Faculty from the Colleges of Engineering and Education will collaborate to produce and evaluate interactive multimedia learning resources deliverable over the Internet for instruction in introductory engineering thermodynamics. The project will create two related resources: a site on the World Wide Web and a UseNet newsgroup. Using the Web home page, students will branch from a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) to various learning modules, each of which will combine text and graphics to explain conceptual points that are common points of confusion in thermodynamics. The Web site will also include a "hot link" to the newsgroup. A moderated newsgroup will be established in which thermodynamics students can post questions or comments and obtain help from one another and from instructors. In addition to providing a dynamic resource of "virtual consulting" on thermodynamics questions and problems, the newsgroup will be a valuable source of instantaneous and continuous feedback to the project team in identifying common points of confusion among students for development of future learning modules. The project will build on a large archive of video, sound, animation and still graphics of thermodynamic subject matter which has been compiled in a previous NSF- sponsored project. Newly developed Internet delivery tools such as Java and Shock wave will be used to provide true interactive multimedia capabilities that have hitherto been too cumbersome to effectively deliver on-line.
