Simulated Processes in a Learning Environment (SimPLE) Anne Rose, David Eckard, Gary Rubloff, Catherine Plaisant, Yatin Sankholkar, Ben Shneiderman, George Ziets Symposium and Open House May 29, 1998

Overview Simulation environments are powerful learning tools encourage exploration cost effective training mechanisms SimPLE is an authoring tool for creating simulation-based learning environments Couples power and flexibility of a generic simulation engine with a custom front end

Simulation Engine (VisSim)

VacTechSim

ClusterSim

NileSim

Pilot Study SimPLE (GUI + VisSim) vs. VisSim only 10 students Observations: all students preferred SimPLE more engaged with SimPLE found controls in VisSim confusing

Demo in Zoology-Psychology Building, Rm 3111 Gauge Experiment Wide range (1015), high accuracy gauges that show: direction of change (up/down) speed of change (fast, slow, stopped) specific ranges (low, operating, high) Demo in Zoology-Psychology Building, Rm 3111

Future Work and Conclusions select other application domains investigate use of other simulation engines continue to enhance authoring tool learning historian to capture and playback histories Authoring tools, like SimPLE, are a key step toward the wide spread use of simulation-based learning environments

Additional Information Supported by NSF under grant EEC 96-96212 Technical report and video in handout materials http://www.isr.umd.edu/SimPLE/ Demos in A.V. Williams Building, Room 3174

Software Architecture Separates user interface from simulation engine Allows independent contributions of education content and software development