Figure 1. The operation of the Internet
VARGAS, Carlos Luciano S., KRUGER, Jose A., ZULIAN & Carlan S.
Av. Carlos Cavalcanti, 4748, CEP 84030-000, Ponta Grossa, Parana, Brazil + State University of Ponta Grossa, lucianovargas@convoy.com.br, www.uepg.br
Abstract: This paper intends to verify and to choose the contents that will be object of the hipertexts development, about the sources of information: contents presented in classroom, bibliography indicated and revised, practical experience and resources of existent hipermidia in the internet. The produced hipertexts will be placed available to the students through world net. In this phase, the students can to intervene in the process collaborating with questions driven the proposer about the contents of the hipertextss, or they proposing improvement of the texts with the indication of complemental bibliography, presentation of experiences in sites or results about researches in scientific initiation. Eventually, some specific services in site can be transmitted live (on line) for the classroom.
Keywords: hypertexts, multimedia, construction, teaching
The Internet is a wide net of computers that provides the purest democracy in the diffusion of electronic information. The base of the communication of those information in the electronic format is protocols that are responsible for the growing integration of a number every time larger of different computers in the world net.
They exist many doubts regarding the Internet. The most frequent are the people's curiosity in to know who controls its operation, if it is safe, how is useful for the education, if the net is not cause of the segregation or that motivates isolation. Those subjects are raising extensive debates in government institutions, in press, in masters degree programs, in no-government organizations and by interested public.
Although it tries to show some of the operation principles of the great world net, this paper restricts about the use of the Internet as support instrument to the teaching process and learning, trying to enumerate and to present some existent tools in the most useful Internet to the a specific model of distance teaching.
Basically, the proposed model intends to work the contents of the disciplines of Civil Construction of graduation courses using the hipermidia resources to increase the process of teaching and to provide a renewal of the motivation for the learning of those contents.
The Internet is an organization free from control or maintainer. Owners of the Internet don't exist. Government entities, universities and private organizations sustain and control parts of the net in a cooperative work. In the Figure 1 it is shown the operation of the Internet and the connection among its partners.
In general, the governments of each country maintain the backbones (physical means of high-speed transmission), that are responsible for the traffic of information in the Internet. The vBNS (very high-speed Backbone Network Services) is an infrastructure maintained by the american federal government to sustain the scientific and educational community's needs of that country. The local and regional nets supply and maintain free access inside of a restricted area, like universities and state nets, for example. The commercial suppliers render service with the access sale to the Internet, be short as long distance. The phone companies also supply connection of long distance to the Internet. The Centers of Information in Net (NICs) help the organizations to use the Internet. InterNIC is an organization maintained by National Science Fundation. The Internet Registry controls the addresses used in the Internet and the Internet Society constitutes an entity deprived without lucrative objectives that elaborates the technological recommendations and architecture of them, the operation of the protocols TCP/IP and other protocols, for example.
Figure 1. The operation of the Internet
In Brazil, the Ministry of the Science and Technology (MCT) responsible for the coordination of the Research National Net (RNP), name that the Internet received at the country. The Researches National Council (CNPq) makes the payment to federal phone company (EMBRATEL) of the cost of the existent dedicated connections among the brazilian principals cities. The governments state grapple with the costing of the connections inside geographical area. Another side, the user just pays the phone call among his house (computer) and the next point of RNP (supplier), generally in the same city. That equivale to say that the connection with the world net costs, for the user, the same as a local phone call. This owes one of the reasons of its world success and main reason for the growing incentive for the use of the available tools in the teaching.
In the first part of the project it intends to verify and to choose the contents that will be object of the hipertexts development about the sources of information as: the contents presented in class room and the bibliography indicated by the teachers, the bibliography revised by the proposer, the professional's practical experience and the resources (tools) of existent hipermidia in the Internet.
The hipertexts produced with an computer editor will be placed available to the students in a specific homepage Internet (World Wide Web). For thus, the server will be used of one of the participant universities. The hipertexts will be placed in the server with Internet tool of transfer of files - FTP (File Transfer Protocol). In this phase, the students can intervene in the process using the Internet's tools - electronic mail (e-mail) or room's chat (Internet Relay Chat) in order to collaborate with questions driven the teachers about the contents of the hipertexts, or proposing their improvement with the indication of complemental bibliography, presentation of experiences in works and/or of results of researches of scientific initiation. Experimentaly, if the transmission structure allows, some specific services can be transmitted live (on line) of a sites in process directly for the classroom connected in the net. For that, it will be necessary to count with a high-speed backbone. For example, it intends to use video cameras to capture images of a concrete execution and to transmit those images for the class room, in way to allow the students to accompany the execution of the works and formulate questions directly to the engineer or the foreman. In the Figure 2, an outline of the stages proposals is presented for the development of the teaching model with hipermidia in the Internet.
Figure 2. General Outline of the proposed model
In the Figure 3, a sketch of the structure organizacional is shown, the tools of the Internet and the flow of the information.
Figure 3. Tools and flow of information
An objective of this search is to check that the developed didactic resources (hipertexts and hipermidias) that have potential to motivate the students for the learning by means of the studies complementation in classroom and schedule out.
In the sequence, the students will be appraised with the usual instruments of verification of perfomance, such as: tests and academic works, bimonthly and final tests and by the evaluation of the Ministry of the Education. The results reached by the students will be appraised and, depending on the case, they will indicate the revisions in the hipertexts.
In the final phase of the project the analysis of the results will be developed to verify the potential of the hipermidia resources for the teaching-learning process for the case of the contents of the disciplines of Civil Construction.
The proposed model intends to use the main technologies that base the Internet - the protocols TCP/IP, UDP/IP, Telnet, Usenet, electronic mail (e-mail), world wide web (www), IRC chat, transfer of files (FTP) etc. Those and other tools of the Internet facilitate the creation of virtual classrooms and sources of information (libraries) unprecedented in the educational area and that facilitate the knowledge shared between students and teachers without the difficulties faced by the distance and other differences (language and culture, for example).
The protocol TCP/IP is the main component of the Internet because it facilitates operations starting from a very simple idea: to divide in the origin each part of the information (message) in pieces called packages, to give those packages in the destiny and to repair them in its original form. The protocol TCP divides the message in packages and it delivers them so that the protocol IP places the address in each one of the packages. Those packages are sent by means of other protocols, programs and physical means (phone line, for example) and they are repaired by own TCP, in destinatary. In the Figure 4, the operation of the protocol TCP/IP is shown.
Figure 4. The operation of the TCP/IP in the Internet
One of the most important resources of the Internet is the possibility to transfer existent files in another computers for the user's machine. An infinity of files of texts, images, films, music are daily loaded in the Internet. In general, the protocol is used FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to operate those transfers, because it is the fastest way and more insurance to make it. FTP allows the shipment in two-way, that is to say, so much it can be brought files of another computers as well as to send files for a specific directory of another computer. In the Internet, it can be carried and to send files using other resources, for example: e-mail, Telnet, and www. FTP is indicated for them users that want to create and to maintain a page in the Internet (homepage). The Figure 5 shows the outline of the operation of FTP.
Figure 5. The transfer of files in Intenet with FTP
The electronic mail is the most popular resource of the Internet and it allows the user connected to the net sends and receives messages, participates in lists of discussion of subjects of interest, attaches files in his messages and forwards his messages to another people. In the Figura 6, the outline for the use of the electronic mail in the model of proposed teaching is shown.
Figure 6. The operation of the electronic mail (e-mail)
The IRC allows the conversation through keyboard among users connected to the net. For thus, some softwares are necessary so of the user (client) as of the server that will provide the means for the operation of the conversation on line. In the model of proposed teaching, whose outline is shown in the Figure 7, the IRC will be used for discussions in real time of subjects related with events happened in site, for example: the low productivity or accidents of the work.
Figure 7. The outline of the IRC chat
Besides the possibility of obtaining images and films of the countless sites of the Internet is possible to proceeds the transfer in real time of images, not being necessary to hope the file is totally transmitted for then to be open. An example of video streaming is VDOlive, whose outline appears in the Figure 8 adapted to the model of intended teaching. The difference in relation to the other types of transfer of files in the Internet is in the used protocol. The streaming uses UDP (User Datagram Protocol) that unlike TCP, it doesn't proceed the constant verification to confirm the data they were correspondents, what results in a less interrupted transfer of files and more fast.
Figure 8. Video on line in the Internet
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