No desire to hit the books and cram boring material? Young people in particular would much rather spend their timewith computer games than with textbooks. How can we get youngpeople motivated to complete assignments with more enthusiasm?The Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF andthe textbook publisher Westermann in Braunschweig start with what young people like to do: They are exploiting young people’s enthusiasm for computer games. Together with the publisher’s editors,researchers at the IFF have developed a software, intended to make it easier for prospective metals technologists to learn the material in theirfirst year of vocational training. “Just like in a computer game,young people move through a virtual world,” explains Heike Kissner, Fraunhofer IFF Project Manager of the e-Learning concept. “In this virtualwork environment, trainees have to complete assignments from variouseducational modules.” One example: A complex drilling jig has fallen from a shelf onto the floor. In order to check whetherit is still in one piece or parts are missing, trainees disassemble itstep by step. To do so, they mouse click on a particular screw to be loosened and the corresponding screwdriver. If thestudent has selected the right tool, the screw loosens. Anotherscenario is a gluing jig: The researchers have coupled the 3-D jig with its 2-D pneumatic diagram. Thus, students arenot only able to perform virtual gluing processes but alsotrack the airflow path. Trainees concretely and sustainably “grasp” the theoretical foundations from class and can immediately try them out on their own. Metals technology instructors profit from the educational software too – classescan be organized more dynamically. The CD-ROM with the interactive software “Metals Technology: Basic Knowledge” is supplementedby print materials such as a conventional textbook.Metals technology experts supplied the substantive and pedagogical know-how and divided the material into meaningful learning fields. The researchersat the Fraunhofer IFF used their Virtual Reality Platform to work up modernmachinery and systems as well as tools based on the three-dimensional design data. This makes them visually “graspable” as virtual models in the interactive 3-D educational software.

The CD-ROM from Westermann Verlag is available in bookstores (ISBN 978-314-364203-0).

Contact:

Dr. rer. nat. Eberhard Blümel
Virtuell Interaktives Training VIT
Telefon: +49 (0) 391 / 40 90-110
Fax: +49 (0) 391 / 40 90-115
Fraunhofer Institute for
Factory Operation and Automation IFF
Sandtorstrase 22
39106 Magdeburg