Using SIMPLE to support the teaching of signal processing through multimedia tools

The work presented in this paper is a result of a workshop on multimedia instructional design for Engineering faculty held in Texas Tech University during the summer 1995, supported by the NSF. In this paper, a multimedia tutorial on signal processing is presented. The goal is to take advantage of the multimedia resources in order to present the concepts traditionally hard to visualize in this topic, in such a way that the student finds himself immersed in a self-study learning environment. The resources include graphics, animations, images, video, sound, and simulation packages. This work was developed on a software platform called SIMPLE. The first part of this paper is devoted to explain the structure of SIMPLE and the strategy for implementing a learning environment lying in the use of virtual graphical user interfaces supported by a powerful database engine. In the second part, the tutorial on signal processing and some representative examples are described. Concluding remarks about the use of this material in the classroom as an educational support in the Electrical Engineering program at Universidad de las Americas, are presented