A Web-based instructional module for teaching middle school students engineering design with simple machines

Journal of Engineering Education, Oct 1998 by McKenna, Ann, Agogino, Alice

There were two main considerations that guided the design decisions for the module:

to develop an accessible and interactive instructional module

to provide a gender equitable and enjoyable learning experience. The design of the user interface was directly tied to each of these guidelines and much time and effort was expended to meet these two criteria.

The instructional module was designed to be web-based so that it would be widely accessible to anyone who has access to the Internet. The web document was written in HTML9 and Java,S so that both PC and Macintosh users can access the module. Many attempts were made to be sensitive to limited hardware capabilities. Since some users may not be directly connected to a computer network, and would be relying on modems, download times were kept to a minimum. Color tables were minimized and graphics were used sparingly. One of the features of the module included the use of video clips that require significant download time across a modem. Therefore the clips were supplemented with text versions that could be quickly accessed.

Navigation issues were also considered as part of accessibility.9 A content page was designed that allows the user to get to any page in the document from this page. Each subsequent page is then linked to the content page in case the user gets lost. There are two other main pages that the user may frequent while working through the module, the share findings page and the suggestion box, and these are also linked on every page for easy access.

A template was designed and included as a header for each of the pages. This enables the user to immediately recognize pages that are associated with this web document. Also the structure of the pages were consistent throughout. Each page has the same background, the same template, a title at the top, a description box with icon at the top, and consistent placement of navigation links. All of these features combine to create a user interface that is friendly, easy to use, and does not get in the way of the learning that should be taking place.

The module was also designed to be interactive and to make use of multimedia capabilities through the use of web-based Java applets. The applets allow the user to run animated simulations based on the student's selection of parameters; results can then be entered into a plotting program and displayed.

The module was also designed to be a gender equitable learning experience. An obvious feature that contributes to gender equity is the depiction of females as engineers/designers in the video clips.loll A more subtle feature of this module is the "look and feel" of the interface. The interface was designed in an effort to be more friendly to female students. It is important to note that gender equitable does not translate into feminine. Instead, it means designing an environment inclusive of issues regarding both male and female students.

Since machines can implicitly be regarded as "male oriented," effort was made to make the topic more attractive to the female students. One of the first decisions was how to represent the actual devices. Actual machine-shop photographs of pulleys, gears, etc. tended to look rusty, metallic, and oily and might alienate some female students. Thus, hand drawings of each of the machines were included in the document; these provided accurate representations of the devices and were thought to have broader appeal to all students.