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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B6. Istanbul 2004
"FC. GOLD" from a CD. Login to FC occurs with a password.
Basically FC is an easy-to-use and proven communication and
conference system. Each course has its own "conference". Mail
to conferences can be read and written by all the participants of
the course. The teachers send literature, assignments and
comments to the participants; the participants send answers and
questions to the teacher. It can be monitored if the addressee
has opened his mail. A group calendar informs about the
schedule of the course, Communication between the
participants and the teacher can also be carried out by means of
chatting where several persons can take part at the same time.
The browser has to have some plug-ins in order to receive and
to display different types of courseware (compare figure 2).
General plug-ins are the pdf-file reader (for example Acrobat
Reader) and the Flash Player. A special plug-in is the Java byte
code interpreter (also called Java Virtual Machine) that
translates applets into machine code of the used client
computer. Here it may be essential that the version of the Java
compiler contained in the Java Development Kit (JDK) is equal
to the version of the Java plug-in of the browser. Otherwise the
run of the applet may fail or the layout may appear differently
on the computer screen than designed (Hohle, J. and J.A.
Hyldahl,. 2001) Besides. the | electronic. means; of
communication, hard-copy material such as books and CDs, is
handed out to the participants of the EuroSDR courses. The
mixture of hard-copy material and electronic material may
disappear when e-learning is more used in future.
server client
"m / i pdf-file
document | / \ reader
= TER TES:
Java : 4 \ x Java
applet | 1 byte code
interpreter
| Internet |
Flash MX
< lash
ActionScript | | FT
php script \ | >
\ browser
HTML Qu )
document * X
Figure 2. Interactive learning programs use HTML- and pdf-
documents, Java applets, ActionScripts, and php
scripts, which all reside on a server computer.
Applets are interpreted on the client computer by the
Java byte code interpreter into machine code.
Learning programs produced by the Flash MX tools
of Macromedia are displayed by the Flash player.
Interactivity in the learning programs is created by
ActionScript available in Flash MX. Php scripts are
converted into HTML files at the server, transferred
to the client computer and displayed by a browser.
Documents in pdf-format are displayed on the client
computer by means of pdf-file reader, for example
Acrobat Reader. All of the diplayed boxes on the
client computer are plug-ins of a browser.
9j
4. DESIGN OF COURSEWARE
The courseware of e-learning courses is essential for the success
of the courses. The design of courseware has to be planned
carefully with regard to the contents, the pedagogy and the
technology. The contents are given by the EuroSDR research
project. À general introduction into the topic may be necessary.
The participant should learn by doing. A high degree of
interactivity makes the learning much more interesting. He or
she should experience the progress in learning. Different
assignments should be attached. It should be possible to make
self-tests. The production of courseware should be possible with
reasonable costs, and appropriate tools should be available. A
team of teachers and multimedia specialists should preferably
do the design and the realisation together. The created
courseware has to be tested thoroughly. It has also to be
updated according to the gained experiences and the updating
should be as easy as possible. Basically the courseware consists
of a user interface, literature, learning programs, multiple-
choice quizzes and assignments. In the following the parts of
the courseware are explained by means of course "B" of the
EuroSDR e-learning courses, but in a generalized manner. The
contents of this course and the applied tools are dealt with in the
next chapters.
4.1 User interface
The user interface of a course contains the contents of the
course, the learning aids and instructions how to proceed with
the learning. Figure 3 shows the general layout for the start
page, which the user is confronted with when the Web address
(URL) of the course is typed into the browser. The window area
on the upper right side is used for a short introduction into the
selected topic. Graphics are used to supplement the text lines.
The selectable learning aids are literature to be read, self-
evaluation quizzes, and several learning programs. They will
start when the user clicks the corresponding hypertext.
4.2 Literature
Literature to be read by the participants may reside at various
servers at the Internet. Links to the original articles are
established if the various authors have granted permission. The
literature includes first of all the EuroSDR research report,
which is available at the Internet as a pdf-file. Furthermore,
presentations at the introductory seminars, for example the
overview of the topic, are available at the Internet in HTML or
PowerPoint format. Data of the EuroSDR research project are
made available as well.
4.3 Learning programs
Learning programs also include practical work to be done by
the participants. The given tasks require interactions with the
program and its data sets. Experiments have to be carried out
and the data sets are altered. These special programs also
include self-tests. Basic knowledge is provided at the beginning
by means of dynamic images and moving text lines. The
information is stored in various layers. The topics can be basic
knowledge in digital photogrammetry or they can directly be
connected to the research project. Computations are carried out
either on-line (by means of a program) or by the participant,
who uses the calculator or spreadsheet of the learning program.
