Our Philosophy of e-Learning
_In an information-driven society, educational content is increasingly
delivered electronically. The future of education will be in integrating the full interactive power of the electronic medium into the learning process itself. We expect students and educators to access the entire curriculum on all the electronics devices in their lives: at home, school, or on-the-go; on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or mobile phones; and engaging with the electronic medium with full interactivity.
Textbooks are no longer only a printed, static content. A key technological innovation at Ergopedia is the development of an electronic book or e-book with: embedded multimedia animations and videos; interactive simulations and layers; additional content with expandable paragraphs; and other features, such as searchable content and cross-indexing, that you expect from an electronic resource. Our technology works out-of-the-box on all your devices using the new HTML5 standard that is integrated into every browser.
Textbooks are no longer only a printed, static content. A key technological innovation at Ergopedia is the development of an electronic book or e-book with: embedded multimedia animations and videos; interactive simulations and layers; additional content with expandable paragraphs; and other features, such as searchable content and cross-indexing, that you expect from an electronic resource. Our technology works out-of-the-box on all your devices using the new HTML5 standard that is integrated into every browser.
HTML5 technology
_We have built our e-book technology using HTML5, the
new standard for programming for browsers on all computers, tablets, and
other mobile devices. Essential Physics is the first curriculum created from the ground up using our new technology.
Features of our e-book technology:
- Full-featured electronic book with links, searchable content, and cross-referencing. The Essential Physics e-book is not an ordinary PDF copy of a textbook that you read page-by-page in the traditional way. Our e-book has all the special features people expect from electronic resources--features that are impossible in a hardcopy textbook format. Have you ever tried to find a word or phrase in a textbook, but struggled because it wasn't listed at the back of the book? The e-book lets you search the entire book for a word or phrase, regardless of whether or not the term is listed in the glossary or index. Have you ever seen a book refer to an equation elsewhere in the chapter or in another chapter? Click on the link in the e-book and you go there immediately. When preparing lesson plans, do you juggle back-and-forth between the different books--student textbook, laboratory investigations manual, and teacher's guide? Clickable links in the e-book connect you with the content from the entire curriculum for Essential Physics. Want to go to page 396? Just enter "396" into the box at the top of the e-book page, and you are taken there immediately.
- Animations illustrate key physical content. A traditional textbook may try to convey a physical concept using static illustrations, but an e-book makes those pictures spring to life--giving students a conceptual understanding of the physical processes at work. In the e-book, you simply mouse-over a graphic that has a triangular symbol and it automatically starts to play. Students can see a car in motion--speeding up, stopping for traffic lights, turning around, etc.--and simultaneously see how that motion translates into position-time, velocity-time, and acceleration-time graphs.
- Rich multimedia content is embedded directly into the e-book. Animations and videos are located in the correct context, exactly where and when they are needed. No internet connection is needed, no software needs to be installed on your computer (not even a Flash player!), and no waiting for videos to download. Animations and videos are stored directly on your computer in the e-book.
- High-quality videos, created by content experts, make content accessible and visually compelling. All videos are written, shot, and produced in-house using our film and production experts and our own studio. These videos alone make Ergopedia's e-book content a unique resource. No more suffering through videos with monotonic narration, clumsy camera work, or painfully boring presentations. Our video productions are of the highest quality, pulling together all the features you expect: content written and presented by our team of experts; close-ups of equipment and procedures; integrated graphics and animations to illustrate key concepts; and professional editing to make it all visually compelling.
- Expanded paragraphs in the e-book provide in-depth extensions for tailored content. Expanded text, problems, animations, and videos can be found in the e-book when a "more" button is visible. The content expands in place, providing it in the correct context and at the right time. Teachers can expand the content to tailor their course for students, state standards, or personal experience. Interested students can access in-depth material. Expanded paragraphs hide away when the "less" button is pressed.
- Page-to-page correspondence between the e-book and the printed textbook. When a teacher asks students to turn to page 273, all students see the same page and content--regardless of whether they are using the hardcopy textbook or the e-book.
- STEM content directly accessible through links. Content in the e-book is categorized, allowing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics content to be directly accessible through links. You simply mouse-over the four STEM symbols at the top of the e-book page and a list of the content appears--linking directly to the paragraphs containing the desired STEM content.
- Mouse-over glossary words shows definition or description. To see more about a glossary word in the e-book text, you simply mouse-over the word and the definition or description immediately pops up next to the mouse. No more thumbing through to the back pages of the textbook.
- E-book built with the latest HTML5 to run on all computers, tablets, and mobile devices. When you "look under the hood" at the technology behind the Essential Physics e-book, you find the cutting-edge HTML5 language--the new standard for all browsers, whether on your desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or mobile smartphone. HTML5 was designed with full integration of multimedia content and mathematical symbols, making it a perfect fit for physical science e-books. By using HTML5, our e-book needs no software downloads or installation on your computer (not even a Flash player!); you simply read the e-book using a standard browser interface. Apple's visionary former CEO Steve Jobs said in 2010 that "new open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win" out over the Flash player; even Adobe has since announced that they will no longer develop Flash for mobile devices, but will instead focus on HTML5.
Interactive simulations
Difficult physical concepts are simulated within the e-book (and other electronic curricular resources) creating powerful interactive tools for education. Students learn about vector addition by drawing vectors with their mouse. They learn about sound, interference, and beats by generating sound waves of different frequencies, amplitudes, and phases. Important historical experiments, such as the Millikan oil drop experiment--requiring expensive equipment beyond the grasp of most high schools--are simulated for students to gain a conceptual understanding of the underlying physics. Under the hood, we use cutting-edge yet flexible tools such as National Instruments' LabVIEW and the HTML5 canvas element to create the interactive simulations.
Learn more about the interactive simulations in LabVIEW and HTML5/canvas |
Measurement and control
Measurement and control has emerged as an important, cross-disciplinary engineering field for STEM education. Today's technology often uses instruments such as sensors to make measurements, and then uses the measurements to determine how to control a piece of equipment.
Our curricula enable students to learn some of the building blocks for complex systems engineering through measurement and control processes. The ErgoBot is an example, where students can use it both to make measurements of motion (position, velocity, acceleration) and to drive its motion through computer control. After students become familiar separately with each of these modes of operation, they can then combine the two to address higher-order engineering design problems. Our curriculum provides students with the tools to make measurements as well as control devices--all within an integrated LabVIEW environment. Imagine students learning about temperature and heat by measuring a cooling curve of water using a temperature probe connected through the ErgoDAQ to the netbook computer. Next they add a heating element to the ErgoDAQ, begin to heat the water, and measure the heating curve. Finally, the students use both the temperature probe and the heating element to hold the water at a fixed temperature--writing an algorithm that will turn the heating element on when the temperature is too low, and turn it off when the temperature is too high. They have put it all together: faced with the design problem (establishing a set point for the temperature of water), the students have developed a higher-order engineering solution. |