Item |
Function and Feature |
Example |
Under the Example section, there are usually several Selection
Boxes in which the learner could choose other sets of variables to evaluate. This feautere enables the learner to feel about the variable dependence (or relationship) of the final result. It is provided by the Javascript programming and is illustrated by the following example.
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Programmed learning box |
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Figure |
There are plenty of color drawings or diagrams used for illustrating facts and concepts. They normally have 16 colors only and are compressed in gif format in order to reduce file size.
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Photo |
There are many photos of real objects (normally with 256 colors) located in various
parts of the homepage and their presence is each indicated by a special icon. They are used as examples and detailed study is usually not required. Hence, most of those photos are not shown explicitly on the home-page so as to reduce the downloading time. The learner needs to click the special icon in order to show it in another window and this feature again requires the Javascript programming.
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Hypertext |
Each keyword is adhered with a hyperlink either to generate a pop-up window or to jump to another location (normally within the same page) for showing the definition or further explanation. We deliberately avoid using too much hyperlinks within the content part so that the learner may not get lost so easily.
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Navigation Icon |
There is a set of small-size pictures with hyperlinks normally located at the end of each page. They are used for navigation purpose, i.e. to go to next or previous section or to jump a specific page such as the Problems page, the Summary page, the Short Quiz page, the Contents page and the Front page etc. Their locations for guided learning need very careful consideration because many dependent learners may get lost without the minimal guidance (i.e. what to do next).
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Colored Text |
Keywords or important phrases are highlighted with colors, making the text less monotonic. This is in fact the most favorable feature in the hypermedia as reflected from the questionnaire survey.
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Formula and Symbol |
Apart from the superscript and subscript, most features required for creating formulas or equations are sofar not supported by HTML. Hence, formulas and symbols which are very often present in Science, Mathematics and Engineering subjects have to be created in a word processor and then converted into an image file in gif format. A library of images for scientific or mathematical symbols is established for repeated usage.
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