Designing an Interactive Multimedia Application for the Course “Communication Circuits”

A.N. Borodzhieva University of Ruse “Angel Kanchev”/Department of Telecommunications, Ruse, Bulgaria

aborodzhieva@uni-ruse.bg

Abstract – The paper describes a multimedia interactive application elaborated in English and Bulgarian, that will be utilized for teaching the course “Communication Circuits” of Bachelors in the specialty “Internet and Mobile Communications” in the University of Ruse, and mostly for Erasmus students (in English) attending the course. With the help of the application based on varied patterns of exercises students will be able to learn the basic concepts and issues related to the subject, including resonant circuits, electrical filters and modulations. It is planned to be multilingual, incorporating English, Spanish, French, Russian and Bulgarian.

Keywords – Communication Circuits, Active Learning, Interactive and Multimedia Learning.

I. INTRODUCTION Today, many universities in the world are striving to

evolve more efficacious and attractive teaching and learning styles, supported by the rising of information and communication technologies (ICT). Innovations in education have incited the design of interactive multimedia technologies, such as “computer-based instruction and assessment”, intelligent and integrated learning systems, etc. On its basis, the knowledge transfer needs to be resilient to the learners making the connections between “learners and learning resources”, pursuing “higher levels of interaction between learners in order to increase the importance of independent learning”.

Converting the “traditional teacher-oriented learning style” into “innovative student-oriented learning style” based on learners’ interactions with other, improves the quality of education, stimulates students to show their knowledge they have learned during classes, builds communication and collaborative skills in students while working in teams, helps sharing experience between the students while interacting in the process [1].

The use of interactive multimedia systems in education helps students to better master the material in the course, increasing their effectiveness, respectively their grades, their motivation to learn and their skills for creative and

logical thinking. The advantages of interactive multimedia systems are undoubtedly: a more interesting way of presenting information, the ability to learn anytime and anywhere, reducing teaching time and improving the motivation and quality of student learning [2].

The term “interactivity” is notably applied when talking about multimedia learning, but its definition and its advantages are not clearly specified. Some researchers have made attempts to define the term “interactivity” and the factors that influence it when designing interactive systems, as well as to present an interactive model involving “the user, learning environment and a system of connections and concepts” [3].

The paper describes a multimedia interactive application elaborated in English and Bulgarian. Using it, students may learn in an attractive manner the basic concepts studied in the course “Communication Circuits”, including resonant circuits (serial, parallel, and more complicated), electrical filters (LC filters of type “K” and “m”, passive and active RC filters) and modulations (amplitude, phase and pulse modulations) making various patterns of exercises (“learning by doing” and by playing). The application will be utilized in the course “Communication Circuits” for the educational qualification degree “Bachelor” in the specialty “Internet and Mobile Communications” in the University of Ruse, and mainly for Erasmus students attending the course. The application is planned to be multilingual, incorporating Bulgarian (designated for Bulgarian students), Spanish (the second most widely spoken language in the world), French and Russian (in addition to English).

II. A MULTIMEDIA INTERACTIVE APPLICATION FOR THE COURSE “COMMUNICATION CIRCUITS”

A. Interactive Multimedia Computer, network and multimedia technologies have

opened different channels for students to improve their knowledge and the competence of the scientific field they are involved in. Using multimedia applications, teachers can present the information in an innovative manner and motivate the students to learn quickly [3]. Interactive multimedia is equipped with user-operated controller tools and users can choose what they want for the next process, like in interactive games and CD applications (Fig. 1).

The most important feature of interactive multimedia is the students not only pay attention to media or object,

This paper is supported by the National Scientific Program “Information and Communication Technologies for a Single Digital Market in Science, Education and Security (ICTinSES)”, financed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Bulgaria. The work presented in this paper is completed as partial fulfilment of Project 2020 – FEEA – 03 “Design and development of a multifunctional robot for implementation and evaluation of autonomous navigation algorithms”, financed under the Scientific and Research Fund of the University of Ruse “Angel Kanchev”.

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but also required to interact during learning. Interactive multimedia combines all media elements such as text, graphic, audio, video, visual and sound effects, and interactivity (Fig. 1) [3].

Text

Graphic

Animation

Video

Music

PROCESSING

SOFTWARE

Visual Effects

Sound Effects Interactivity

Computer-Based Learning

MULTIMEDIAPRODUCT

Figure 1. Process of development of learning multimedia based on computer

B. Activities in LearningApps LearningApps is a Web 2.0 application, supporting the

processes of learning and teaching based on small interactive modules used for self-studying or directly in learning materials. Reusable building elements, known as Apps, are collected and made available to everyone. The Apps do not include specific framework or learning scenario and they are not suitable as complete lessons or tasks, but they can be embedded in an appropriate teaching scenario [4]. The most important activities in LearningApps are explained in [4, 5] and presented in Fig. 2.

Activities in LearningAppssearching the Apps collection by key-words

browsing available Apps in the overview page in a given category

creating new Apps using different templates

creating a free account for saving the user’s Apps

changing the language of the interface

selecting a category and filtering the Apps by subject

filtering by school level

displaying the detail page of an App and formulating the task to be solved

creating a new custom App based on an app used as a template

saving the App to the user’s account

embedding the App into other web-sites using the links for copying and sharing

Figure 2. Activities in LearningApps

C. Active Learning Using Project-Based Learning and Team Work in the Course “Communication Circuits” For the first time, this learning approach was applied

in the training of two Erasmus students: M. I. Mazola Ortega (Spain) and J. Wysowski (Poland), who developed an application (in Spanish and English) for training in the discipline “Pulse and Digital Devices” and presented it at the conference of the University of Ruse, Fig. 3 [5]. For studying the topics in digital electronics testing exercises

were developed using the templates “Matching Pairs”, “Hangman”, “Group assignment”, “Multiple-Choice Quiz”, “Pairing Game”, and “Horse race”, with details for creating the App based on the template “Matching Pairs” are presented in [5].

Figure 3. Presentation of the application developed by Erasmus students at the conference of the University of Ruse

For the purposes of the course “Communication Circuits” studied by bachelors (3rd year) in the specialty “Internet and Mobile Communications” and mainly for Erasmus students attending the course in the University of Ruse interactive multimedia applications have been created in English and Bulgarian during this academic year (2019-2020). The applications, covering varied types of testing exercises, allow students to learn in an attractive and fascinating manner the basic concepts studied in the course, including resonant circuits, electrical filters and modulations. The structure and the contents of the course is presented in Fig. 4.

Figure 4. Structure and contents of the course “Communication Circuirs” for 3rd year bachelors

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At the beginning of the semester, students get acquainted with the idea of project-based learning and its advantages (Fig. 5), which argues the need for the introduction of team and project work during the classes. This proved to be extremely useful, especially this academic year (2019-2020), in the context of Covid-19, when the transition to distance learning was necessary.

Collaboration

Problem Solving

Creativity

In-Depth Understanding

Self-Confidence

Critical Thinking

Perseverance

Project Management

Curiosity

Empowerment

Project-based learning (PBL) isa student-centred pedagogicalmethod involving a dynamicclassroom approach, wherestudents are believed to acquiremore in-depth knowledge usingactive research of real-worldproblems. Students learn thematerial by working for longperiods of time to research andfind an answer of a complexquestion, challenge, problem orscenario.

Figure 5. Project-based learning and its benefits

The students are assigned, as a task for their project activity, the development of a multimedia interactive application, choosing the appropriate environment for the purpose. At the beginning, an example of such a platform, LearningApps, is presented to the students, as the teacher introduces them to the various opportunities provided by the platform [4, 5, 6] and varied types of testing exercises developed for the purposes of different courses such as “Pulse and Digital Devises” [5], “Communication Circuits” (an example, presented in the paper), “Coding in Telecommunication Systems” [6]. There is no restriction on the means used for creating the applications. For example, students with good computer knowledge, skills and abilities can develop their own such applications, Web- or Windows-based. However, the practice has shown that in the presence of instructions for working with this platform, and mostly due to the presence of an interface in Bulgarian, all students chose this platform to create their application.

The application of active learning methods using project-based learning and team work in the course “Communication Circuits” is illustrated visually in Fig. 6. An example distribution of activities over time is shown in Fig. 7, in the form of a Gantt chart. First, students are divided into two groups: conditionally called Bulgarian and English. The English group includes students with relatively good knowledge and use of English. Teams are formed on a voluntary basis (students who know each other well and can work in a team), and the team includes one student from the Bulgarian group and one student from the English group. Each team is given a specific topic from the subject matter studied in the course “Communication Circuits” (Week 1, Fig. 7).

In the working process, the students in the team should choose the environment (the way) they will use to perform their task, look for adequate references (mostly textbooks, recommended by the teacher [7-13]) on the topic, select appropriate templates for the tests, choose appropriate questions and answers and the relevant photo materials (pictures, videos, etc.) that will be used in the construction of the tests, etc. Depending on the type of literature used (Bulgarian or English) the students must translate the materials into the other language (English or Bulgarian). This allows the construction of a bilingual multimedia interactive application in Bulgarian and English, which has the same structure and contents in both languages.

Figure 6. Applying the project-based learning and team work in the educational process

Students must prepare in advance (using different software products for this, such as MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, Paint, etc.) in a Word document the materials that will be used to create the tests and present them to the teacher for checking, so that errors not to be made in the development of the testing exercises.

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 131. Forming teams and getting the assignment2. Selection of an environment to create the application3. Searching for references4. Preparation of questions and answers (documents)5. Verification of the documents by the teacher 6. Creating tests in the selected environment7. Presentation of the development to colleagues

WEEKSTASKS (PROJECT-BASED LEARNING)

Figure 7. Distribution of activities over time using Gantt chart

For completing the execution of their task, students must describe the steps in the application creation process citing the references used and attach screenshots (Fig. 8 and Fig. 9) to be able to follow these steps, as well as attach photos from the application testing (creating the pairs, filling in the blanks, etc., depending on the templates they have chosen), Fig. 10, explaining them. At the end of the semester, students from each team present their application to all their colleagues, providing the links to which they are published so that the tests can be used by their colleagues in the discipline to prepare for the upcoming exam. One of the students or more develop a Web-site with links of all the materials created by the students for their using when preparing for the final exam in the course (Fig. 11).

Below a brief description of creating such an application is given, as it is expected to be performed by students (by analogy with the development of user documentation accompanying a software product).

For building a testing exercise on the topic “Modulations”, the template “Matching Pairs” is selected. The steps in the process of creating are given in Fig. 8 and they are as follows:

1) The title of the App is defined – in this case, the title is “Modulations” (Fig. 8, part 1); 2) A short description of the task for the App, shown on start up, is given – in this case, “Make the pairs: image + text to speech (audio) OR text + video!” is specified (Fig. 8, part 2). 3) The pairs are specified (Fig. 8, part 3A and part 3B), by entering the two media which belong together and they can be a mix of text, images, audio or video – here, different media are chosen. 4) Up to three additional elements that will be displayed but do not belong to the solution might be added, but in this case this option is not used (Fig. 8, part 4). 5) An option for making matching pairs disappear might be selected, where matching pairs will be automatically checked and then disappear. In this case, it is not checked, and matching pairs will not disappear without this option (Fig. 8, part 5). 6) A choice how the cards to be displayed with two options “Cards one above the other” or “Cards alongside one another” is available –here, the first option (by default) is chosen (Fig. 8, part 6). 7) Feedback is provided (Fig. 8, part 7) – here, the text “Great, you've found the solution!” is specified and it will be displayed when the solution is found. 8) Providing some hints how to solve the App, that can be viewed by the user via a small icon in the upper left corner is also possible, in this case it is left blank, no hints are supposed to be given to the student, because the answers are very easy. All these steps are described in the platform and it is not difficult for students to explain them briefly in their explanations.

1

2

3A

3B

4

5

7

6

8

Figure 8. Steps in creating the application – describing each step in the process

When defining the pairs in the template, for attracting users’ (respectively students’) attention, the elements used for the pairs are “text to speech” (Fig. 9 a) (audio), and video (Fig. 9 b). The video clips used in the application are from YouTube [15, 16, 17]. The choice of images and videos might be from Internet, giving URL address or from PC or the user’s own.

To their solution, students add in a separate folder all the graphic images, audio and video components, they have created for their application, as well as links to the used graphic, audio and video elements [15, 16, 17], if students use them in advance, due to copyright protection.

The initial state (initial view) of the exercise and the formulation of the task are given in Fig. 10 a. When clicking on “Audio”, a window with an option for listening to the audio, appears (Fig. 10 b). When clicking on “Video”, a window with an option for watching the video appears (Fig. 10 c). The final state where all the answers are right (marked in green) and the corresponding greeting message “Great, you've found the solution!” are

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shown in Fig. 10 d. The situation with a wrong choice, marked in red, is presented in Fig. 10 e.

a)

b)

Figure 9. Creating the App based on the template “Matching Pairs” using audio and video components

In the academic 2019-2020 year, an experiment for applying active learning methods including project-based learning and team work was conducted with the students-bachelors of the specialty “Internet and Mobile Communications” in the course “Communication Circuits”. The students had to implement such interactive and multimedia applications. All of them chose the platform LearningApps due to: 1) its interface in different languages, including Bulgarian; 2) detailed instructions for working with the platform; 3) many examples developed with this platform for studying different courses in their specialty.

The students did brilliantly their assignments, showed interest in the platform, experimenting with different templates and options of the templates and showed different testing exercises to their colleagues. The used templates were “Matching Pairs”, “Group assignment”, “Free-text input”, “Matching Pairs on Images”, “Multiple-Choice Quiz”, “Cloze text”, “Crossword”, “Word grid”, “Guess the word” as the template “Matching Pairs” turned out to be the most preferred by the students.

One of the teams suggested as an example a solution to a problem, as the individual stages of the solution were shown as images and the user who solves the problem must arrange them in the correct sequence, choosing the appropriate “Number line” template.

a)

b)

c)

d)

WRONG

RIGHT

e)

Figure 10. States of the testing exercise built on the template “Matching Pairs” on the topic of modulations: a) initial (formulation of the task);

b) listening to audio; c) watching video; d) final (right choice and greeting message); e) final (wrong choice)

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According to students, some of the templates did not seem particularly suitable for building learning applications for students at a university, such as “The Millionaire Game” (known for entertainments on the television) and “Horse race”. The templates “Simple order”, “App Matrix”, “Audio/Video with notices”, “Group-Puzzle”, “Where is what?”, “Pairing Game”, “Guess”, “Tools”, “Voting”, “Chat”, “Calendar”, “Notebook”, “Pinboard” were not selected by the students during this academic year. Some of the students said that they could not understand their functioning because the examples were not in languages known to them, and they did not have enough time to make experiments.

Students demonstrated great interest in the material studied and shared that they learned a lot about the construction of multimedia interactive applications, as well as concepts in the terminology used in the discipline “Communication Circuits” using an attractive way of learning by doing.

One of the students interested in web design, suggested to create a Web-site with links of all the materials created by the students for their using when preparing for the final exam in the course (Fig. 11).

According to the Gantt chart (Fig. 7) the students from each team had to present their texting exercises to all their colleagues, but due to the Covid-19 crisis, the presentation could not take place in person, so the solution was using the system BigBlueButton [18], Fig. 12, preferred for synchronous distant learning during this semester by most of the teachers and students at the University of Ruse “Angel Kanchev” or Microsoft Team [19], the other alternative in the university.

Figure 11. Index page of a Web-site developed by the student with all the links of the tests during the academic year 2019-2020

Communication Circuits

Figure 12. Presenting the multimedia interactive applications using the system BigBlueButton

III. CONCLUSION The paper demonstrates a tool for designing interactive

and multimedia training systems applied for attracting students’ attention to the material studied in the course “Communication Circuits” in our university. The applications allow students to learn basic definitions based on texts, pictures, audio, etc. studied in the course. Various types of testing exercises and their creating are presented in the paper. The application is intended to be extended, covering more topics, more types of testing exercises, and more languages, for example Bulgarian and Spanish.

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[4] https://learningapps.org (Last visited: July 2020) [5] M. I. Mazola Ortega, J. Wysowski, A. Borodzhieva, “Designing

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[6] A. Borodzhieva, “Development and Description of an Interactive Multimedia Application Applied in the Course “Coding in Telecommunication Systems””. 16th International Scientific Conference "eLearning and Software for Education" (eLSE 2020), 23-24 April 2020, Bucharest, Romania, Proceedings, Volume 2, pp. 548 – 565, doi: 10.12753/2066-026X-20-158.

[7] A. Manukova, A. Borodzhieva, “Communication Circuits – Exercise Guide”. Ruse, University of Ruse, 104 pages, 2002.

[8] R. E. Ziemer, W. H. Tranter, “Principles of Communications: Systems, Modulation, and Noise”. Seventh Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 746, 2015.

[9] S. Haykin, M. Moher, “Communication Systems”. Fifth edition, International Student Version, Wiley, 2009.

[10] L. W. Couch, “Digital and Analog Communication Systems”. Sixth edition, Prentice-Hall, 2001.

[11] Th. L. Floyd, D. L. Buchla, “Electronics Fundamentals: Circuits, Devices and Applications”. Eighth Edition, Pearson New International Edition, Pearson Education Limited, pp. 1065, 2014.

[12] St. Winder, “Analog and Digital Filter Design”. Second edition. Newnes, Elsevier Science (USA), pp. 458, 2002.

[13] W.-K. Chen, et al, “The Circuits and Filters Handbook”. Editor-in-Chief: Wai-Kai Chen, CRC Press LLC, pp. 2881, 2003.

[14] Modulation. https://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definition/ modulation

[15] Amplitude Modulation Tutorial and AM Radio Transmitter Circuit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I_e7gIyfQg

[16] Frequency Modulation – Part I - Basic Principles. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=gfz1FbIOMbs

[17] What is Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)? https://www.you-tube.com/watch?v=YJmUkNTBa8s

[18] BigBlueButton, https://bigbluebutton.org/ (July 2020) [19] Microsoft Teams, https://www.microsoft.com/bg-bg/microsoft-

365/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software (July 2020)

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