Hypercard-Based Learning Environment for DIADES

Portland State University PDXScholar

Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses

1990 HyperCard-based learning environment for DIADES

Ali A. Shamsapour Portland State University

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Recommended Citation Shamsapour, Ali A., "HyperCard-based learning environment for DIADES" (1990). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4128. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.6011

This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Ali A. Shamsapour for the Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering presented February 16, 1990.

Title: HyperCard-based Learning Environment for DIADES

APPROVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE THESIS COMMITTEE:

Mareklerkowski, Chairman

Rajinder Aggarwal

Maria Balogh

This thesis is an attempt to create a HyperCard-based learning environment to

teach DIADES and other related material. It is a departure from the classical Computer

Aided Instruction methods towards a more flexible and user-controlled design. The goal

was to set the foundation of a new CAI design which would closely resemble a Hyper- Text system. These systems are characterized as having interconnections between related concepts in the CAI environment.

Creating HyperCard stacks to carry out the DIADES-related material is the first

of its kind. The environment provides text editing capability as well as drawing and painting tools. Using HyperCard to create CAI lessons has made it much easier to design 2 and use such lessons. The most important characteristic of this Composite lesson design probably lies in the fact that it provides an open-end structure for future DIADES developers to incorporate their pieces of DIADES documentation into the existing data

base.

The unique features of the tutorial can be described as:

a) The user has control over the presentation of the material. Usually there are several options available to the user to choose from.

b) It can be changed and modified at any time if DIADES research group has pro duced new results.

c) The information is organized into several major topics. Subtopics are included wherever they exist. The organization of the lesson can be compared to a tree like structure. More specific and more specialized subjects reside on remote branches.

d) Incorporation of the related subjects into the DIADES tutorial allows expansion of the lesson to a degree which would be a comprehensive tutorial for most digital courses. HYPERCARD-BASED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR DIADES

ALI A. SHAMSAPOUR

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE m ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

Portland State University 1990 TO THE OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES:

The members of the committee approve the thesis of Ali A. Shamsapour presented

February 16, 1990.

Marek Per'towski, Chairman I I

Rajinder Aggarwal

Maria Balogh

APPROVED:

Rolf Schaumann, Chairman, Department of Electrical Engineering

C. William Savery, Interim Vice Prov~ for Graduate Studies and Research ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Dr. Marek A. Perkowski for providing valuable instructions, new ideas, hints, related material and overall guidance all the way through the prepara tion of this paper.

I also appreciate comments and guidance of Dr. Maria Balogh and Dr. Rajinder

Aggarwal which helped me to improve the quality of the thesis.

Research of the PSU DIADES group provided valuable documentation about DIADES design automation system which were used during the preparation of this paper. TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE ACKNOWLEDGE!vIBNTS ...... iii

LIST OF TABLES ...... vi

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vii

CHAPTER

I IN1RODUCTION ...... 1

II CHARACTERIZATION OF TIIE CLASSICAL CAI :NiEIBODS ...... 5

CAI Lesson Designs ...... 6

CAI Systems ...... 13

III USE OF HYPER CARD FOR COMPUTER AIDED INSTRUC- TION ...... 16

Buttons, Fields, Cards, Backgrounds and Stacks ...... 21

Message Box ...... 25

Multifinder ...... 27

Mouse Functions ...... 27

Power Keys and Blind Typing ...... 30

Click and Double Click ...... 31

Option, Command and Shift Keys ...... 31

HyperTalk ...... 32 v Home Stack ...... 38

Copying and Pasting from Other Stacks ...... 39

H yperCard in CAI ...... 3 9

The Idea of the Learning Environment for DIADES ...... 40

How HyperCard I~teracts with the User ...... :...... 42

IV COMPOSITE CAI METHOD AND HIERARCHICAL, GRAPHICAL HELP SYSTEMS ...... 45

Introduction to Our New Concept ...... 45

V THE DIADES SYSTEM ...... 52

What is DIADES? ...... 54

VI LESSON DESIGN ...... 60

The Actual Design ...... 61

VII CONCLUSION ...... 76

Preparing the Tutorial ...... 77

What Was Achieved and What Not? ...... 78

How Can the Current Design be Improved? ...... 79

REFERENCES ...... •...... 81

APPENDICES

A SOME SAMPLE SCRIPTS ...... 83

B DESIGN DATA FOR SIGNAL DELAY PROCESSOR ...... 114 LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

I Comparison Between Composite and Classical CAI Methods ...... 47 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. Inheritance Path for HyperCard ...... 18

2. Macintosh Menus and Tools Menu ...... 20

3. Some Icons and a Button Dialogue Box...... 22

4. Field Properties and Available Fonts ...... 24

5. The Layers and the Message Box ...... 26

6. HyperCard Object Hierarchy for Resources ...... 35

7. "Home" Stack's "User Preferences" Card ...... 37

8. Dialogue Boxes for "ASK" and "ANSWER" Commands ...... 43

9. Design Process Steps in DIADES ...... 53

10. First and Second Card of the "Start" Stack ...... 62

11. Sample Cards of the "HELP" Stack ...... 65

12. Two Sample Cards of the "DIADES" Stack...... 66

13. Sample Pop Quiz and Evaluation Cards ...... 71

14. Sample Index Cards of the "ADL" Stack ...... 72

15. First and Second Card of the "Home" Stack...... 74

16. The Parallel Control Flow Diagram ...... 126

17. Layout of the Control Part of the System ...... 127 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Using computers in education has concerned most educators from the time that computers became more available to the public. CAI (Computer Aided Instruction), is one of the areas that has been developed in the past to help the teacher and students to improve their educational performance. Along with the development of the computer hardware and consequently computer software, CAI developers started to create more

sophisticated programs and tools to help satisfy increasing demand for supplementary means for education. Considering the amount of dependency that the modem life has on computers, there is no doubt that their use in education is no exception.

Computer Engineering and computer science students are two groups of people who are most involved in creating and using educational software. Electrical and Com puter Engineering department in Portland State University is now preparing grounds to create and develop a unified CAI lesson design which not only will be used by the stu dents, but also will be modified and improved as time goes on and the computer technol ogy grows rapidly. A CAI lesson environment in Electrical and Computer Engineering department is being created and developed under the supervision of Dr. Marek Perkowski to aid the co