The Value of CAI Development Using Java

Many researcher-educators have begun to recognize the value of platform-independent Java applets as a way to deliver selected conceptual course materials over the World-Wide Web.  In economics, for example, many key concepts can be simplified as two- or three-dimensional graphs.  Manipulation of these graphs leads to key insights. Using traditional teaching technologies, these concepts are conveyed once by the professor, at a chalkboard or an overhead projector.  They are then often conveyed again, by teaching assistants, at another chalkboard.  For some students, the exercise must then be repeated yet again, with pencil and paper, during office hours.

The fundamental pedagogical problem is that the curves depicted in the graphs need to be moved as the  story  is told.  The clearest understanding would be achieved by a dynamic (animated) graph, but we make do with sequences of static graphs, or with a single graph cluttered with numerous different representative positions of the necessary curves and lines.  Java affords an opportunity to produce such dynamic graphs, and allows the user (with no more skills than those necessary to access a web browser) to manipulate them repeatedly.  Unlike the human teaching staff, Java teaching aids are tireless and can be accessed at all hours of the day and night.

In order to achieve substantial pedagogical value-added, we believe that Web-based materials need to contain truly interactive modules.  Using Java applets, or something similar, these materials should incorporate at least simple display interactivity, whereby students may vary parameters and observe the response.  In addition, the interactive materials should be supplemented with testing on concepts to challenge the student.  Interactive quizzes can lead the student through the use of a pedagogical applet, asking questions that require manipulation of the economic model being explored, and that ultimately promote conceptual understanding.

Most UCLA faculty who are currently using the World-Wide Web for their undergraduate courses use the web pages provided for by the IEI as a sophisticated substitute for the Reserve Desk at College Library.  Materials that used to be duplicated and walked over to the library are now simply scanned (or  Saved As   .pdf ) and posted to the WWW instead.  The typical menu includes the obligatory course outline, homework sets and solutions, old exams and answer keys, maybe even some detailed .pdf versions of lecture notes, and possibly some promotional materials concerning the professor's research program.  There are also links to relevant external sites.  However, so far, there are relatively few instances of faculty who have sought out, or created, fundamentally new pedagogical materials that take advantage of the unique capabilities of Web technologies.

To be sure, some faculty have made extensive use of computer technology, albeit not web-based, in their classes for some time.  For example, Professor Bryan Ellickson has been doing OLG models with MathCAD software in his Mathematical Economics courses.  This, however, requires that students learn MathCAD and that they have a copy of this software program available to them.  The beauty of Java is that it is platform-independent and can be run over the Web by anybody who has a Java-enabled browser.  Such capability is offered by Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer.  Furthermore, no special programming skills are required of users in order to run the models.  In many cases, applets can be viewed as introductory tools that can lure students into more advanced classes that include more hands-on use of specialized software.

The Costs of CAI Development

There are a number of big disincentives for faculty to create new teaching tools that exploit Web technologies:
 
  • the universality of access to materials on the Web means that it is difficult to extract compensation from individual users who benefit from the availability of the materials (contrast this with a textbook author's ability to earn royalties for each copy of the text that is sold);
  • password protection of materials is possible, but the first-year collective benefits of the materials to the members of just one class (measured solely as improved teaching ratings for the instructor?) severely underestimate the potential value to students of economics at UCLA and elsewhere who could benefit from such materials;
  • a big fixed investment in learning the Java programming language is necessary before anything at all can be created.


    • Economists immediately recognize the problem of  public goods.   For many public goods, the social benefits from their provision vastly outweigh the private benefits to potential providers, so these goods are not created unless their provision is sponsored by  governments.   There is great potential for developing Web-based teaching tools that will benefit UCLA students in many different classes at all levels of the Economics curriculum, but they will not be created if the university relies upon the private incentives of individual faculty.  Using IEI funds to sponsor creation of these public goods would help to overcome the lack of private incentives for their creation.

    Web Materials

    Java applet programming is nontrivial and can be very time-consuming.  Any search of publicly available applets on the Web reveals that the majority of existing freely available applets consist of things like scrolling banners, rotating script, etc.  These applets add movement and interest to web pages without having any real purpose beyond catching the reader's eye.  There are still relatively few applets that provide pedagogical value in specific subject areas.  (Interested readers can explore http://www.javaboutique.com, for example.)  In some cases, the project team has managed to identify useful applets at other web sites.  However, unless the creators have been generous enough to make the Java code itself publicly available (rather than just the compiled classes) it is difficult to adapt an otherwise promising applet to specific teaching tasks in a substantive subject area.

    A few exceptions are (for statistics/regression classes):

    http://arbitrage.byu.edu/sample.html
    http://www.stat.uiuc.edu/~stat100/java/guess/GCApplet.html
    http://www.stat.sc.edu/~west/javahtml/ConfidenceInterval.html
    http://www.stat.uiuc.edu/~stat100/java/guess/PPApplet.html
    http://www.stat.sc.edu/~west/javahtml/Regression.html

    However, the subject matter in these applets is not very advanced, being suited to introductory classes in statistics or for review in subsequent classes.  This is probably because the costs of development are substantial and a large audience is necessary to warrant incurring them.  A key consideration in the applets to be designed for the proposed project is the ability of the user to select whether they want to interact with the program at the beginner, intermediate, or advanced level.

    An early provider of economics-based Java applets is Joseph Daniel.  In a web site called oo...Micro Models! (http://medusa.be.udel.edu/WWW_Sites/oo_Micro.html) he supplies a large number of Java applets designed to illustrate a wide variety of economic concepts in intermediate economics, utilizing the animation capabilities of Java, and embedded spreadsheets.  While Daniel states in the introduction that "object-oriented programming techniques enable [the user] to directly manipulate parameters of the economic models and immediately observe the results," we were unable to find an example on the site where this stated capability is realized.

    CAI Efforts by the Authors

    Since the fall of 1995, Cameron and Gerdes have collaborated on the development of WWW technologies for undergraduate instruction in the Department of Economics at UCLA.  Originally, they undertook projects without funding, on an experimental basis, concentrating on developing such utilities as Web-based self-grading quizzes and surveys, primarily for Economics 143 (Applied Regression Analysis).  The division of labor in these early projects was as follows.  Cameron perceived a need for some utility.  In consultation and negotiation with Gerdes (the programming expert), the project evolved as a prototype.  When Gerdes  prototype functioned to the desired specifications, Cameron  deconstructed  it into components that would be common across all variations.  Fixed components were then incorporated into WordPerfect 5.1 (for DOS) macros, making it possible for the user to supply application-specific information in a simple format, and then to run the word-processing macros to generate the underlying Perl code for that application.

    Cameron's extensive classroom experience with the upper division regression course (Economics 143) and with many huge sections of Economics 1 (Principles of Microeconomics) means she is familiar with many instances where a static blackboard representation of some key three-dimensional relationship is far less than adequate.  In the Fall Quarter of 1997, Cameron and Gerdes applied for, and were awarded, one quarter of Research Assistant funding for Gerdes by SIANME (Scholarship in a New Media Environment) to support additional development of Web-based resources.  It was apparent by this time that Java Applets would be the way to go for a large number of projects.  Gerdes set about learning Java.  During his tenure with this support, the team identified (and Gerdes implemented) several different Java Applets for Economics 1 and Economics 143, each with increasing sophistication as Gerdes' familiarity with Java technology grew.  Unfortunately, with no release time, and the considerable number of other responsibilities borne by Cameron, she has not had the opportunity to invest in learning Java, although she is keenly interested in learning the technology.

    Gerdes has also begun to teach Introductory Economics, through UCLA Extension. This pedagogical experience, combined with his service as a TA over the last few years in theDepartment of Economics, means that he, too, is developing a good sense of the limitations of blackboard exposition of many economic concepts.  While it is true that not every student will learn these ideas more efficiently with Web-based supplementary material, we are convinced that many will.  Furthermore, the opportunity for repetition and exploration of concepts, unrestricted by the limits of office hours, will help large numbers of students.  Giving students more choices among an array of alternative pathways for digesting material can only be an improvement.

    Over the next ten years, with the expected increase in college admissions, it is also clear that instructional media will have to expand into the electronic domain.   Distributed learning opportunities in the form of Java applets (or something similar) will have to be exploited to convey some of the dynamic expositions that currently can be conveyed only with an instructor drawing sequences of diagrams at a chalkboard.