An authoring tool for education based on multimedia and simulation

Abstract

Some experiments, often crucial for the comprehension of fundamental principles in physiology, neurophysiology, cardiology, endocrinology, or engineering domains can not be carried out by students due to financial and/or practical constraints (e.g., cost, risk). Such inconveniences may be avoided by simulations based on a mathematical model of the studied phenomena. The coupling of multimedia materials and animations in simulation tools greatly facilitates the student's comprehension of complex phenomena. The COAST system is based on this philosophy and it proposes an assistance in the creation of multimedia tutorials by using a software package. The core of the COAST system is composed of four environments: the modelling environment for the development and fitting of dynamic models described by ordinary differential equations; the author environment dedicated to development and editing of experiments; the tutor environment for the building of practical scenarios (conditional linking of experiments); student run-time. COAST is a simple and flexible authoring software. Using this software, an author without any particular experience in computer sciences can create his own multimedia practical course. The authors can very easily customise or modify specific features (experiments, sequence of experiments, pedagogic rules, adding explanations and questions, etc.). The flexibility of the system and the integration within WWW technology offer the teacher the possibility to create his own structure of course in accordance with his pedagogic rules. Several examples of courseware, built with the COAST system, are presented during the session. The results of our validation are also discussed.Anglai