Phillip Heeler

A master's degree in school computer studies

Several papers have been written about the shortage of knowledgeable computer science teachers at the secondary and junior college level. Additional reports have been written describing workshops, courses, and various other methods to help reduce this shortage. See for example papers by Moursund, Dennis, Piorot and others in various publications by ACM and the proceedings of recent National Educational Computing Conferences.(l,2) Very few papers have reported on the existence of degree programs for teachers who are interested in developing the necessary background to teach computer science. Even fewer masters degree programs exist to help train teachers in computer science education. Moursund has described the masters degree at Oregon(3), Lykos has established a degree at Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois has a degree for teachers.(2) This paper describes a unique masters degree program at Northwest Missouri State University. Details are given on the development and present status of the program. Also, several suggestions are indicated for possible future directions for such a program.

A videodisc training system for academic computing services

One of the difficult problems presented to academic computing services is the training of a growing number of novice users. Some large installations have acquired or developed video tape instructional systems while others have spent sigtiicant amounts of staff time on training these users. Northwest Missouri State University(NWMSU) is developing a videodisc system to introduce students to its timesharing services and library automation services. The videodisc system is controlled by an IBM PC compatible Zenith 152 and will be accessible on demand by the user in the Library. The menu driven design has two advantages: 1) the user can select training for only the sections or individual services requested, and 2) the system design makes it very easy to operate. One of the drawbacks presented by interactive videodisc instructional systems is that after the release videodisc has been recorded, the voice and graphics may need to be updated. At NWMSU this post release videodisc editing, or updating process, is accomplished using a Zenith PC which can overlay graphics and also add and overlay voice instruction using a DECtalk voice synthesizer. The graphics and the voice text are recorded on magnetic diskettes which can be up&ted to keep the courseware current. The synthesizer can also be used to echo or create responses not recorded on the videodisc or the magnetic diskettes. The entire hardware system including the synthesizer is relatively inexpensive when compared to personalized training costs. The major costs are related to video production as with any video system. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. Copyright 1986 ACM 0-89791-208-X/86/0900/0177

User services for the novice on the Northwest Missouri State University Electronic Campus

0.75 Setting The Direction ACM-SIGUCCS XIV, 1986 177 Jon Rickman, Phillip Heeler, Tracy Corl, Bruce Gehrlein, Scott Land LNTRODUCl7ON A laser instructional videodisc system has many possiblities for showing students how to use computing services. With full motion video and cIose ups or’partial screen close ups, students can be shown many spatial relationships in operating hardware and software systems. Most computing software systems are well defined and associated training needs can also be well defined for the novice user. The cost of developing a video tape or videodisc course can be as high as several thousand dollars a minute if produced by commercial firms. Costs can even be higher in a videodisc course about computing where one is working with a dynamic subject area and small changes or updates require a script change or graphics change in the courseware. Any change in a videodisc course requires that an expensive new disc must be pressed and this may take a week or more if off-premise services are required. Northwest Missouri State University has an enrollment of approximately 5000 students. The Interactive Videodisc Project consisted of three senior computer science students, a computer science professor and the Director of Computer Services. One goal of this research project was to demonstrate to the 5000 students how to use modern intricate computing software within the complex networking environment described in figure 1. The course developers aIso wanted to experiment with various methods of presentation. However, this required the ability to change the courseware components such as the graphics, voice, scenes, or screen text. From the authors’ experiences, it is believed that every course will need several updates each year when using a videodisc system for training in computer services. It is also apparent to the authors that without incorporating some flexibility into the course production process, one can easily give up before a useful course is ever completed. Even with extremely. capable video production crews, more and more of the video production process is moving into the video post production editing room. The authors believe there is a need to expand this powerful process so as to realize a continuum of flexible editing processes. The normal editing process for video production is in three stages: 1. Preproduction editing is where scripts and storyboard plans are reviewed and edited before the camera production process is started. 2. Online production editing is where multiple live cameras and audio inputs are selected in a control room environment at the time of production. 3. Post production editing is where multiple camera and audio recordings from the production process are selected for output to an answer release tape or print. After review and possible iteration of this step, a master release is produced. In videodisc production the answer release is called a check disc. It costs about

Computer usage patterns on a computing intensive campus

200 to

A preliminary report on the use of video technology in online courses

400 to record a check disc from a master release tape. With the system used at NWMSU, another stage of editing is realized. 4. Post release disc editing is where a personal computer selects segments from the release disc and optional non-release disc video and audio tracks to produce the desired presentation at the time of user interaction. This paper describes the system which permits post release disc editing of the courses in academic computing services at NWMSU. New graphics and voice overlays are controlled by the 178 ACM-SIGUCCS XIV, 1986 Setting The Direction A Videodisc Training System for Academic Computing Services Zenith personal computer. HARDWARE AND SOmU SOLUTIONS A videodisc course is composed of full motion video, voice and music presentations and graphics displays. As with a good textbook, graphics can greatly improve the effectiveness of complex courseware. Graphics and lists of procedures inherently contain a high density of information. Unfortunately, entire fact-filled screens of graphics and procedures listings are likely to become outdated whenever any smalI change is needed. Full motion video is very difficult to update and full motion video of someone speaking requires that both video and audio must be overlaid. But many changes can be easily made when text, voice or graphics need updating. The hardware solution which permits post release disc editing of the courseware graphics and voice is shown in figure 2. The AMOCO Foundation awarded Northwest Missouri State University a grant to develop a computer aided instruction system to instruct students on how to use the computing services and library automation services available on campus. This grant was used to purchase the equipment described bel0w.W The system shown in figure 2 was purchased for about

Enhancing the computer networking curriculum

5000 and includes the following parts: Zenith Personal Computer Zenith Color Video Monitor Pioneer LD-WOO0 VideoDisc Player DECtak Voice Synthesizer MicroKey Model 1100 Controller The videodisc player made by Pioneer uses standard play videodiscs. The DECtalk unit was selected since the authors had had several years of experience with the unit. They felt that most script could be understood without phoneme modification which is required by other units on campus. The DECtalk unit also has a multitude of male and female voices which increases its flexibility in editing. The MicroKey controller was chosen because of its ability to interface computer graphics output and videodisc output to the same color monitor. This is important since post release disc editing overlays needed to be displayed on the same screen. The MicroKey controller, in fact, permits composite display of computer and videodisc outputs. The authoring software which came with the controller was found to be inappropriate for the planned development efforts. However, it might be acceptable for other straight-forward applications. Most of the replacement software for the authoring system was done in the BASIC computer language. Using this language the instructional sequences as well as the video scenes, graphics displays, and voice synthesizer output were controlled by a single program. The BASIC system also permitted the authors to present scenes, pause for student interaction, present information from the computer, return back to the video, if necessary, and allow other computer controlled actions to take place. Setting The Direction ACM-SIGUCCS XIV, 1986 179 Jon Rickman, Phillip Heeler, Tracy Carl, Bruce Gehrlein, Scott Land The videodisc system is being used to show students how to invoke the following VMS operations: . 1. LOGON 2. HELP 3. DIRECTORY 4. EDIT file 5. PRINT file 6. TYPE file 7. DELETE file 8. WPS-PLUS word processing 9. 20120 spreadsheet 10. LOGOFF The videodisc system is also being used to show users how to use the timesharing public information systems listed below: 11. Keyboard Information System a. Calendar of events b. Spring class openings c. Summer class openings d. Fall class openings e. Financial records system f. Student telephone directory g. Faculty and staff directory h. Scholarships available i. Student jobs directory 12. Touch-screen color graphics directory of library and computing services 13. Touch-tone telephone information system For the OCLC LW2000 library automation system, the following video instructional modules are available: 14. LOGON 15. AUTHOR search 16. TITLE search 17. SUBJECT search 18. KEYWORD search 19. LOGOFF Most of the interactive systems have on-line help and the users are shown how to invoke those help routines. However, many of the details concerning the software operations are not covered by the video disc but are covered by the on-line help modules in the software. 180 ACM-SIGUCCS XIV, 1986 Setting The Direction A Videodisc Training System for Academic Computing Services VWEODISK SOFTW’ The logical design of the courseware delivery system for the personal computer instructional videodisc sys

Practical experiences for undergraduate computer networking students

Northwest Missouri State University is the first public institution in the U.S. to implement a comprehensive Electronic Campus. As part of this project, a terminal has been installed in all of the 1500 student dormitory rooms and in all of the 250 faculty offices. The Electronic Campus provides each faculty member and 5000 students access to computing facilities such as word processing, spreadsheets, electronic mail, many programming languages, plus the on-line university library catalog and the Grolier Academic American Encyclopedia. The implementation of the Electronic Campus includes 2000 workstations and 10 VAX nodes plus nearly 100 workstations in open student laboratories and dial-in modems for students living off campus.

Introduction to BlueJ: a Java development environment

Northwest Missouri State University is the fast public institution in the United States to implement a comprehensive Electronic Campus. Since June 1,1987, a terminal has been installed in each student residence hall room, in each faculty oflice, and in several public laboratories. The Electronic Campus provides each faculty member and 5000 students access to central computing facilities. Hardware resources include two Digital Equipment Corporation VAX 8600 series computers and three VAX 700 series computers, which are accessed through a Dual Instanet 6600 Data PBX.(See Table 1.)