Multimedia Education and Distance Learning

This component will provide participants with hands-on introductions to the key elements of developing and adapting multimedia education material for in-class and distance learning presentation and use. Tools acquired in this segment will be used throughout all other segments to integrate materials for personal use and for student and peer teacher education.


Co-Principal Investigator, Dr. Lon Mathias, and Senior Associate, S.Dixon McDowell, will play leadership roles in providing education and training in multimedia design and materials development. Professor Mathias has been involved for years in developing browser-based resource material in polymer science that is used throughout the world to supplement secondary and college courses. These efforts most recently involve several funded projects involving a three-year multi-center project to develop a complete multimedia course with laboratory for use at the undergraduate level. A second effort involves a summer institute for approximately 60 K-12 teachers in multimedia methods and polymer content development funded by the Dreyfus Foundation. A third project funded by NSF involves a three-summer site providing Research Experiences for Undergraduates that has the unique component of bringing in four-year college faculty each year with the students to learn the same content material and then adapt this material to their own curriculum needs. A key component of the faculty efforts will involve digital video to illustrate concepts, present demonstrations, illustrate experimental laboratory techniques, and incorporate virtual field trip material into multimedia lecture and resource material. A fourth grant was recently funded (in collaboration with Dr. McDowell) for acquisition of the digital video cameras and workstations to be used in various activities in all of the above projects. Dr. McDowell's role is crucial to, first, provide training needed in the techniques involved in scripting, shooting, editing and integrating video into multimedia material, and second, help develop the multimedia training modules that will help the teachers teach their peers these same concepts and methods.


"it is reacted at high pressure", "it is reacted under vaccuum"); quiz[6] = new makeQuestion("What is the structure-based IUPAC name for nylon 6,10?", 2, "polycaprolactam", "poly(hexamethylene diamine - adipic acid)", "poly(iminohexamethylene-iminosebacoyl)", "poly(hexamethylene carboximide)"); quiz[7] = new makeQuestion("Which monomer is disolved in the hexane layer of the interfacial polymerization of nylon 6,10?", 3, "caprolactam", "polyoxyethylene", "hexamethylene diamine", "sebacoyl chloride"); quiz[8] = new makeQuestion("Why is the 'nylon rope trick' not used industrially?", 3, "material produced shows no significant strength", "in large quantities, acid chlorides are expensive, dangerous, and stink", "industry doesn't like trickery (except in CEO's)", "Both A and B"); quiz[9] = new makeQuestion("Why is it necessary to keep sodium hydride dry?", 2, "it does not work if it is wet", "it will initiate the polymerization of H - O - H", "it can generate flammable quantities of hydrogen gas", "it will turn into gremlins (don't feed it after midnight either)"); // --> Polymerization of Nylon6 and Nylon 6,10: Pre-lab Quiz

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