Education Software
John A. Byers 
Slide Management:
SLIDES.EXE is a photo slide
manager that keeps a database of all your slides listed in alphabetical order or
numbered order (or combination) in one (usually) or several databases. A
description of each slide (80 characters) is shown in an editor so you can add,
delete or modify entries. A help popup window is always available by pressing
[F1], as seen in the picture of program screen. The list of slides, after you
enter some, can be searched for key words or combinations of key words, which if
found are highlighted. The searches take less than a second even for several
thousand slides. Another feature is that you can enter a word processor and make
a slide show by sequencing a list of slide letter-numbers separated by commas
for a particular seminar. You may have up to 999 of these slide-show talks. The
program also can make a list of these slides plus short descriptions if desired
and allows you to enter the time in seconds that you expect the slide to require
in a talk. The program makes a running total time (in minutes and seconds) as
you update the times for the slides. The list is automatically updated whenever
you change the slide-show file in the word processor.
Byers, J.A. 1999. Database program to manage slides and
images for teaching and presentations. Educational Media
International 36:77-80.  Download: SLIDES.ZIP
102K |
Animation: FLASH.EXE is a program system for teaching that makes and presents computerized
flashcards (slower flash rates) or animation sequences (faster flash rates). The
flash rate can range from once per 5 minutes down to many times per second. On a
233 MHz Pentium in DOS it was possible to view 40 images per second from the
hard disk. The sequences of pictures are made from *.PCX images with an enclosed
program called PCX-13.EXE. Using the converted images and textfiles of these
names, the program FLASH.EXE reads and shows the images for specific times. A
sequence of 40 images that repeat is included as an example (showing what a
flying bark beetle might view while travelling toward an infested fallen tree
and then leaving again). 
185K
partial animation?
| Byers, J.A. 1999. Flash cards and animation software for
education. Educational Media International 36:164-167. Download: FLASH.ZIP
1378K |
Two more
animation sequences of a bumble bee flying through lupin flowers in Värmland,
Sweden, and a panning of a Norwegian fjord can be run by FLASH.EXE.
Download: LUPINS.ZIP
1408K
Download: NORWAY.ZIP 1032K
Expert Quizzes on the Internet:
HTML and JavaScript web pages interactively pose
questions at random with multiple choice answers. Questions are ranked for
difficulty based on prior student tests. During a quiz, the system tracks the
percentage of correct answers and adjusts the difficulty of questions
appropriately. A compiled BASIC program (QUIZMAKE.EXE) allows teachers to make
specialized web quizzes from text files of questions and answers, without the
need to know HTML, JavaScript, and BASIC programming languages.
Review the
operation at http://vinsonlab.tamu.edu/john/papers/udt/exam1-f.htm
| Byers, J.A. 1999. Interactive Learning Using Expert System
Quizzes on the Internet. Educational Media International
36:191-194. Download: ITQUIZ.ZIP
48K |
HEARING.EXE tests your hearing for higher
frequencies from 18000 Hz down to 40 Hz (hope you can hear something before you
get to 40 Hz). A program that is fun for everyone, and can be helpful to know
when you are not hearing so well due to clogged ears, age (unfortunately), or
some other reason (like damage from music). Program requires only the pc's
speaker. Download:
HEARING.ZIP 37K
REFLEX.EXE tests your reflex speed from when you
either see a white spot on the screen (eye to hand speed) or hear a peep (ear to
hand speed). They should be similar if not identical. Compete with your friends
or yourself. You could cheat but it is not easy since the start is random and
false starts are not allowed. Still you might once in a while "jump the gun" but
you can't do it very often. Download: REFLEX.ZIP 37K Test your reflexes on the Internet
Mineralogy - Geology:
GEO-CARD.EXE - This program is for geologists (mainly those
specialized in mineralogy). I made this program for my Dad who retired from the
US geological survey (USGS) at age 65 and again from Los Alamos Nat. Labs. at
75. Now he is doing service work for them by looking at sample points on a
microscope slide with a thin section of a rock. He identifies which minerals are
present at the points to determine what kind of rock and geological formation
the thin section is from in order to make geological maps (by USGS) or for other
purposes. Earlier he used cards to record the data and had to add up the values
manually, so I made a program that would print up the cards, act as a dedicated
spreadsheet, and maintain a database on the rock thin-sections. Download: GEO-CARD.ZIP
70K
Software for DOS/Windows 3.1 or 95. The ZIP files must be
unzipped before use.
To uncompress *.ZIP files you must have
PKUNZIP.EXE or UNZIP.EXE. After downloading you must be in DOS and
type:
pkunzip geo-card.zip
or whatever the name is. Download: PKUNZIP.EXE
29K - or you may download my general setup program JB-SETUP.EXE 50K
which will install any of the program systems here.
|
Genealogy: PEDIGREE.EXE -
A program for showing your pedigree, or direct line of your ancestors. For
example, you have a mother and father (yes you do) and they each had a mother
and father etc. etc. The number of ancestors doubles each generation backwards,
e.g. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 etc. so you have 32 great great great grandmothers and
an equal number of great great great grandfathers (I hope). If you or someone in
your family have done genealogical work, as my mother did, then you can enter
all your ancestors names, births, deaths, and other personal information into a
database. The program allows one to explore the relations graphically (actually
as a text screen that appears as a graphic screen) using the cursor keys. The
percentage of genes that you and a distant anscestor share is always calculated
(let's get things in perspective). Notes can be looked at for each ancestor and
these can be updated in a word processor of your choice. A calendar shows the
birth, marriage and death dates of your anscestors and the appropriate day of
the week (e.g. born on a Friday 1 OCT 1920, yes that is the correct day). A
companion program can take a database called a *.GED file made by the program
PAF (Latter Day Saints, or Mormon church) and convert it to the database used
with PEDIGREE (or you can enter all the data manually in the program). Download: PEDIGREE.ZIP
93K
COMBINATIONS- COMBI.EXE can show and make a file of
all combinations of up to 100 things in any size groups up to 100. For example,
it can show all combinations of ABCDE (5 things) in groups of 3: ABC ABD ABE ACD
ACE ADE BCD BCE BDE CDE. Also, permutations (order is important, so ABC, ACB,
BCA, CAB etc.) and all possibilities (even AAA, AAB etc.) can be listed, but
only up to 100 things in groups of 6 maximum. The program was upgraded to handle
up to 100 ASCII characters (A to ñ) on 1 June 2000.
Download: COMBI.EXE 49K You
may also like to explore combinations on the web.
by John A. Byers