Research on the Application of Software Engineering in Multimedia Courseware Development
With the rapid development of computer technology and communication technology, multimedia courseware has been widely used in education. Due to the lack of development team and methods, the software crisis of courseware development is reflected in high development cost, long cycle, low quality and difficult use. The development mode based on software engineering can alleviate the software crisis and improve the development efficiency and software quality.
Keywords: software engineering; Multimedia courseware; Software crisis
With the rapid development of computer technology, multimedia technology is also developing rapidly, and with the widespread popularity of computer-aided teaching, teaching courseware of various disciplines came into being. Theoretically speaking, a large number of teaching courseware can reduce teachers' workload and improve teaching quality, but in fact, there are not many teaching courseware that are really used well and skillfully in teaching. The development cost is high, the software quality is low, and repeated development is common, so it is difficult to meet the growing demand for teaching courseware. This bad phenomenon is called "crisis of teaching software". To eliminate this software crisis, we must have a correct concept of software development. Applying the idea of software engineering can effectively alleviate the software crisis and improve the success rate of multimedia courseware development [1].
1 Basic concepts of software engineering
1. 1 software engineering
Software Engineering (SE for short) is an interdisciplinary subject between computer science and engineering. It studies and applies how to develop and maintain software in a systematic, standardized and quantitative procedural way, mainly by applying engineering methods and technologies to study the methods, tools and management of software development and maintenance. It involves many subjects, such as computer, mathematics and management, to help people alleviate the problems caused by the software crisis.
1.2 software crisis
Software crisis refers to a series of serious problems in the development and maintenance of computer software [2], which leads to the confusion of the whole development process and the development in trouble. The economic crisis is mainly manifested in the following aspects: 1) It is difficult to estimate the cost and progress of software development, which usually greatly exceeds expectations; 2) Users are usually dissatisfied with the "finished software"; 3) The software quality cannot be guaranteed; 4) The software is not maintainable, and the upgrade should be started all over again; 5) The software has no complete documentation. In order to alleviate the software crisis and develop higher quality software, the theory of software engineering technology is fully applied to the whole process of software development and maintenance.
1.3 software cycle
Software life cycle (SDLC) is the life cycle of software from generation to scrapping, including requirements analysis, design, coding, debugging and testing, acceptance and operation, maintenance and upgrading to scrapping, etc. This time-divided thinking method is an ideological principle in software engineering, that is, step by step, step by step, and each stage should be defined, worked, reviewed and documented for communication or reference. However, with the maturity of new object-oriented design methods and technologies, the guiding significance of software life cycle design methods is gradually decreasing.
2 the concept of multimedia courseware
Courseware is any teaching software with certain teaching function, which is called courseware [3]. Courseware presents learners with learning content, testing, feedback and guidance of learning quality. Multimedia courseware is a courseware that introduces multimedia technology into computer-aided education. The form and content of courseware are monotonous, such as practice program, test program and a large number of information-oriented products, such as electronic encyclopedia. The content of multimedia courseware is rich and colorful. The great potential of multimedia technology in computer-aided instruction human-computer interaction mainly lies in its ability to select and control information expression forms, at the same time, it can improve the combination of information expression forms with people's logical thinking and creativity, and expand people's information processing ability in terms of order and symbolic information.
In order to adapt to the development of education and teaching, more and more colorful multimedia courseware is needed, which requires more multimedia courseware. In order to develop higher quality multimedia courseware, we need to develop it from the perspective of software engineering.
3 multimedia courseware development process based on software engineering
Multimedia courseware design is an important part of courseware development, and the quality of multimedia courseware directly determines the quality of courseware. Multimedia courseware is also a kind of software. We can develop multimedia courseware from the perspective of software engineering, which must follow the software life cycle. At the same time, we should fully consider relevant factors from the perspective of pedagogy and psychology. The development of multimedia courseware is usually divided into the following five stages.
3. 1 Analysis of teaching needs
Requirements analysis is to describe the overall concept of software function and performance as specific software requirements specifications, thus laying the foundation for software development. Teaching demand analysis still follows the idea of software engineering, and its main task is to demonstrate the feasibility and necessity of multimedia courseware development.
3. 1. 1 Definition of the problem
What needs to be clear at this stage is "what is the problem to be solved" [3]. We should clearly know what teaching problems should be solved in the development of this courseware. If it is not clear, blind development will only waste resources such as time and money. So the definition of the problem must be determined at this stage. This is the first problem to be clarified in the development of multimedia courseware.
3. 1.2 Feasibility Analysis
Now that we know the definition of "problem", we should make a feasibility analysis to solve the necessity and feasibility of developing this courseware. In order to complete this task, full-time staff need to conduct a lot of market research and research, and initially give an overview of the whole courseware development, a prototype. This stage is relatively short, mainly to study whether there is a solution to the problem and whether there is a feasible method. This stage determines whether the multimedia courseware will continue.
3.2 Teaching design of courseware
After the work in the requirements analysis stage, it is clear what the system must do, and it is time to decide how to do it in the overall design stage. The basic purpose of the overall design is to answer "in short, how to realize the system?" This problem [4]. This stage is mainly: 1) dividing the physical elements that make up the system-programs, files, databases, manual processes and documents; 2) Design the structure of the system, that is, determine which modules each program in the system consists of, and the relationship between these modules.
Four working steps in the overall design stage
1) find various schemes to realize the system, and do it with reference to the data flow diagram obtained in the requirements analysis stage.
2) The analyst selects several reasonable schemes from these alternatives for analysis, prepares the system flow chart for each scheme, lists all the physical elements that constitute the system, carries out cost-benefit analysis, and formulates the schedule of this scheme.
3) The analyst comprehensively analyzes and compares these reasonable schemes, and selects the best scheme to recommend to users and users.
4) Optimize and improve the final solution, so as to get a more reasonable structure, design the necessary database, determine the test requirements and make the test plan.
From the above description, we can easily see the necessity of overall design before detailed design, and determine the goal and scale of courseware development after demand analysis. Then the teaching design, also following the idea of software engineering, is divided into teaching logic design and teaching unit design. For example, the teaching software of software engineering is divided into the following modules according to its objectives and functions.
5 Teaching logic design
The main task of teaching logic design is to design courseware according to the development goal determined by teaching demand analysis, which is divided into two parts: teaching design and style design [5].
5. 1 instructional design
1) Determine the teaching objectives; 2) dividing teaching units; 3) arranging the teaching units in sequence and drawing the flow chart of the teaching units; 4) Determine the teaching method and the structure type of courseware; 5) Determine the student information model.
5.2 Style design
It refers to the style followed by courseware in dealing with teaching content, human-computer interaction activities, scheduling control methods and other related issues. 1) teaching unit class length; 2) Man-machine interface; 3) the level of interactive activities; 4) Scheduling mode of teaching units; 5) System environment for courseware running; 6) Written materials issued by courseware.
6 teaching unit design
The design of teaching unit solves the problem of detailed design of courseware. Teaching unit is the basic unit of courseware teaching. In teaching design, it is necessary to determine the information structure of each teaching unit, list the teaching contents in detail, and determine their screen design and presentation order.
7 Collection and processing of multimedia data
The preliminary work has been completed, and the next step is to enter the programming process. According to the requirements of the script, collect and sort out relevant media materials, try to be integrable, improve the reuse rate of materials and reduce the amount of software text.
8 synthesis
According to the previous design, that is, the framework and performance style, the staff programmed it, made and used certain materials, and then tested and debugged each sub-module separately to conduct comprehensive testing and adjustment [6].
9 Operation and maintenance
The teaching software runs normally and can be released. The subject is constantly changing, and the teaching software comes into being, so it should be constantly improved and maintained.
10 summary
Software development is a systematic project, and the development of high-quality teaching courseware requires the active cooperation of all parties. In the development process, software methods are extremely important, so software methods are also valuable experience accumulated by people in their long-term work. The application of software engineering theory to the development of multimedia teaching courseware is beneficial to improve the success rate of software, thus getting rid of the crisis of teaching software and improving the quality of teaching software.
References:
Chen Bing. Application of Software Engineering in Teaching Software Development [J]. Journal of Guangxi Education Institute, 2007(2).
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Lin Shimin, Zhu Xinhua, Qin Deze, et al. Computer Aided Instruction [M]. Guangxi: Guangxi Science and Technology Press, 2007:66-70.
Zheng Renjie, Yin Renkun. Introduction to software engineering [M]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Publishing House, 1998.
Chen. Design and production of multimedia courseware [J]. Fujian Computer, 2003(2):4 1-43.
[6] Tan Xingbang. On the making of multimedia courseware [J]. Shaanxi Education, 2003(3):36.