Communications and Signal Theory Department, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona Spain
Technology and Intellectual Property Rights Department, Fractus, Barcelona Spain
(3)
Electronics Department, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona Spain
{jaumean, jordm, vicent}@salle.url.edu
(2)
Session S2C
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
About texts
of the marks
of the marks
2.32
2.19
2,39
2,12
25
20
15
10
I don't agree
I don't know
I agree
I totally agree
Less time is required for the understanding of the concepts than with the video
It easily presents in some aspects which are very difficult to understand with the video
It is sufficient to completely understand the concept.
For each competence express what kind of content
would you like to study them with?
Do you think a video like
this is necessary for
learning?
25
20
15
10
No
7%
Better text
Better video
Problem approaching
Mathematical developments
Physical sense of concepts and formulae
Yes
93%
FIGURE 2
SUBJECTIVE DATA: OPINION OF THE STUDENTS ABOUT TEXT CONTENTS
Yes
18%
No
10%
No
82%
Yes
90%
I don't agree
I don't know
I agree
I totally agree
Less time is required for the understanding of the concepts than with texts
It easily presents some aspects which are very difficult to understand with texts
It is sufficient to completely understand the concept
FIGURE 1
SUBJECTIVE DATA: OPINION OF THE STUDENTS ABOUT VIDEO-CLIP CONTENTS
FIGURE 3
E-BOOK GENERAL STRUCTURE: TITLE, CHAPTERS, SECTION (THEORY AND
EXERCISES), AND REFERENCES. ARROW 1: LINK BETWEEN CHAPTERS. ARROW
2: LINK TO REFERENCES
Session S2C
At the present stage, the tool is used at
Telecommunication and Electronic Engineering degree at
Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona Spain.
In Fig.3, title part contents the title, authors as well as the
sponsors. By a single clicking, one can access the chapter
index (Fig.4). Title is an .hbk file (handbook): this file
contents a pointer to each chapter. Chapter index (Fig.4)
shows the chapters where a single click moves the student to
the desired one.
FIGURE 4
CHAPTER INDEX: A SINGLE CLICK OPENS THE CHAPTER MATERIAL DIVIDED IN
SEVERAL SECTIONS
FIGURE 5
SECTION INDEX: A SINGLE CLICK OPEN THE SECTION MATERIAL
FIGURE 6
EACH SECTION IS DIVIDED INTO 5 PARTS: TITLE SECTION, SOME
INTRODUCTION, SCENARIO WHERE STUDENT MAY CHANGE PARAMETERS
(INTERACTIVITY) AND OBSERVE MULTIMEDIA FILES, CONCLUSIONS POINT OUT
MAIN REMARKS, AND REFERENCES ARE USED FOR EXTRA KNOWLEDGE.
Session S2C
Interactivity forces the book designer to write the book in
a special way, i.e., text must contain comments to guide
student to test realistic examples to avoid trial-and-error
experiments. In the book, these kind of comments are called
guiding comments. An example is given next:
For a broadside array, directivity reaches the maximum
when element spacing in near one wavelength (it has to
be less than one wavelength to avoid grating lobes to be
in the visible range). Analyze directivity as well as
grating lobes when increasing inter-element spacing
With guiding comments, the trial-space is bounded and
provides also a correct path to test useful experiments.
Therefore, interactivity is a great advantage but one has to
take care when writing the book in order to avoid a wide range
of changes. If interactivity is not controlled by guiding
comments, then, student may start to try-and-error hundreds of
no-sense experiments.
Fig.7 shows an example of interactivity: equations used to
calculate the radiation pattern of a rectangular patch for any
TMmn mode are shown. For this particular case, student can
choose the mode order as well as patch dimensions and
dielectric constant. Mathcad automatically calculates
resonant frequency, field distribution within the cavity,
radiation pattern as well as directivity. Guiding comments
guide the student to test interesting cases. Those parameters
that are susceptible of changes are marked with green color as
shown in Fig.7 (dark area).
FIGURE 8
EXAMPLE OF MICROSTRIP ANTENNA DESIGN SECTION: PLOTS AND FIGURE
CAPTION CHANGE ACCORDING TO THE USER INTERACTION
FIGURE 7
INTERACTIVE AREA: PARAMETERS THAT MAY BE CHANGED ARE MARKED
WITH GREEN COLOUR. BESIDE THE PARAMETERS THAT STUDENT MAY
CHANGE, A RANGE OF REALISTIC VALUES ARE SHOWN.
FIGURE 9
Session S2C
Using this kind of videos in the classroom, makes the
student more motivated and helps them to understand the
basic antenna theory and the physics of electromagnetics
E-BOOK EXAMPLES
To have a more general idea of the e-book contents some
examples are shown next.
Fig.10 shows an example of array antenna theory. Student
may change number of elements, distanced between them,
excitation (amplitude and phase or each element) as well as
the direction of maximum radiation. Results are: radiation
pattern both in 2D and 3D as well as directivity. The example
shown in Fig.10 compares three canonic amplitude
excitations: uniform, triangular, and binomial. Student can
change the number of elements and distances. Based on these
results, the student is able to determine what the advantages of
changing the amplitude taper are. Guiding comments helps the
students to test some representative examples.
FIGURE 11
EXAMPLE OF CHAPTER 5. A REFLECTOR ANTENNA FED BY AN IDEAL SOURCE IS
ANALYZED USING BOTH IMAGE THEORY AND FDTD SIMULATION. THIS SECTION
SHOWS A MOVIE OF THE RADIATION PRODUCED WHEN THE SOURCE IS EXCITED
USING AN ARMONIC SIGNAL. THEN, RADIATION FIELD IS CALCULATED USING
IMAGE THEORY AND RESULTS ARE COMPARED WITH THOSE OBTAINED BY
SAMPLING THE FAR-FIELD GIVEN BY FDTD SIMULATION
FIGURE 10
EXAMPLE OF CHAPTER 2. 3D PLOTS RADIATION PATTERN OF ANTENNA
ARRAYS HAVING DIFFERENT AMPLITUDE DISTRIBUTION
FIGURE 12
EXAMPLE OF CHAPTER 6 SHOWING THREE DIFFERENT METHODS OF DOA
(DIRECTION OF ARRIVAL). SEVERAL GUIDE COMMENTS SHOW THE STUDENT
HOW THE BEHAVIOUR IS RELATED WITH ANTENNA DESIGN
E-BOOK EVALUATION
The academic year 2004-2005 has been the starting point to
use the e-book. Subjective comments have been received from
the students. However, to evaluate even more the book utility,
the following objective experiment has been carried out:
A pre-test on general antenna theory with 30
undergraduate students. Test consists of 10 questions:
Session S2C
of the marks
of the marks
TABLE 2
RESULTS OF THE TEST
Preliminary test
Second test
Group A Group B Group A Group B
3.73
3.43
5.96
4.23
1.69
1.70
2.47
2.12
[2]
N.Narayana,
PC-Assisted
Instruction
of
Introductory
Electromagnetics, IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 33, n. 1, pp.
51-59, Feb 1990.
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]