1. The Physical World: Multimedia physics at a distance Jon Rosewell, Fiona Thomson - CES Canan Tosunoglu Blake - IET The Open University

2. A mixed media course Books Video Computing Tutorials Residential school Assignments, exam

3. Software components Multimedia packages Interactive questions packages Physica Guide, glossary, extras,... FirstClass conferences

11. Demo Waves

12. Evaluation Study Developmental testing –observations –mini questionnaires and informal interviews Summative evaluation –questionnaires –residential school interviews –end of year survey

13. Developmental testing at the residential school of a Physics course covered eight multimedia packages observation mini questionnaire informal interviews afterwards

14. Observations 17 hours in total recorded students’ input to the computer, calculations and notes, verbatim comments mainly individual use video recording of a few sessions

15. Findings - Use of audio many comments about audio/text hard to listen and read at same time need ability to pause, repeat and switch off where should attention be focused - simulation or text? bullet points synchronized with audio worked best

16. More Findings... buttons and controls must be clear progress report: where am I? typing in answers – in what form? comments and suggestions were used to improve the programs

17. Findings from the questionnaire What did you learn from the program? “What an electron scatter image actually looks like. Reinforced reason why photons (light) is not used to detect electrons” Best thing about the program as a learning tool: “The freedom of selection of the changing parameters of the diffraction and the display of the effects of these changes” Least helpful aspect of the program: “Layout of formulae on screen line after line and narrative talks about one that isn’t clearly obvious. ”

18. Open ended comment “…[the program] was very clear, and explained what the experiments were attempting to clarify. There is no other way that I could have seen an interference pattern building up and have the chance to examine how altering variables will affect the outcome… Thanks very much. An almost reformed computer-phobe.”

19. Summative Evaluation 2 questionnaires sent to 2 different groups of 100 students –general questions and program specific questions about 6 of the packages interviews in the courses residential school end of year survey

20. Selected Findings - Summative 71 percent had previous experience of CAL and/or CD-ROMs (mostly in other OU courses) navigation found easy by 92 percent of students audio in the programs was found to be OK by almost 100 percent and controlling audio was found easy by 92 percent of students

21. Was time doing the package well spent?

22. Feedback useful?

23. Effective to learn?

24. Helped understanding?

25. Clear what to do?

26. Percentage of students carrying out their own investigations N=62

27. Open ended comments 38 students made general comments 17 positive comments, 8 negative comments about CD-ROMs, and lots of comments on other components negative comments mostly time related, significant figures, too much computing, wants different style of CD-ROMs, could not find some extra programs

28. Open ended comments “I have really enjoyed the CD ROMs as a way to consolidate what I have learned from the text and to iron out any problems of grasping the concepts of the material. They will be enjoyable and essential when revision time arrives.” “It has been very useful to visualise scientific phenomenon such as waves, fields, forces etc. which one obviously cannot see in real life.”

29. Conclusions programs were well used and perceived as helpful learning tools visual aspects and experiment/simulation facilities valuable the programs provide experiences that could not be achieved through other medium students think the time is well spent style of audio seemed to work well well integrated with the course