The present and future students enrolled in universities across the United State have been raised in the computer/video age. They are accustomed to computer-generated graphics from television advertisements to movies. These students can become bored with traditional presentations of concepts. This boredom may mean that they tend not to attend class or they are physically present, but mentally absent. With the rapid advance and the lower cost of computer hardware and software, educators must review not only what they are teaching but how the are presenting concepts. This is especially true in the presentation of abstract engineering graphics concepts. Many students have difficulty visualizing these concepts and become bored or give up on attempting to visualize and learn them.
These problems can be minimized or completely overcome with creative instructional materials and lecture presentations. Traditional presentations can be supplemented by computer-generated graphics. Animations can be used to present abstract concepts. Interactive multimedia presentations can be used in lecture settings or can be used by students individually to review engineering graphics concepts.
The ability to spatially visualize solutions to problems is an important skill for engineers. The importance of engineering graphics is central to the development of spatial abilities. In a survey of professional engineering in educational and industrial settings, Jensen (1986) found that spatial abilities are the most important engineering graphics concept that an individual should posses to be successful in the engineering profession.
Even though spatial abilities are indeed important for engineers, many engineering curricula devote little or no time in the advancement of them. Bertoline (1987) notes that students are given little or no formal instruction in the use and development of spatial abilities. If one of the goals of engineering education is to successfully prepare individuals for various engineering professions, instructional approaches should be developed that allow students to augment and advance their spatial abilities. If students are not given an opportunity to develop and enhance their spatial abilities through educational experiences, they may abandon their quest to become engineers or fail to achieve their potential as practicing engineers (Miller, 1992).
The development and advancement of spatial abilities is a very important objective in the foundation and development of many different disciplines. Including engineering graphics, but student learning style differences typically are not addressed by the curriculum. An extensive review of the literature in engineering graphics education by Miller (1990) has shown that student learning style differences are typically not considered in planning spatial instruction in engineering graphics and that research in learning styles is limited, the oversight of the impact of learning styles in the engineering graphic curriculum may have caused and may continue to cause students to have problems developing and advancing their spatial abilities (Miller, 1992).
The above information indicates that spatial ability is of central importance to many professions including engineering and that individuals possess learning style differences. Because engineering graphics is the formal educational setting for the development and enhancement of spatial abilities, instructional systems should be developed that are specifically tailored to the individual learning style of the student. But any instructional system including interactive multimedia should have a formal research base and be thoroughly tested before being implemented into widespread instructional use (Miller, 1992).
Miller (1992) reported that the use of real- and computer-generated models in the presentation of engineering graphics concepts was well received by entry level engineering students. He recommended that the use of computer-generated models should be integrated into the engineering graphics curriculum. Because of the rapid change in technology in the last three years, multimedia and animations can utilize computer-generated models and present engineering graphics concepts in new ways that were never before possible. But research in learning styles and the most appropriate use of instructional media must be undertaken before this media is used in teaching engineering graphics concepts.
Multimedia is any combination of text, graphics, sound, animation, and video delivered and controlled by the computer (Vaughn, 1994). Alternatively, interactive multimedia shifts the controlling agent, giving control to the user rather than the computer. This shift of control allows for individually customized information flow (Park, 1994). These applications center on the user through menu-driven programs, hypermedia applications, process simulations, performance dependent programs, or combinations of these interactive techniques (Wolfgram, 1994).
Multimedia is successful because it draws upon more than one of the five human senses, utilizing the two fundamental sense vital for information reception -- sight and sound. It also sparks human thought in the process due to motion and sound, features not available in static information presentation. Multimedia, although intriguing, does not require the user to be actively controlling what is being presented (Burger, 1993); the presentation simply runs in a linear progression with no input from the user.
Planned interactions are known to have a very positive effect on learning. Learning theorists state that to reach an objective, it must be practiced to help the learner cognitively incorporate in into long-term memory. The interaction or "doing the objective" helps the learner reach the objective and recall the information, skill, or behavior that was learned (Dick & Carey, 1992).
Digital media is no different. Wolfgram (1994) states, "People only remember 15 percent of what they hear and 25 percent of what they see, but they remember 60 percent of what they interact with (p.12)." Multimedia, then, requires auditory and visual perception only. Interactive multimedia, alternatively, requires internal user processing and focuses on the needs of the user, thereby requiring the user to be actively thinking about the information being presented, making predetermined decisions, and presumably, acquiring the information or skills being presented. By drawing upon multiple human senses and requiring human interaction, the learner acquires knowledge more efficiently. Interactive multimedia is a powerful medium for education and training. It is also a very adaptive tool in marketing situations where a persuasive flair helps change an attitude or belief (Stephanae, 1994).
The sole limiting factor of paper-based materials is that they provide a calloused or distant means of user interaction with the information being presented. They also give a shallow and somewhat blurred view of intended meaning since they utilize only one human sense through obscure characters and motionless graphics. This interferes with both transfer and retention. This type of media, also known as "monomedia" (Lindstrom, 1994), has small aesthetic value due to the static nature of the printed page. It presents a monotonous world to humans who are multimedia communicators -- desiring motion and sound. The limiting factors of knowledge transfer via the printed page focus on the lack of user interaction with the information, and the low sensory attractiveness of the medium. This is especially true of traditional paper presentations of today's college students. These students have grown up in the computer/video age and are easily bored with traditional presentations. They may "turn off" traditional presentations and not grasp an important concept just because they are bored.
A medium is needed that will not hinder transfer, but alternatively, enhance and reinforce the message. Interactive multimedia is that medium and its application is increasing. Interactive multimedia hinges on the two negative factors of print-based media and exploits them, making it an ideal, effective, and stimulating delivery tool for learning situations. Animated graphics, auditory data, and video incorporated into interactive multimedia utilize a wider range of human senses, easily spark deeper processing, and help paint a clearer picture of intended meaning. This makes the information easier to decode, interpret, comprehend, and encode into the cognitive schemata. It also increases interest and motivation making the learning process more enjoyable (Stansberry, 1993).
The cost of distributing interactive multimedia has dropped significantly and most students and industry professionals now have access to computers that have multimedia capabilities. This opens the door for information distribution via interactive multimedia. The decreasing cost of multimedia capable computers has caused a consumer explosion much like the spread of video cassette recorders (VCR) into almost every home in this nation in the late 1980's. Just as with the videotape market, this explosion has opened a window of opportunity for those who can incorporate interactive multimedia into information distribution because the negative factors of paper-based materials (i.e., user interaction and appeal) are overcome using interactive multimedia (Lindstrom, 1994).
With the paradigm of information distribution slowly shifting from non-interactive paper-based materials to interactive multimedia applications, user senses and thought processes are being readily utilized in the transfer, comprehension, and retention of knowledge. User senses and deep cognitive processing are factors that are essential for knowledge transfer to occur efficiently (Lindstrom, 1994). By utilizing these human attributes concerning learning, knowledge transfer becomes a more efficient and enjoyable process. Variables such as perception, attention, comprehension, agreement, and retention increase from 5 to 40 percent in presentations that use interactive multimedia (Lindstrom, 1994).
Purdue University, like other large institutions, has used traditional means of information distribution. They have relied heavily upon paper-based media with static text and images for information distribution; sacrificing user interaction and appeal for affordability. Competition for the attention of students is becoming increasingly difficult among universities and institutions. Getting and keeping the attention of students is critical so that they will devote their energies toward learning engineering graphics concepts.
Interactive multimedia provides a unique opportunity for engineering graphics educators to gain the interest and interaction by using alternative educational delivery systems that allow students to learn engineering graphics concepts and to advance spatial abilities. It is not only what the interactive module will be explaining that is important, however, it is also the delivery medium. A shift in paradigm needs to occur to overcome the limitations of the printed page and gain and hold the attention of the students. The appropriate and effective use of cutting-edge technology like interactive multimedia will distinguish any engineering graphics educator who chooses to exploit it by providing their students additional ways to learn engineering graphics concepts and advance their spatial abilities (Victor, 1993).
There are many opportunities to use interactive multimedia in engineering graphics because of the nature of the subject. Visualization is one but others include assembly problems, section views, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GDT), multiviews, the glass box, spatial geometry, and more.
Many engineering graphics courses will have an assembly problem as an assignment during the last few weeks of the course. These assembly problems typically come from pictorial drawings in engineering graphics texts. These pictorials are static dimensioned drawings that can be hard to visualize and understand how they are assembled. An interactive assembly problem can be created by modeling and rendering the parts using most PC-based CAD software. These models are then imported into an authoring program that is used to create an interactive multimedia problem. The student can interact with the program to view the problem and get more information about the assignment.
Another example of creating interactive multimedia curriculum material is to create animations which are then played using a software that control the speed of the animation as well as being able to stop and start at any point in the animation. For example, section views are sometimes hard for students to understand and visualize. Animations can be created for the various types of section views. These animations are then played with the students having full control of the interaction. These animtions can be used to supplement lectures, given to the student on disk or video tape, or placed on-line in a networked lab so students can have easy access to them for review.
The importance of engineering graphics for the advancement of spatial abilities and the acquisition of basic graphical concepts is paramount in the engineering graphics curriculum. Engineering graphics educators must be continually looking for strategies to implement more effective instruction. Technology is advancing so rapidly in its ability to provide educators with a wealth of potential tools for providing many different experiences. The utilization of the computer and other instructional technology, including multimedia and animation, tools in educational settings must be controlled by the existing literature in learning, learning styles, and instruction. Interactive multimedia is quickly becoming a media of choice for learning via mass information distribution throughout the nation and the world. Interactive multimedia is being heavily incorporated into our society in areas such as education, marketing, and training due to its success as a medium for the transfer of information (Lynn, 1993). Engineering graphics educators should use interactive multimedia in the presentation of graphical concepts. Engineering graphics educators must undertake research to determine if interactive multimedia is effective in advancing engineering students spatial abilities.
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