This component will provide participants with hands-on introductions to
the key elements of developing and adapting multimedia education material
for in-class and distance learning presentation and use. Tools acquired
in this segment will be used throughout all other segments to integrate
materials for personal use and for student and peer teacher education.
Basics of HTML and browser-based materials will focus on web page
development (including text, pictures and video clips) to allow adapting
and extending content material provided and developed specialists and
teacher participants.
Demonstrations, experiments and activities provide specialists with
opportunities for education projects and teachers with discovery-based
activities involving polymers, chemistry and physical properties of
materials, especially in marine applications. These modules will be made
available over the Internet and on CD-ROM along with links to content
material, safety sheets, and inquiry-based extensions.
Introduction to graphics and video will provide all participants with
skills in designing, scripting, acquiring, editing and integrating still
and video graphics. Key will be hands-on training in shooting and editing
digital video based on equipment suitable for K-12 use (i.e., cost
effective). Teacher training activity modules are already under
development for use in the Dreyfus and NSF REU projects involving teacher
education described elsewhere.
Teacher and student assessment and evaluation will encompass both
research projects and instruction in the use of traditional and
interactive multimedia assessment for in-class and out-of-class student
use. Teacher evaluation will use both methods to ensure understanding of
content and method, and to obtain feedback on teacher and education module
problem areas. This segment will be tied directly to the research
component.
Distance learning at the K-12 levels will be the focus of several
specialist projects. These will provide research data, overviews, and
resource material in how this new approach to education is impacting
student learning. Projects and modules will show how distance learning
can be used by individual students and entire school districts to augment
and extend existing course offerings.
Co-Principal Investigator, Dr. Lon Mathias, and Senior Associate, S.Dixon
McDowell, will play leadership roles in providing education and training
in multimedia design and materials development. Professor Mathias has
been involved for years in developing browser-based resource material in
polymer science that is used throughout the world to supplement secondary
and college courses. These efforts most recently involve several funded
projects involving a three-year multi-center project to develop a complete
multimedia course with laboratory for use at the undergraduate level. A
second effort involves a summer institute for approximately 60 K-12
teachers in multimedia methods and polymer content development funded by
the Dreyfus Foundation. A third project funded by NSF involves a
three-summer site providing Research Experiences for Undergraduates that
has the unique component of bringing in four-year college faculty each
year with the students to learn the same content material and then adapt
this material to their own curriculum needs. A key component of the
faculty efforts will involve digital video to illustrate concepts, present
demonstrations, illustrate experimental laboratory techniques, and
incorporate virtual field trip material into multimedia lecture and
resource material. A fourth grant was recently funded (in collaboration
with Dr. McDowell) for acquisition of the digital video cameras and
workstations to be used in various activities in all of the above
projects. Dr. McDowell's role is crucial to, first, provide training
needed in the techniques involved in scripting, shooting, editing and
integrating video into multimedia material, and second, help develop the
multimedia training modules that will help the teachers teach their peers
these same concepts and methods.
