HSIEH, Sheng-Jii 1 & YU, Fan-Ming 2
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, TAIWAN, R.O.C.
1 sjhsieh@mail.ncku.edu.tw
2 fmyu@mail.iaa.ncku.edu.tw
Abstract: The objective of this study is to suggest an effective teaching method, utilizing the resources on the web internet on engineering course study. By reviewing current existing homepages worldwide, some valuabe websites that provide sound informations for better educational training and the collaboration of research work are presented. Finally, some selected websites in corporating with course teaching in Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics are presented as examples. It is believed that, incorporating learning with the planty informations provided on the web internet, the quality engineering education can be achieved and the progress of the high technology, industrial world is to be expected.
Keywords: Engineering Education; Web Internet; Multimedia Teaching.
The coming 21st Century is the age of information sciences and technology. Due to the great development of the computer technology, and the fast advancement in space communication techniques, the new information and the advanced knowledge are spreading worldwidely and penetrating into every part of the world. Knowledge is power. One who is able to achieve and master the information would definitely make him success, and so are the society and the Country. Therefore, most developing or developed countries nowadays are making great efforts to construct their information infrasture in order to provide a fast and efficient information highway to help their people on sharing and utilizing the information all over the world. Thus, the internet cyber world is developed and is growing fastly.
Because of providing a fast, efficient and easy way to access and search for the information, the global web internet systems become a huge treasure mountain that provides variety of informations in the forms of database, pictures, movies, multimedia or the interactive displays. Many academic and research institutions or leading universities in the world edit their own homepages to demonstrate the educational goals, academic activities, excellent training programs, and the innovative and important research results. Therefore, through these webpages and the resources linking with other websites, people can easily obtain new information, fresh knowledge, and learn how to solve their problems and do their creative works.
Engineering education is to train students to work in the high technology industrial world. Therefore, the engineering graduates must possess enough knowledges and skills to meet the challenging society needs. Due to the rapid progress of the advanced technology, both teachers and students have to keep in pace with the fast changing world. Since the global web network provides most of the new information and practical experiences that would certainly help the teaching, learning, and research work on engineering education. Therefore, the method on retriving information and the utilization of helpful knowledge provided on the global web networks, should be suggested to students in time, and some helpful teaching materials, fresh research findings, practical engineering problems and new results should be implemented in the educational study.
In the course of this study, the authors would focus on the subjects of Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics, which are the most fundamental basic sciences in engineering education. Many useful homepages relating to these subjects would be proposed in general. Meanwhile, based on each specific flow problem or topics, a collection of some existing useful databanks, innovative informations, interesting teaching softwares, various courseware materials, and new research projects and results would also be presented for further reference. It is hoped that the results of this study would demonstrate and show the power of the global web information networks, and would promote the teaching results and strengthen the international partnerships as well as alliances in the research and the development of modern engineering education.
The recent advancement in semi-conductor makes great achievement in computer technology. It is known that, nearly in every eighteen months, both the memory or density of the chips and the speed of data transfer are doubled. Therefore, the personal computer nowadays are capable of doing huge computation in a short time interval, and providing a great memory space for storing huge amount of data. Due to these powerful features on storing and processing data, the function of computer software system and its application utilities are progressing fastly.
In the internet cyber world, people are able to communicate and exchange informations almost in real time scale. Huge amount of data transfer across computer systems only by seconds, and the data can be any kind of hypertext documents or the multimedia. The WWW is a global hypertext document designed to allow people to work together. It is an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. In addition, the hypertexts from many resources worldwide may use hyperlink and become an information network in the WWW. Therefore, utilizing the information at ones finger tip, one is able to retrieve the information or to be educated. Accordingly, the WWW virture library and the WWW virtual university through the world internet are becoming true on the eve of the 21st Century.
A homepage or a webpage is the starting point for a user. Users with hypertext editors make their own homepages, and the homepage provides a website or an address on the internet. So, there are numerous homepages in the world, and these homepages may further link to other website by a search engine, such as Yahoo, Netscape, the WWW Virtual Library and many others. These search engines are designed to scope the webpages at common interests and classify them by subject matters. Most of the renowned universities in the world have their own homepages for dissiminating and exchanging informations. Besides, these universities also use the hyperlink and access to other universities, institutions and organizations to share more information. Therefore, if one browses the homepage of one university, one would be able to end up with further informations provided from other related resources.
It is easy to find from the homepages that, because of the school fame and for recruiting good students, many leading universities usually provide very good acedemic programs, plenty of job opportunities, as well as interesting courseware work, research topics and list of publications on their homepage. Evidently, this information would help university professors and students in teaching and learning, and to aware of the future trends of current research.
By authors experiences when using internet websites on the aerospace endineering education, the Fluid Dynamics Links (http://www.princeton.edu/~gasdyn/fluids.html) is the website usually introduced to students. This homepage is maintained by Prof. Alexander J. Smits, who is Chairman of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Princeton University. In the Homepage of Fluid Dynamics Links, there provides many resources for fluid dynamics people. The resources contain the subjects of Journals, Magazines, Weather and Climate, Instructional Materials, Data Sources and Projects, Professional Organizations, Federal Research Funding Agencies, Key Government Sites, Individual Sites, and Jobs in Fluid Dynamics. Whereas the hyperlinks access to many leading universities, research institutions, publishers ,national laboratories, and also link to other popular websites, such as Yahoo links in Fluid Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics Page, Fluid Dynamics Webpages, Fluid Dynamics and CFD, Wind Energy Links, Thermal Engineering Resources, and the WWW Virtual Library.
It is interesting to find on the homepage of Princeton's Fluid Dynamics Links that, the subject of Instructional Materials consists a worldwide list of available websites for instructional purposes. These instructional, educational websites provide the on-line courses syllabuses, teaching materials, electronic texts and notes, and also provide many interactive study websites for self-study practice.
Due to the great power of web internet on the dissimination and exchange of informations, and the PC is so popular for every person to possess, people nowadays are easy to ride on the web internet and get the information anywhere and at any moment. Therefore, WWW is a very useful tool for educational purposes that, it should be introduced to the students and teach them how to utilize it. Aim at the teaching of Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics, some helpful and popular websites worldwide are listed below for references.
Utilizing the global internet resources on engineering education is an innovative pedagogy on modern education. To share the experience of teaching Aerodynamics for junior students majoring in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering, some important subjects, in corporation with the related websites listed in Section 4, are demonstrated as follows.
Utilization of the resources on the web internet to assist teachers and students on course studies, an effective teaching method is suggested, and some selected websites incorporating with courses in Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics are presented as examples. Due to the variety forms of hypertext documents edited in graphs, photos, animations and multimedia, teachers and students are easy to find helpful materials and study on the web internet. Therefore, incorporating learning with the plenty informations provided on the web internet, the quality engineering education can be achieved and the progress of the high technology, industrial world is to be expected.
This homepage is maintained by the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A.