of a spreadsheet. Warning: students often are so comfortable with spreadsheets that
they prefer a clumsy spreadsheet calculation over writing a good computer program.
After half a century of educational movies and videos, many of which were
authored by master teachers or professional teams, most of us still prefer a live
presentation. Microsoft PowerPoint dominates for technical lectures and incorporates a variety of excellent visual aids, but the slides without the speaker tend to fall
flat. Authoring a PowerPoint presentation takes time and creates valuable intellectual
property that another teacher can edit and supplement to suit a different audience. An
instructor who gives it away for free to educators at other institutions may hesitate to
provide aid and comfort to the competition. Not so for a nonacademic who can find
fame and recognition. Nevertheless, education would benefit by sharing presentations and encouraging innovation and improvements while attributing each
contributor.
4 Information Retrieval
People who browse the internet know about favorites or bookmarks for instant
access to web sites that are consulted frequently. An engineer should realize how
seldom a textbook is the primary source when seeking information. Some handbooks and articles may be at your fingertips, but it is more convenient to type search
words into your internet browser than to select from your bookcase a text that is
probably out of date. When the web pages that you most often consult such as those
for rules and regulations are among your favorites in the browser, you instantly have
current information.
Educational material for supplementing formal courses is termed “Open Courseware.” This author decided not to collect web pages for complete courses but to
feature challenges for students, interactive exercises, short stories, and links to
engineering tools [3, 4]. The code for these pages can be templates for others to
author their own web pages, but the main goal is providing educational material for
anyone to supplement various courses. It is also a way for a retired professor to leave
a legacy of best ideas (Figs. 9.1 and 9.2).
A good habit for students is to collect information by topics. With a program such
as Microsoft Word, the headings and subheadings can be indexed easily, and search
features can locate information by using key words. When class notes are entered
into the collection, the student benefits from review and most often will do this while
the material is fresh and not a hazy memory the night before an examination.
Instructors with useful internet bookmarks and with topical collections of relevant
information should provide them to their students as examples. Their students can
cut and paste to personalize these templates and can share discoveries with their
classmates. The instructor also has the responsibility of integrating lectures with
internet sessions, updating the courses, discovering internet resources, and authoring
or editing these resources to meet the objectives of the courses.
382
H. R. Bungay III
they prefer a clumsy spreadsheet calculation over writing a good computer program.
After half a century of educational movies and videos, many of which were
authored by master teachers or professional teams, most of us still prefer a live
presentation. Microsoft PowerPoint dominates for technical lectures and incorporates a variety of excellent visual aids, but the slides without the speaker tend to fall
flat. Authoring a PowerPoint presentation takes time and creates valuable intellectual
property that another teacher can edit and supplement to suit a different audience. An
instructor who gives it away for free to educators at other institutions may hesitate to
provide aid and comfort to the competition. Not so for a nonacademic who can find
fame and recognition. Nevertheless, education would benefit by sharing presentations and encouraging innovation and improvements while attributing each
contributor.
4 Information Retrieval
People who browse the internet know about favorites or bookmarks for instant
access to web sites that are consulted frequently. An engineer should realize how
seldom a textbook is the primary source when seeking information. Some handbooks and articles may be at your fingertips, but it is more convenient to type search
words into your internet browser than to select from your bookcase a text that is
probably out of date. When the web pages that you most often consult such as those
for rules and regulations are among your favorites in the browser, you instantly have
current information.
Educational material for supplementing formal courses is termed “Open Courseware.” This author decided not to collect web pages for complete courses but to
feature challenges for students, interactive exercises, short stories, and links to
engineering tools [3, 4]. The code for these pages can be templates for others to
author their own web pages, but the main goal is providing educational material for
anyone to supplement various courses. It is also a way for a retired professor to leave
a legacy of best ideas (Figs. 9.1 and 9.2).
A good habit for students is to collect information by topics. With a program such
as Microsoft Word, the headings and subheadings can be indexed easily, and search
features can locate information by using key words. When class notes are entered
into the collection, the student benefits from review and most often will do this while
the material is fresh and not a hazy memory the night before an examination.
Instructors with useful internet bookmarks and with topical collections of relevant
information should provide them to their students as examples. Their students can
cut and paste to personalize these templates and can share discoveries with their
classmates. The instructor also has the responsibility of integrating lectures with
internet sessions, updating the courses, discovering internet resources, and authoring
or editing these resources to meet the objectives of the courses.
382
H. R. Bungay III