A Multimedia CAI Software Available on the World Wide Web

Abstract

A multimedia CAI software is a useful material for chemical education. The information content of it is enormous. The software must be provided with a CD-ROM for each student or must be set up on each computer, in case many students use it individually.
Our multimedia CAI software available on the World Wide Web (WWW) will be managed on only one computer that is networked to the Internet. Students will access to this software from each computer every time that one can show information on the WWW.
A diagram of the system is shown in Figure 1. The server consists of WWW-server program, database gateway, user database, HTML contents, streaming-type CAI software and other object files. This database gateway gives an easy way to control the database from HTML. A personal computer (PC) configuration of our use in a test and the classroom are shown in Table 1.
When students access the server from each client-PC via WWW browser, the Log-in screen appears (Figure 2). They will select content from the Menu screen (Figure 3) after user-identification is successful. With our CAI software, they will be able to learn about acids and bases and how to do an acid-base titration (Figures 4 -8). The software contains several graphics and digital video source. The information content of the software is about 3 Mbytes.
When server and clients-PC are connected to the same HUB, no difference in starting time is detected by 3 access types (Table 2). In a rush test of the system in the same situation as the class lecture, the starting time of the software increased with the number of clients (Table 3). The starting time of the software accessing to the server by under 10 clients is shorter than one at the same time using many clients.