Scientificregistration nž : 1492
Symposium nž : 44
Presentation : poster
Soil erosion. A computer program for self-teaching soil erosion
C. DORRONSORO, J. AGUILAR, J. FERNANDEZ
Departamento de Edafologa. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Spain.
A computer program for teaching soil erosion has been developed. It is a multimedia program written in HTML language in such a way that it can run with any operating system (PC Windows, Mac Os, etc) and with any navigating program used for Internet (Netscape, Explorer ...).
The elaboration of a multimedia program for educational purposes is carried out in various stages. The first stage involves the planning of the document, defining the specific objectives to be tackled, delimiting the exact content, drafting the text and, finally, planning the images which are to be used to develop the scientific information, always seeking a didactic combination between verbal language (whether written or oral) and graphic language (static or dynamic). In the second stage, the sound and image material necessary is prepared. Lastly, the document must materialise in the corresponding computer program. Once the program is finished, a practical monitoring of the first users must be carried out in order to correct any errors and introduce possible improvements.
The achievement of these teaching objectives depends on both the scientific quality of the content and its didactic development and on the easy management of the program.
In order to obtain good educational results, a series of conditions have to be met.
i) It is necessary to go right from the simplest issues through to the most complicated points, allowing a reading at different levels of complexity.
ii) Even the most simple concepts must be explained (what may be obvious to some students is not necessarily so to many others). A program in such a multidisciplinary subject as Soil Science must be adapted to use by students from a very wide educational background (as regards both their basic education and their particular scientific speciality). For this reason, ample and constant assistance must be provided with additional complementary information.