"Nifty diode circuits": using the World Wide Web in an electronics class

The World Wide Web (WWW) is an effective educational tool when used to enforce pedagogical goals. An experiment using the WWW in an electronics course at Bucknell University provided students with an opportunity to learn how to design a Web page, learn about diode circuits, share their knowledge with their classmates, and evaluate their classmates' reports. Electronics 1 is a required course for electrical engineering juniors with a weekly lab. This course covers semiconductor properties, device physics, operation, modeling, and design applications of diodes and transistors. To improve the laboratories, students are encouraged to describe their suggestions in their lab reports. The "Nifty Diode Circuits" lab has students in groups of two investigate the function of three diode circuits. In 1995 the number of circuits was extended to five and the lab was made into an exercise with the WWW. Each group wrote a memo in hypertext markup language (HTML) describing the function of their circuit. The student memos served as a report on what was done in lab and to instruct other students on that circuit's operation. Students reviewed each others memos and voted for the best memo in the categories of Presentation, Content, Analysis, and Overall. The WWW provided an excellent forum for students to share their reports and many students appreciated learning how to put a document on the WWW using HTML. In their evaluations of this laboratory, students considered learning HTML the most valuable part with learning more about diode circuits a close second. Student response to this experiment was positive with several students commenting favorably on the use of HTML in the final course evaluation.