Friendly Internet Front End

Target Grades:

K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

The FIFE project allowed NASA data and information products derived from NASA-related sources to be combined with educational "context" to support elementary level weather education. All products were based on a lesson, which was an interactive multimedia file with built-in educator controls. Lessons are Macromedia Shockwave movies that can be created by the IWEAuthor tool. Many controls and structures were developed, in part to help control group use of lessons in school computer lab environments.

WebIWE
A Netscape Navigator-based browser interface for "playing" the lessons

IWEAuthor
An authoring system for creating lessons, including a parts library and a GUI for creating and organizing lessons, creating interactions, and creating graphics and media

IWEPlayer
A stand-alone playback engine that will work even on basic computers. The lessons can also be stored on floppy disks and play on off-line computers

IWECommunity
A virtual community with interactive discussion forums.

System Requirements:
All: any color Macintosh or Windows 3.1, 95, NT, or later computer with QuickTime 2.0 or later WebIWE: any Internet connection (such as AOL), Netscape Navigator 2.0 - 3.0, Shockwave plug-in IWEAuthor: 14" or larger color screen, 8 MB RAM, 10 MB free hard disk space IWEPlayer: any color screen, 4 MB RAM for Macintosh or Windows 3.1, 5 MB free hard disk space IWECommunity - any Internet connection and common web browser.

Web Access: http://fife.arc.nasa.gov/

Additional Information:

Jeff Morse, jmorse@vertice.com for technical help in using this system

Dave Zink, dezink@erols.com for project management questions