Interactive Learning Through Visualization

This book contains a selection of papers presented at the Computer Graphics and Education ’91 Conference, held from 4th to 6th April 1991, in Begur, Spain. The conference was organised under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 5.10 on Computer Graphics.

Someone who thinks, speaks, and writes about the same subject for over twenty years might be seen as lacking imagination. However, I prefer to view this behavior on my part as simple Dutch persistence and dedication to a particular vision, the realization of which, I have been saying all this time, is imminent. And today, I am pleased to observe, electronic books are even more imminent, indeed, inevitable, owing to some exciting breakthroughs in both computer power and the way computers are used. The things we’d really like to be able to do are unfortunately not yet commercial reality. Therefore one of the things I want to focus on is the R & D agenda. Specifically, I want to define three remaining problems that must be solved before some of the techniques I envision can find their way into everyday computing, particularly into computing in education, which has been my special interest for well over twenty years.

If approached correctly, multimedia technology can provide enormous benefits to education, especially higher education. Before elaborating on that statement, we should have a working definition of the term “multimedia.” Literally, of course, it means communication using more than one medium. For our purposes, the term implies a computer-based device which, in addition to a textual display, typically has a graphics capability, voice and music output and a live video display. An application programmed for such a system can orchestrate the invocation of each of these media at the appropriate time. Very effective presentations can be produced which include animated sequences, sound and text. Programs written for the Macintosh under HyperCard exemplify such applications.

Underlying the current enthusiasm for teaching by means of multimedia and hypertext — subjects that we can term collectively, hypermedia (Figure 1) — there seem to be some implicit assumptions which need to be examined. Typical of these are

In Europe, twenty-two per cent of the population is in some form of full time education, and more than ten million people undergo some form of training or retraining every year. This amounts to eighty-five million people in education, training, or retraining each year, or one third of the European Community population [9].

The basic method of teaching has remained essentially unchanged since the nineteenth century. It consists of an instructor delivering a lecture to a group of semi-attentive students who return to their rooms to try to understand the lecture. In some fields the teachers have introduced elements of modern technology into the classroom, such as television, films, and computer demonstrations.

Phenomena in large-scale systems have recently become more complex for operators, because systems have become larger and more complex. There is a strong need to develop a powerful tool which is useful for operators to deeply understand phenomena in large-scale systems.

In recent years, computer graphics and scientific visualization have come to be seen as useful adjuncts to the conventional educational program in science, mathematics and other areas. However, this emerging family of technologies and techniques could be a catalyst for fundamental change in the educational process at the deepest levels, in time affecting what is taught as much as how it is taught.

A university environment is a mosaic of disciplines, graduate and undergraduate studies, and research activities. Through the nurturing of all these diverse elements, and the informational sharing and cross disciplinary activities made possible by modern technology, the individual pebbles in the mosaic form a vibrant and exciting, all-encompassing educational environment. Yet, they do so without losing their own individuality.

Computers are increasingly present in mathematical research and education. In research, they have opened up new territories previously inaccessible and spawned new fields; in education, they are being hailed as a revolutionary teaching aid. These two trends have, for the most part, developed separately. There is, however, a common thread which can bring them together: each depends for its success on discovering ways in which computers can support mathematical intuition. We sketch the role of intuition in the process of doing mathematics by contrasting it to logic, its polar principle. Looking more closely, it is possible to distinguish four freedoms which, when respected, allow a software tool to support mathematical intuition, whether its use be research or education. These are the freedoms.

People can think and work visually, and computer graphics hardware and software are making important contributions to the visualization process. Visual thinking is a part of our basic perceptual and mental processes. Visual ways of knowing and working are important in our educational environment. They are partners to the traditional verbal and mathematical ways of knowing that we teach and encourage. The software that is being developed today and in the future must be very creative, interactive, and work with integrating multiple ways of knowing. It must be visual and use sound, sequence, and animation to communicate ideas. We must be able to manipulate and play with the form and content of our explorations and learning.

Teaching science, especially physics, is loaded with mathematical formalism and abstractions and visualization and qualitative models are lacking. The defenders of this traditional teaching approach declare that the formal description of nature is the only truly scientific language which is free of contradictions and which should, therefore, be taught from the beginning. In their view, pictures or qualitative models always have drawbacks, are of limited value, and risk leading students to false concepts and misunderstandings.

Prospero is a system designed to present the evaluation of functions written in a lazy functional language. Any system which displays the evaluation of a program written in any programming language must have

Despite considerable efforts and budgets, the personal computer is not a common tool for professors in their work environment, the classroom, as it is for many other professions. Word processors for secretaries, spreadsheets for many trades, databases for record keeping, accounting packages in many organizations, CAD for designers and architects, and many other PC users do not need any justification, but PCs in the classroom still do.

Telecommunications connects people in different geographic locations and enables them to interact with one another as if they occupied the same space. Using telecommunications we create a virtual reality involving people from around the globe simultaneously. This has significant applications in the arts, education, science, and industry since it provides a real-time, interactive link between people and projects in distant geographic locations. Telecommunications is unique in relation to other forms of communications as it involves visual images, diagrams, text, voice, music, sound effects, and animation, as well as interactive capabilities. Integrating a computer graphics system into telecommunications creates a multi-media network that encircles the earth, weaving together a diverse set of participants. These new avenues of communication have dramatically altered the ways in which we perceive the world and process information. They rely upon some sophisticated technologies that provide a wealth of options for us — individually and collaboratively — to gather and manipulate information, and results in the creativity spawned from synergy.

During the Renaissance, many scientists and artists collaborated and published works together. Books were created as joint efforts among the biological and anatomical researchers. The scientists worked in tandem with the artists who carefully recorded in great visual detail countless taxonomic studies (Ronan [34]). Renaissance philosophy encouraged the visual study of nature, and many people believed that this visual study could reveal the hidden laws of nature. Biological and anatomical illustrations were invented as a valuable tool that is still used today by physicians and scientists. Artists and scientists were given equal credit in the books that they generated.

Education must benefit from the vast promises of the introduction of computers in schools. The interrelations between the scientific, engineering, and commercial aspects of informatics and the needs of education must be understood, and appropriate measures should be taken to make better use of the intellectual and material resources already available today.

Computer-aided industrial design (CAID) is a new and emerging application of computer graphics. Designers of such diverse items as cars, jewelry, furniture, luggage, and toys use computer graphics to design, visualize, and market their products. But are design schools preparing their graduating students for today’s design job market? Schools and industry can work together to incorporate computer graphics into design-school curricula. This paper will discuss the benefits of collaboration between design educators and the computer graphics industry and will describe the successful university program at Alias Research as a model of this type of collaboration.

Computer graphics is receiving much attention in the development of interactive educational software, multimedia systems, and many other applications. It not only adds a new dimension to such applications but also makes them more exciting and dynamic. Furthermore, the use of computer graphics is already well accepted in computer science education. If skillfully and relevantly used, it can be an important component of computer-assisted instruction, which is an educational application area with tremendous potential.

The Computer Graphics and Education ’91 conference was intended to be more than simply a collection of presentations on educational applications of computer graphics. Significant parts of the conference time were devoted to a set of of working groups, which were set up to go beyond the presentations and address some of the questions that the presentations raised. Each group was charged with examining some facet of computer graphics in education and with making appropriate recommendations dealing with that facet. The groups were formed based on a list of possible aspects, and each conference participant joined the working group that best represented his or her own interest in the field. The reports are shown in this section, and a list of participants follows at the end.