Books have supplied information reasonably well for centuries. However, computers are changing the ways in which we handle information. Electronic hypermedia has the potential to create something better than a printed book. As developing countries advance rapidly in their use of computers, new technology can provide superior communication at a much lower cost than for printed pages.
The electronic document could use PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat Reader, or any of several other excellent programs, but computer users are comfortable with their web browsers. The HTML codes for authoring web pages are easy to learn, or you can avoid them completely by using a word processing program that is specialized for web pages. Any Microsoft Word document can be saved as a HTML page, but it will have voluminous extra code to handle situations that seldom arise. Netscape Composer delivers much more compact code that can be touched up with a word processor when you know how to handle raw HTML code for some special feature.
Let’s use as an example the assembly of a hypermedia textbook that is personalized. The same concepts apply to any books or documents. Each of us studies and learns in ways that seem to suit us best. To take a course, we buy the book, compile class notes, memorize facts, practice solving problems, and take tests. Students in developing countries often have the additional task of translation of a foreign language when they use books not written in their native language. There are almost always class handouts. We end up with a printed book that may be full of marginal notes or PostIts, class notes plus the class handouts, tests and homework that have been handed back, and references, perhaps in the form of URLs for web pages. If the professor has placed class supplements on the web, there may also be a collection of pages printed from the web. The problem is to find anything after some time has passed. It is hard to argue against using computers to organize the materials. The prime objection is that many of us prefer to have hard copy in our hands, and dumping to a printer is inefficient compared to flipping to a page in a book. Nevertheless, you can make hard copies when needed while having the great convenience of electronic organization.
It makes no sense to write a book from scratch. Perhaps books in the future will come as computer files from which you can pick and choose to assemble your personalized book. The elements of a book can sometimes be downloaded from the world wide web. Some books are now available on a CD. It is interesting that it is common for students in the United States to purchase both the printed book and the CD. The book is better for carrying to class or for studying when stretched out on a couch or on the lawn. The CD is better for searching and may have animation and more use of color. An open book exam may not permit working from a laptop computer with the book as a CD.
Authors write imperfectly and make mistakes about facts. You can improve grammar, recast sentences, and fix mistakes. When you want to personalize a book, the CD is restrictive because you can’t change it. So are web pages in an archive. There is also the risk that pages on the web may disappear. It is highly recommended that you capture web pages. This insures permanency with the further advantage of instantaneous loading into your browser instead of waiting for files to move through the web. If you expect to view a page on the web only once, you should leave it there. If you plan to refer to the page more often, there will be savings in connect time and in time for loading if you have captured the page and archived it locally.
How to collect pages from the internet:
1. Bring up the page in your browser
2. Jot down or otherwise save the URL (address of the page). The portion
ending in htm or html is the best name when you save the page.
3. Use the file menu of your internet browser to save the page. Microsoft
Internet Explorer automatically saves the images and fixes the HTML calls
for them. Netscape saves only the source code. You have to save the images
separately. Grabbing pages from the internet will get you in trouble if
you put them into you own web site or try to sell you collection of downloaded
web pages. If only for your personal use, there are no legal problems and
no way that you would get caught anyway.
4. Netscape only: Use your right mouse button to click on any image.
A menu will appear that asks where to save the image. From the source code
of the page, you can find the name that the author gave to this image.
Giving it the same file name will make it easier to put it in the correct
place as you save it in your personal archive.
5. Edit the web page that you have saved to attribute and acknowledge
the original address and author.
6. Add links to relate the new page to your other pages.
Let’s personalize. Web pages and class handouts that are computer files are easy to edit with any word processing program. Even better is to use Netscape Composer or Microsoft Word for editing because that will hide the HTML codes for less confusion. You should edit because the original author had a specific audience in mind, and you are an individual with your own preferences for wording. You may be the type that uses a highlighter on your books. As you edit, you can incorporate colors. Yellow is hard to read and good for unimportant sections. Black or blue stand out for the sections that you wish to emphasize. Entire sections can be cut and pasted to stand alone as a separate web page to organize the material as you think best. This is a quick first step, but you can be more effective by rewording sentences that are not clear to you.
A powerful aid to studying is to review class notes while the class itself is still fresh in your mind. Entering your hand written notes into an electronic document is a good way to reinforce what you have learned. This is much better than reviewing your notes several weeks later on the night before the exam. The notes can be merged with the web pages or linked as separate pages.
These methods can be extended to scanned images, pages from journals and magazines, and your own digital photos. If you are studying music or a foreign language, you can make excellent use of sound files. Narration can be desirable for web pages. I was introduced to an authoring system for adding sound to web pages by Professor Chris Jesshope, at Massey University, NZ. Their professional program with an excellent graphical user interface was formerly sold but now is free. PowerPoint presentations are easily converted to web pages with speech. Details and examples are on the web site: www.nzedsoft.com
Web pages that describe methods:
Diagrams and photos are wonderful aids, but books have the minimum number because of costs. If you have a digital camera, you can incorporate all the photos that you want, and computer storage can accommodate them easily. With hypermedia, you can have a page of detailed instructions and another page with the highlights. There can be a check list. Your indices and links can get you to the appropriate pages instantly.
Usually, problems are solved using pencil and paper. The scribbling is made more neat and legible by copying over in ink or by typing out when the assignment is handed in. Some problems are plug and chug. Take an oversimplified example, A + B = C + D. This chemical reaction has a pattern. If you specify the molecular weights and the amount of any one reactant or product, the other weights are determined. This is an ideal case for using a spreadsheet. There should be labels and prompts to help data entry. When you encounter this metathetical reaction again, entering the molecular weights into the proper cells results in a simple solution. I know how to program this in Java in about 20 minutes, and Java is a good way to imbed the calculation aid right in the web page. Most students know how to program a spreadsheet, but this requires a separate program in another window. You can launch applications from a web page or you can have a note that reminds you that you have a spreadsheet and where to find it.
Programming a problem seems like a lot of trouble, but consider how smart you will feel years later should you encounter a similar problem. Your spreadsheet should take you through the solution step by step and repay your previous investment of time. Furthermore, time for a student tends to have a smaller price tag than time for work later in life. The work can be shared because many students take a team approach to homework problems. The programming of a solution by one student can serve them all.
Translation:
Web pages in foreign languages can be translated. Computer programs for doing so tend to garble sentences, but you can fix these quite easily. A more serious problem occurs in less developed countries where books are expensive, programs for electronic translation into the local language are not available, there are not enough computers, and connection to the world wide web is slow, limited, and expensive. It makes much sense to download educational pages to a local archive when one download can serve many students instead of duplicating the downloading over and over as each student goes to the original web sites. Furthermore, translation can be parceled out to divide up the work. The instructor or those students most facile in the web pages' language can edit the translations. Editing is particularly important for translations because meanings can be muddled and details corrupted during translation.
Indexing:
Indexing is a chore that soon gets tiresome. An index coded in HTML
takes extra time, and each link must be tested. However, a good index is
a joy for ever. The figures for this talk have tips for making an index
and can be found starting at
http://www.rpi.edu/dept/chem-eng/hypertext.html
That address is also the starting point for are about 80 megabytes
of teaching files, many created by students as term projects. Some example
code for doing this is shown in the figures that can be downloaded from
our teaching archive.
The best way to save your personalized book is as files that can be changed. Although a CD is very inexpensive and burning the information to them is no big deal, few of us own a read/write CD maker. Reading a CD is part of almost all computer systems now. It sounds great to carry your book on a CD and pop it into any computer. For some books, that may be best. When the book relates to things that you do everyday, you probably want to add to it. You may want to store it on the hard drive of your computer. Removable media such as a Zip disk works nicely because each one has more than enough storage space for a typical book.
Advantages:
Cost is not the main reason for personalizing a book because this is overwhelmed by the time and effort. It can be the dominating factor in underdeveloped countries where the students are benefiting from the financial savings while improving their translation skills and becoming more computer literate. A side benefit from editing and adding to your personalized book is that this is an effective way to study.
Indexing and searching are major advantages for scientists and engineers. Not being able to find something in a conventional book or in your notes or inordinate time spent searching are highly frustrating. Your computer can search quickly for files and can find text strings within files (but painfully slowly). Even an unsuccessful search with your computer is preferred to wasting time sifting through printed materials.
A book in the form of hypermedia web pages could have pages with different levels of difficulty. The reader could choose the page aimed at a high school student or the page for a specialist on that topic. There are not yet internet books written this way.
Authors:
Why write a book if it will be butchered by your readers as they personalize
it?
Each page can have your name on it. The person downloading your page
would be wise to leave the attribution in case a need arises to go back
to the original. You secure fame even if the page gains footnotes crediting
other authors. Your own footnote should cite the date and location of your
original page. If the page gets corrupted, blame will be deflected from
you. This has potential legal importance because faulty instructions can
get someone injured or even killed.
Authors have strengths and weakness. Their books tend to be uneven with the best chapters relating to the author’s expertise. A book is a major undertaking. One topic developed through web pages can be a labor of love. I have written 5 books and earned little money by doing so. My modest reward has been to see a few people using my ideas and methods. I expect more impact from placing information on the world wide web, and search engines bring me e-mail almost every day resulting from my pages.
Conclusion:
A personalized collection of documents as computer files that can be
edited and extended has many advantages over a conventional book. Labor
is required but can be shared among students who will learn while collecting
and organizing the material. Developing nations can befit greatly from
the electronic technology with little financial cost.