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Creating a Networked Interactive Learning Environment

David Sutton, Lecturer
School of Information Systems, University of South Australia
david.sutton@unisa.edu.au,
http://business.city.unisa.edu.au/s_is/sutton/profile.htm

Allan Christie, Senior Lecturer,
Flexible Learning Centre, University of South Australia
allan.christie@unisa.edu.au

Philip Marriott, Lecturer
School of Communication and Information Studies, University of South Australia
philip.marriott@unisa.edu.au
Abstract
The University of South Australia needs to find innovative solutions to the problems of teaching large groups in its multi-campus environment. Internet technologies (particularly the World Wide Web) have the potential to allow university-wide delivery of interactive learning programs that exploit existing communications and computer pool resources. This project will see the development, testing, and delivery of an interactive Internet learning module to over 1000 students on 3 campuses and to students studying in the external mode who are enrolled in the subject "Business Information Systems" in the Faculty of Business and Management.
Keywords
Teaching and Learning, Interactive Environment, World Wide Web

Introduction

The University of South Australia needs to find innovative solutions to the problems of teaching large groups in its multi-campus environment. Internet technologies (particularly World Wide Web) have the potential to allow university-wide delivery of interactive learning programs that exploit existing communications and computer pool resources. This project will see the development, testing, and delivery of an interactive Internet learning module to over 1000 students on 3 campuses, to students studying in the external mode and to students studying offshore (e.g., Hong Kong) who are enrolled in the subject "Business Information Systems" in the Faculty of Business and Management. The delivery of this course in Hong Kong, in partnership with the Hong Kong Baptist University, represents a new initiative for the University and presents significant demands and challenges for academic staff with respect to administrative, curriculum design and delivery issues.

Although some excellent computer based learning materials have been developed in the past, the promise of computer based instruction has not been fully realised, in part, due to difficulty in the delivery of learning materials to students. This has been caused by incompatibility of software with hardware, incompatibility of storage formats, and lack of suitable hardware. In contrast the materials developed in this project will be easily deliverable over the university network to Windows-PC, Macintosh, Vax (VMS), and UNIX computers using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).

We will provide a central computer which serves the learning materials and each computer that connects to the server will need suitable client software, which is freely available. This is an extremely flexible method of delivery which allows large numbers of external and internal students on multiple campuses to access interactive learning materials using existing university computing resources. The server and client software has already been extensively trialed on the university network with positive results.

World Wide Web clients are progressively being installed in all student computer pools by the Universities Information Technology Unit enabling potential access from 854 machines (USA94). The World Wide Web server can also be accessed via modem or direct Internet connection from off-campus locations adding to the number of potential students who can use the information stored on the World Wide Web server.

Some students will not be in a networked environment nor have a modem for dial-up access. This is addressed by placing the HTML learning materials and client on a floppy disk or CD-ROM and operating in a standalone mode

In this project we plan to re-purpose an existing computer based instruction module (Chr94) so that it can be delivered to any type of computer as HTML on the university network, dialup lines, floppy disk and CD-ROM. We then plan to evaluate the design and delivery process so as to guide the development of future materials in Business and other subject areas.

While the World Wide Web is currently used to deliver information to millions of users world wide, this approach extends this to the delivery of interactive learning materials thus increasing their effectiveness. Using this approach also increases the functionality of the learning materials that can be produced. An important aspect of this project is that it is deliverable now with existing university computing resources.

"Developing Teaching Strategies for Large Numbers of Students" has been identified by the Faculty of Business and Management in its Quality Improvement Plan for Teaching and Learning (QIPTL) (FBM95). This project seeks to create a networked interactive learning environment accessible by large numbers of students both on and off campus and, therefore, has a clear synergy with the Faculty's QIPTL.

The Subject

The subject to be used in this pilot phase is "Business Information Systems" offered by the School of Information Systems. The subject is one of six subjects that is undertaken by all undergraduate students in the Faculty of Business and Management. It is currently taught to over 1000 students across a number of campuses using a "traditional" lecture, tutorial and practical format and it is also being delivered in external mode to students both in Australia and overseas. This year it was also offered in a "mixed mode" under a twinning programme with the Hong Kong Baptist University.

The subject introduces students to the concepts of Information Systems, hardware concepts and office productivity tools.

The Pilot Phase

In this pilot phase a component of the subject "Business Information Systems" will be used to test the effectiveness of the World Wide Web for creation of a networked interactive learning environment.

The topic chosen for the prototype is "Computer Hardware: Input, Processing and Output Devices". This is a deliberate choice as the subject matter is relatively stable and easily represented using computer assisted learning.

The learning outcomes of the Computer Hardware tutorial are that students will be able to:

This topic area was previously implemented as a computer based multimedia learning module using Toolbook (Chr94). This pilot phase involved creating learning materials for the same subject using the World Wide Web as the delivery mechanism. Apart from testing the effectiveness of the World Wide web it will allow comparison of the multimedia applications that can be developed under the two environments.

Developing the WWW Application

As mentioned previously the topic area was implemented as a compter based multimedia application using Toolbook Multimedia. The application was made up of four components

The application could be distributed to students on disk or CDROM as well as being made available on computer pools.

Conversion of the ToolBook application to HTML was relatively straightforward with ToolBook paintObjects (bitmaps) being saved to the clipboard and then pasted into a graphic program (e.g., PaintShop Pro 3.01) and saved as gif format for the thumbnail and jpeg format for the larger image. There were also a number of ToolBook pictureObjects (vector-based graphics) which first needed to be converted to paintObjects before pasting into the graphic program. The textual information, glossary and hypertext links all translate quite naturally to the WWW environment.

The title screen of the HTML version included a "Continue" button to progress to the next page. This simple navigation device in ToolBook required a small cgi script for the same functionality in WWW. A META tag in the HEAD section of the title page was used to automatically bring up the course table of contents after two minutes of idle time, viz;

<HTML><HEAD>

<meta http-equiv=refresh content="120;url=http://cutl.city.unisa.edu.au/is/menu.html">

<TITLE>BIS Home Page</TITLE>

</HEAD>

Providing an interactive learning experience

The original Toolbook application provided students with an opportunity to test their understanding of the material by including a Quiz. The conversion of this Quiz to an HTML version required considerable rethinking, which has led to what we believe is an improved approach.

The original Toolbook Quiz contains a graphical 'Jeopardy' like board from which students choose questions from five categories. Once a category is selected a multiple choice question/answer set is presented and the student receives immediate feedback on the choice, awarded a score, and then returned to the 'Jeopardy' board. The student then selects another category and so on. The software maintains a score for the student and has a 'high score' board to record the name of the student along with their exceptional score.

We have found that reproducing this functionality on the WWW is extremely difficult. The WWW tends to be stateless. This means that each request for a particular document is considered an isolated event by the server. How then do you remember the progress of a student as they work through a set of problems? Inherently HTML is not able to do this.

Our solution was to divide the five categories of questions into five web-based FILL OUT FORMS each containing five questions. The student selects a form and must complete details about themselves and complete each of the questions before pressing the SUBMIT button. The contents of the form are processed by a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) application, written in-house, running on the server. This CGI returns a HTML page to the student containing a score, personal details, and clear feedback on errors.

We believe that this approach is not only convenient in terms of software but has advantages for student learning. Students are required to carefully consider a number of questions at one time. They may select an answer, think for a while, change their answer, look back on the chapter, change their answer, go to the next question, and so on, until they believe their answer set to be sufficiently refined for submission. We believe that this approach promotes deeper learning when compared to the more superficial click and answer approach of the original Toolbook Quiz.

The WWW Quiz can be found at http://comresearch.magill.unisa.edu.au/sutton/quizMENU.html

The original Toolbook Quiz screen can be found at http://comresearch.magill.unisa.edu.au/sutton/original.html

An interesting feature of the WWW Quiz is that it is resident on a server different to that of the reference materials.

The WWW Application

The World Wide Web application offers static information on the subject material enhanced by the use of graphics and hyperlinks to expand on material. This allows students for example to view the information on some aspect of computer hardware, view a picture of it and to jump using a hypertext link to a related area or to a glossary to view a definition of terminology.

It also has an interactive component in the form of a multiple choice quiz thus allowing students to test their knowledge, get feedback and to take remedial actions if required.

Students may also work at their own pace and can use the interactive component to identify those areas they need to spend more or less time on.

Future Plans

As this stage the results have been very encouraging, however we are still at the pilot stage. Future activities include the following.

Conclusion

Computer aided learning combined with networked access to information is a cost effective method of teaching and although it will never fully replace the face-to-face teaching approaches, it can be used to complement and improve the effectiveness and learning potential of these more traditional methodologies. The convenient access to information will allow learning to occur in context, that is, when information is directly applicable to the situation currently being addressed.

Convenient access to information when it is needed should improve the efficiency of teaching by reducing the number of "informal" contact hours that staff spend with students whose problems often stem from a poor understanding of factual material.

The use of the World Wide Web will remove these constraints of time and place of learning and through the flexible delivery of course material will enable student learning to occur that is both convenient for learner and teacher and relevant to the particular learning needs of the individual. Materials delivered using this approach will be available 24 hours a day to provide information that the student can review from any location that has a connection to the University computer network. This would include common teaching computing pools (IBM PC and Macintosh) on campus, any site (e.g., companies, other universities, etc.) nationally and internationally connected to the Internet, and even the student's own home given they have a computer and modem to provide dial-up access to the University computer network.

The creation of a networked learning environment which includes the use of the World Wide Web is vitally important when considering the internationalisation of course offerings which the School is currently embarking upon.

This is clearly an innovative use of emerging teaching tools (World Wide Web) that will be used increasingly to access information and expertise through the Internet.

References

[Chr94]
Christie, A. and Thiele, D:Windows-Based Multimedia Development in Business Information Systems", Proceedings APITITE 94, p1005-1009
[FBM95]
Quality Assurance Strategies For Teaching", Faculty of Business and Management, University of South Australia, May 1995
[USA94]
Computing Strategies to Support Teaching and Learning in the University of South Australia", Report, October 1994
Photo(s) Taken during the conference and exhibition:
C Lau, Dr. David Sutton, Sandy Tse
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