The Creation of Networded Interactive Tools for Teachin Astronomy and Physics

该项目是俄勒冈大学和亚利桑那大学之间的合作资助项目，正在开发互动实验，并通过互联网交付。这些实验中的大多数是使用Java编程语言扩展到HTML文档结构来执行的。其他人则使用VRML扩展到HTML，它允许3D表示复杂的空间关系。这些工具将被整合到一个功能齐全的万维网网站中，该网站将作为俄勒冈大学和亚利桑那大学每年约5400名学生的虚拟教室。该网站将有一本电子教科书、研究数据库、超级计算机模拟和动画。迫切需要让科学入门的学生参与到实验模式中，这种模式将导致学生主导的探究。这个项目的目标是(1)允许学生使用主动实验来学习抽象的主题，(2)将科学上现实的探究模式融入到教学技术中，(3)建立一个适用于任何课程的实验库，以及(4)建立一个可以定制的网站，供任何教师使用。为了实现我们的主要教学目标，教学技术可能是一种非常划算的手段：将科学作为一个发现过程来教授，它严重依赖于实验结果，而不是记忆的事实和数字。该项目还包括远程教育方面，涉及各机构在课程开发方面的合作，并利用新兴技术让学生参与这一新的学习模式。这些通行费的潜在受众包括全国两年制和四年制大学的50万物理和天文学学生，以及更多的高中水平的学生。这项工作建立在已经非常成功地实施了基于超文本的课程材料的基础上，其中专业数据、科学动画和其他资源的链接都被组织到一个网络教科书中，成为学生在课堂上看到和课外访问的讲课和学习工具。在这门课程中建立更多的互动性是下一个合乎逻辑、也是最关键的步骤。

The project, operated as a collaborative grant between the University of Oregon and the University Arizona, is developing interactive experiments and delivering them over the Internet. Most of these experiments are executed using the JAVA programming language extension to HTML document structure. Others use the VRML extension to HTML, which allows 3D representations of complex spatial relationships. These tools will be integrated into a fully-featured World Wide Web site which will act as a virtual classroom for about 5400 students per year at the University of Oregon and the University of Arizona. The Web site will have an electronic textbook, research data bases, supercomputer simulations, and animations. There is a critical need to engage introductory science students in an experimentation mode that will lead to student-driven inquiry. This project aims (1) to allow students to use active experimentation to learn abstract topics, (2) to incorporate scientifically realistic modes of inquiry into instructional technology, (3) to build a library of experiments that is adaptable to any curriculum, and (4) to construct a Web site that can be customized for use by any instructor. Instructional technology can be a very cost-effective means of achieving our main pedagogical goal: teaching science as a discovery process that relies heavily on experimental results, not memorized facts and figures. The project also has distance education dimensions, involves the cooperation of institutions for curriculum development, and uses emerging technologies to engage the students in this new learning mode. The potential audience for these tolls extends to the 500,000 physics and astronomy students at two and four year colleges nationwide and more students at the high school level. The work builds on an already highly successful implementation of hypertext based course material, in which professional data, scientific animation, and links to other resources are all organized into a network textbook tha t becomes the lecture and learning tool that students see in class and access out of class. Building more interactivity into this curriculum is both the next logical and most critical step.