A NEW APPROACH TO INTERACTIVE TUTORIAL SOFTWARE FOR ENGINEERING-EDUCATION

The experimental tutorial software described in this paper is designed specifically for engineering education at the university level, and i t is significantly different in purpose and structure from other educa tional software, Its goal is to help students understand, visualize, a nd connect basic concepts, It is not a design tool or a wealth of hype rlinked text or an infinite source of drill problems, It is intended t o be a dynamic and flexible resource for instructors as well as studen ts and to be used by groups as well as individuals. It takes advantage of currently available high-resolution graphics capability to go beyo nd what can reasonably be expected of textbooks or computer systems wi th small low-resolution displays. Since the software is written as an X Windows Motif application, it achieves a wide degree of platform ind ependence for workstations and PC's, In addition, the tutorial set can be distributed without license fees or additional software acquisitio n costs for the user.