Multimedia for Teaching and Research

Over the past few years a team of us in the Department of Earth Sciences (sometimes in conjunction with our Knowledge Media Institute) have been developing educational software for teaching and research. I have been involved in a number of projects to date, the first three utilizing Portfolio Photo CD Technology, the remainder using more conventional Mac or Mac/PC format CDs. The three Portfolio Photo CDs can operate on a Mac, a PC, a Philips CDi player or a Kodak Photo CD player. They have the advantage of being easy to use (you don't even need a computer) and are ideally suited to a tutorial situation. They do, however, have restricted functionality and we do not plan to continue developing software to this format in the future.

An Introduction to Earth Sciences at the Open University: really a training exercise in use of the technology. We ended up with a product describing all our teaching and research activities and this proved popular at Residential Schools and for Open Days.

Rocks and Minerals Down the Microscope: an attempt to develop a teaching aid to cover specific problems of mineral identification. Used at Residential Schools for S236 students in conjunction with the Virtual Microscope (see later).

Geology of Northern England: a Residential School tool, useful for briefing and de-briefing students when they go out into the field. It uses a large photgraphic gallery and suite of maps to illustrate aspects of geology, palaeontology, sedimentology and palaeoreconstructions as seen (or perhaps not seen) by the students during the Durham-based S236 Residential School. Produced in collaboration with the British Geological Survey.

The Virtual Microscope: basically there are twelve thin sections of common igneous and metamorphic rocks to examine. All can be viewed with an electronic hand lens or with the virtual microscope. Each thin section can be rotated in plane or cross polarized light, and then to assist students even further both types of lighting can be observed simultaneously. Trials have indicated that students enjoy using this technology and we like it because it will allow us to teach our students microscopy (up to 800 per year on our new second level geology course, S260) without them getting diverted into the practicalities of making a microscope work. They can do that later once they know a bit more about mineralogy! We also like it because it means we can give the same thin section to each and every one of our students. One thing that it does not do is replace the real microscope which we still regard as an essential part of our course. This software was developed in collaboration with our Knowledge Media Institute - Thanks Ben, Peter & Tom.

There is a review of it published in Terra Nova (1994) volume 6, pages 638-641. You can also play with a cut down version of it by hooking into the Network Virtual Microscope.

Minerals & Crystals: programmed by CrystalMaker wizard David Palmer, this application takes you on a mineralogical tour and utilizes Quick Time Virtual Reality object movies to display rotating images of a range of minerals together with rotatable crystal models of their internal structure.

Timescapes - Reconstructions of Geological Time: our ace artist John Watson has spent many moons producing photorealistic, geologically and botanically accurate reconstructions of past environments to be used in TV programs, course materials and books. Timescapes is a CD-based slide show of his work.

Minerals of Wales: a collaborative pilot project with Richard Bevins of the National Museum and Galleries of Wales. The project aims to bring alive the mineralogical treasures of Wales in a very interactive way. The project has as its main aim to disseminate information about all the minerals recorded in Wales (over 400 in total) together with details of the mines from which many of them came. A third component is an interactive map utility that will plot mineral localities and allow the user to investigate mineral associations. Emphasis will be on a simple interface and stunning images behind which will be a powerful, but user-friendly database.

S260 Geology: the new Earth Sciences second level geology course contains a high multimedia content. I was involved with the Digital Kit and the Digital Microscope. The Digital Kit contains a visual database of 30 rocks, 20 minerals and 20 fossils. The majority can be examined with full 3D rotation using QuickTime Virtual Reality software. The Digital Microscope is firmly based on the Virtual Microscope described earlier, but contains a new set of 30 igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.

The multimedia for S260 won the Europrix 1999 award in the Knowledge and Discovery section. It was the only award winner from Britain from a total of 442 entries.