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DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIMEDIA INSTRUCTIONAL
TOOLS FOR ENGINEERING MECHANICS
This paper describes the introduction of multimedia instructional tools to the Engineering Mechanics courses at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. The introduction of multimedia components to these classes has progressed in stages over the course of four semesters. The process started with the use of web pages as communication tools between the instructor and students. Prepackaged multimedia instructional tools were then added as adjunct material to the text and lectures. Finally, lecture notes containing animations and video clips were developed in-house. Preliminary cursory evaluation shows an improvement in student performance. Controlled evaluations are planned in future work.
At the same time that the demand for student access to higher education is increasing the availability of funds to support the demand is decreasing. It is estimated that the State of Florida will be able to serve only 69% of the students qualified to enter its higher educational system in the beginning of the new century [1]. One means to meet this demand, especially in the science and engineering fields, is investment in technology for instructional delivery. The use of new technologies will provide us with the tools to serve more students. The goal is to improve the efficiency in the delivery of education with an increased effectiveness and quality of education. However, the education of engineers presents special problems when delivered electronically since hands-on laboratory experiences are a necessary part of the engineering curriculum. On the other hand engineering presents special promise for multimedia instructional techniques. In general, engineering students posses a high level of technological literacy. Asynchronous multimedia demonstrations and exercises can be particularly effective in courses such as statics and mechanics. In these courses the repetitive exploration of key principles can be performed using short animations and video clips in addition to the text and visual graphics. This paper reports our experience in the use and development multimedia instructional tools for Engineering Mechanics.
ILLUSTRATION OF ENGINEERING MECHANICS
The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering computing facilities are not only used to provide computational power for students and instructors but are also used as a means to provide quality learning environment for the students. The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering serves two universities (http://www.eng.fsu.edu), Florida A & M University and Florida State University with a total enrollment of approximately 2,000 students. Each engineering student in the College is required to take the Engineering Mechanics course. Mechanical Engineering majors cover the material in two three credit hour classes. Non-majors cover the material in one four credit hour class. The average number of students attending the Engineering Mechanics class is around 70 students each semester. Each course in Dynamics and Statics also has an enrollment of about 70 students.
Materials have been progressively added to the curriculum. This allows the instructor time to become well versed in the technology and allows evaluation of individual components. Below is a list of each semester's components. Each component will be described in detail in the following sections.
ENGINEERING MECHANICS WEB PAGE
The web pages for the Engineering Mechanics class were designed to offer interactive synchronons and asynchronons communications and a mechanism to dispense course outlines, notes, exercises. worked examples, and grades. Confidential materials such as grades are password protected. Eventually the in-house multimedia tools were integrated into the web pages.
Of particular importance is the provision of a facility for students to communicate with their peers, the instructor and the teaching assistant. This enables the students to participate in teaching and learning from their peers as well from the instructor. In this way the instructor, the teaching assistant, and other students are providing help sessions to students. The electronic format allows students to interact at a time and place of their choosing.
Asynchronous communication was accomplished through the use of personal and group e-mail. Synchronons dialog was implemented through the use of news groups, on-line conferences, and chat groups.
MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE
The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. have entered a partnership agreement in which new engineering multimedia instruction material developed by Addison-Wesley is being tested in the College's curriculum. Two packages so far have been incorporated into courses - Multimedia Dynamics [3] and Multimedia Statics [2]. These are packaged as compact discs (CD) and contain real-world problems and exercises that explore concepts covered in typical engineering dynamics and statics courses. The CD's were loaded on the College's network file servers and were thus made accessible to over 500 machines on the College LAN.
The problems in Dynamics lend themselves naturally to the use of animation and motion pictures. The Engineering Dynamics concepts are much easier to demonstrate with movies and animation than with stationary pictures as in a textbook. The degree of student attention and interaction were increased as students enthusiastically accepted the multimedia format. The students were assigned projects based on the demonstrations in the software. The projects challenged students to demonstrate their understanding of the total problem rather than answer single question from the text.
COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE MATH TOOLS
Mathcad [4], Maple [5] and Matlab [6] are some of tools which are used to teach linear algebra, integration, differentiation, plotting of results and writing reports. Several examples of the use of these tools for student projects may be found at http://www.eng.fsu.edu/haik
The instructor was able to provide students with on-line help via the course web pages on how to use the available math tools. The number of enrolled students who were familiar with these tools at the beginning of the courses was very low (< 2%). By the end of the semester almost 100% of the students were capable of using the software.
The students were provided with FORTRAN code for special applications (ftp://ftp.eng.fsu.edu/pub). Again, the web provided an easy method for distribution of the source code, the executables, and instructions on the use of the programs.
COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
The students were required to collaborate on a design project. Project descriptions were posted on the web pages and students were asked to form engineering firms of three engineers. Each firm was to build a prototype product that meets customer requirements and design limitations. Using the techniques they learned in the course the student groups were asked to analyze the forces on the parts of the designed device.
An example of a project is to Design and build a manual trash compactor. The customer required that:
The student feedback about these projects was positive. The projects provided experience using real engineering problem-solving techniques that go beyond the textbook's problems.
ANIMATIONS AND VIDEO CLIPS
One of the difficulties that students describe in the Engineering Mechanics course is the ability to picture a three dimensional object in the assigned problem. Carefully designed multimedia instruction material can help students to visualize a complex geometry. In case of a dynamics problem an illustration with animation or video can be even more effective. Lecture notes with links to video clips were provided to students via the web pages and on CD-ROM. Currently the multimedia video clips run only within the College LAN due to bandwidth considerations. Students who wish to view the video clips off-site have access to a CD which interfaces with the course web pages. The references to video clips link to the student's local CD instead of the network file server. The College is in the process of installing an Internet video server so that compressed video clips will be available directly over the web and the CD will eventually become unnecessary.
OUTCOME EVALUATION
Surveys of students were conducted to gather student feedback and to evaluate the impact of the multimedia instructional format. The surveys were uncontrolled and informal. In all four semesters the student responses indicate that students preferred the multimedia instruction over traditional delivery methods. There is some preliminary indication that performance improved as the multimedia tools were added to the curriculum. A more controlled assessment of the impact of multimedia instructional format on performance of students is underway.
The survey form was implemented on the web page. Samples of the survey and the answers can be found at http://www.eng.fsu.edu/haik/survey.html.
The response rate was about 80%. Almost 100% of the respondents preferred the new instructional method.
The preliminary performance assessments show an increase of 15% in the passing rate for students in the Engineering Mechanics class when the Multimedia illustrations were used. A 40% increase in the passing rate for the Dynamics class was reported when the Multimedia and projects are used. A 50-60% decrease in the withdrawal rate was reported when the Multimedia illustrations were used. Table 1 below shows the numerical distribution of grades for two semesters of Engineering Mechanics and Dynamics class.
| Engineering | Mechanics | Vector | Dynamics | |
| Grade | With Multimedia | Without Multimedia | With Multimedia | Without Multimedia |
| A | 16.4% | 15.9% | 18.3% | 14.5% |
| B | 27.4% | 19% | 15% | 21.6% |
| C | 22% | 22.2% | 45% | 19.6% |
| D | 5.4% | 15.9% | 6.7% | 19.6% |
| F | 16.4% | 19% | 11.7% | 18.5% |
| W | 4.2% | 8% | 3.3% | 8.3% |
| Total | 73 | 63 | 60 | 97 |
The introduction of web-based communication tools and multimedia instructions tools had a positive impact on the course in a mlmber of ways. The availability of computer based communication tools increased the speed of interaction and allowed the students and instructor to choose the time of interaction. The availability of web page lecture notes with enhanced illustrations helped to clarify difficult concepts. The students were able to repeat the lecture and exercises at any time and any place. Overall student satisfaction with the new technology is high. A proposal for future work is to introduce the multimedia instruction at a distance. Furthermore, a more scientific evaluation of the instructional methodology will be conducted during the next two semesters.
In this paper the development and use of a set of multimedia instructional tools for an Engineering Mechanics class was presented. The new technology provides an additional tool for enhancing engineering education. Preliminary assessment shows an enhancement in the understanding of engineering concepts and in student performance.
1. Boettcher, J. V., and Fell, S., ''Lalmching interactive distance learning programs at Florida State University: Leading the way," Presented at the FSU/AECT Conference on Distance Learning, http://idl.fsu.edu, 1996
2. Gramoll, K. and Abbanat, R., Multimedia Engineering Statics, Addison Wesley Interactive, http://awi.aw.com.
3. Gramoll, K. and Abbanat, R., Multimedia Engineering Dynamics, Addison Wesley Interactive, http://awi.aw.com.
4. Mathsoft Co., "Mathcad," http://www.mathsoft.com.
5. Maplesoft Co., "Maple, Release V," http://www.maplesoft.com.
6. Mathworks Co., "Matlab," http://www.mathworks.com
7. Addison Wesley Interactive, "Working Model," http://awi.aw.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Addison Wesley for their contribution.