An Innovative e-Book on the Measurement Field

• Tipo: Artigo em Livro de Atas de Conferência Internacional
• Data: 2009

Autores

Maria Teresa Restivo (Autor) FEUP; Fernando Gomes Almeida (Autor) FEUP; Maria de Fátima Chouzal (Autor) FEUP; Joaquim Mendes (Autor) FEUP; António Mendes Lopes (Autor) FEUP

Ata de Conferência Internacional

Título: IT: Key of the European Space for Knowledge

International Conference EUNIS 2009

International Conference EUNIS 2009, 23-26 June

Classificação Científica

FOS: Ciências da engenharia e tecnologias > Outras ciências da engenharia e tecnologias

Outras Informações

Abstract (EN): Innovation - This work reports on a novel use of Information and Communication Technologies for composing an electronic book on the measurement field. The bi-lingual e-book “Laboratórios de Instrumentação para Medição/Laboratories of Instrumentation for Measurement” (URL - http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~trestivo/EUNIS/LabIM.pdf) deals with concepts, methods, procedures and hands-on activity and it combines sketches, figures, animations, videos and remote and virtual labs on the measurement area, integrating many types of multimedia within the written material. The complete electronic format used is inspired in the Confucian wisdom, “what I hear, I forget; what I see, I may remember; what I experience, I know for life”, Confúcio (451 A.C.). Pedagogy The educcacional objectives of the present work, in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy principles, are: • to convey metrology concepts and terminology; • to offer a basic background in laboratory and industrial measurement principles’, metrology and procedures; • to practice the evaluation of error analysis and measurements; • to promote ‘hands-on’ laboratory activity; • to develop the students’ capacity in analyzing, interpreting, criticizing and reporting results; • to encourage student initiative and imagination; • to make students familiar with new technologies for remote access; • to reinforce students teamwork skills, personal responsibility, self-organizing and conflict-solving capabilities; • to improve students autonomy according with Bologna recommendations; • to provide student self-assessment of his/her mastering of subjects by proposing open-ended questions based on the given materials. • to intensify active/collaborative/cooperative learning activities; • to attempt to teach how to learn. Technology - This e-book is in a PDF format, maybe the most popular format. In fact all platforms are able to gain access and read PDF formatting. It requires the Acrobat Reader but this software is usually available in the computers and, if not, it’s freely downloaded. PDF is also really good at preserving the appearance of a document and for printing out the pages of the e-book. The reader may add his own notes. The e-book has also flash applications that allow the “interaction with the contents”; these ones are imbibed in html page and so a browser is required. The remote experiments accessed through the e-book are integrated in a Moodle platform and they are using a web server based on LabVIEW, a video server and a booking system developed as an extension of the Moodle platform. Usefulness and benefits - The present e-book has been tested with undergraduate mechanical engineering students as well as with postgraduate students from other different fields of sciences and engineering. A dedicated questionnaire has been made. Students have referred the work as a valuable conceptual learning material, as a very good support for training hands-on activities, thinking critically, analyzing, evaluating, predicting and solving problems in an innovative and autonomous way. They considered this e-book as a good support to relate information to their own experiences and previous knowledge, to promote understanding and even to help long-term retention. The access to online experiments has also been considered of interest by the possibilities offered, especially due to the flexible 24-hour a day, seven days a week, and by providing contact with the new technology. From the pedagogical point of view this work won the E-learning in Practice 1st place in “Supporting Materials for On-line Learning” category of the 5th Competition within the International Conference ICETA 2008, Slovakia. It had also the 1st place Multimedia Contents category in Prémio ZON Multimedia, Criatividade em Multimédia, December 2008, Portugal.

Idioma: Português

Tipo (Avaliação Docente): Científica