The Use of Applets in an Engineering Chemistry Course - Web-Based Engineering Education: Critical Design and Effective Tools - page 117

Finally, we can see from the graph 8 (Figure
8) that both simulations would help the discipline
and, according to question 9 (Figure 9), their ap-
plications could be done in different ways, being
a class assignment or a home assignment.
To give continuity to the work done so far,
question 10 (Figure 10) provided us some indica-
tives of how the Applet could be expanded. We
can see that the answers given by the students had
a balance percentage.

can make a good judgment on the effectiveness of
the simulations. Another important result was that
the students felt that the Applet develop was better
than the other simulation present to them, mainly
because of the interactive aspect of the Applet.
With all that was discussed we feel that the
use of simulations with interactive aspects is
very important and can make the learning process
very interesting for the students and the profes-
sors. There are several disciplines that can make
use of computational simulations, remembering
that, if used with the different methodology, one
that tries to create a co-participation of everyone
involved in the process, it can become a powerful
tool to complement classes and laboratory classes
already used.

concLuSIon

New technologies can help the improvement of
education, if used in a correct way. Taking this in
consideration, different education methodologies
were studied in order to develop a series of Applets
for a discipline in the Polytechnic School of the
University of São Paulo. The one chosen to be the
guideline of these programs is in line with Paulo
Freire's view of education, where the student has
an active participation in the learning process.
Without this participation, the learning process
becomes a reproduction of previous events and
facts lived by the student, which represents Pau-
los Freire's banking education. Co-participation
is fundamental to have a better learning process,
according to him.
In order to achieve this, interactive needs to be
a strong feature of the Applets. The professors of
the discipline QTG, together with the development
team, created the idea of a virtual chemistry labo-
ratory to help the students understand and have a
better view of the whole process of the discipline
and how the concepts approached in the course
interrelate with each other. The first Applet was
created and it was tested in a group of students.
The students sent some positive feedback, which
indicates that some of the objectives proposed by
the Applets are being accomplished. One important
aspect of the test group is that they had already
been in contact with computational simulations
before. That indicates that the group is critic and

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