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Introduction to eTEACH

eTEACH is a vehicle for publishing coordinated multi-media instructional materials on the World Wide Web. Logically, an eTEACH presentation consists of digital streaming video, a coordinated “slide show”, a table of contents, and possibly optional materials and links to external web sites. The actual materials stored on the web server are an HTML frameset, associated web pages, the digital video, and associated JavaScript code, which controls and coordinates the presentation.

eTEACH Authoring Tool

In operation, an eTEACH presentation provides a compelling learning experience. However, without a convenient means of assembling the materials and code that make up a presentation, this technology would be little more than a technical “bag of tricks”. To address this issue, eTEACH includes an authoring tool, which puts the creation of such materials into the hands of non-technical people.

eTEACH authors begin with their edited digital video, and a set of web pages or images, which correspond to slides in the eventual slide show. Many authors use Adobe Premier® to edit their video and Microsoft PowerPoint® to create their slides, but lots of alternatives exist for these purposes. Using a point-and-click interface, the author creates one or more timelines and tables of contents. Each entry in a table of contents identifies a particular point in a timeline. Each point in a timeline can have one or more “commands” associated with it. These commands specify what content should be displayed in a particular frame at that point in time. Content can consist not only of HTML pages, but also DHTML, JPEG, GIF, or even other video materials. The authoring tool offers previews of all materials during selection, and rapid previewing of the resulting presentation. The eTEACH authoring tool is quick and easy to learn. Its output is ready to be published on the World Wide Web, or written to a CD for use without a web connection.