Teaching about the electricity supply industry—The development and evaluation of a computer based teaching package for schools

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a computer based teaching package for use at upper secondary school level. The project was funded by Understanding Electricity, which is the educational service of the Electricity Council. The principles of electricity supply are integral to several subject areas in the school curriculum. The purpose of this package is firstly to provide well-resourced teaching material to cover these curriculum needs and secondly to provide an industrial context in which to apply the technical skills acquired in individual subject disciplines. The package is based on a computer simulation that enables the user to experience the problems of running an electricity supply system. The use of the computer in this way enables a powerful investigative approach to be adopted in the classroom. The paper begins by discussing the background to joint industry/education projects and the procedural models that have emerged. It continues by presenting the project history, the development team model used and the educational concepts of electricity supply that provide the background to the computer simulation. Attention is drawn to the ways in which the finished package matches the industrial resource material to curriculum needs. Teachers were involved from the beginning, both in the development of the computer software and in the production of curriculum material. They also undertook the design of investigations in specific subject areas—economics, physics, mathematics and geography. This paper presents the results of field trials and discusses the problems of evaluating and marketing educational material. Although the detail of this paper deals specifically with educational material developed for the Electricity Council, the principles discussed have significance for approaches to the production of educational software generally.