with JavaScript and a building block from 'WebLib'
Figure 12. An example of a Java applet in combination with JavaScript. In JavaScript the designer can put the data as the position and the coordinates
Figure 13. An example of a Java applet in combination with JavaScript. In JavaScript the designer can put extra information such as (visualized) volumes and values of the geographic objects
Figure14. ActionScript allows making smart parts of animation to create interactive maps
Figure 15. An example of a prefabricated ActionScript: a basic action
Figure 16. An example of DHTML with 4 bitmap files, 3 of them (landscape pictures) are the moving objects driven by sinus and cosines formula
Figure 17. Creating chart and layout that present data clearly and effectively is a important use of ArcView GIS
Figure 18. An example of a map, designed by ArcView in combination with Flash. ActionScript (the internal scripting language of Flash) can make map interactive
Figure 19. An example of animating prism map ‘Enschede Station’ using Cosmo Worlds VRML plug-in
Tables
Table 1. Differences between JavaScript and Java
Table 2. Characteristics of two respondents group
Table 3. Expert questionnaire evaluation
Table 4. Student questionnaire evaluation
Table 5. Results of expert evaluation
Table 6. The total average score of the expert evaluation
Table 7. Results of student evaluation
Table 8. The total average score of the student evaluation
Enschede, sept. 10, 2002