WebRespond: About the Author

I would like to use this space as a preface to the Java applet WebRespond. The concept for this program came early in my teaching career at Cedarville College where I am employed as an associate professor of physics. I wanted to implement a computer based quizzing and review system for my students. I feel that holding a student accountable to learning the material and providing quick feedback are beneficial to the learning process. An automated system such as PLATO at the University of Illinois handles a lot of the tedium in meeting these educational goals. It was not until I heard about the Java language that I felt it was feasible to implement a quizzing program of my own. I am not a trained programmer, but have gained most of my programming experience while in graduate school. I earned my Ph.D. in atmospheric science from Purdue University and my research combined the topics of wavelet analysis, radiative transfer, and fractal modeling of inhomogeneous clouds.

My language of choice is C and Java's similar syntax makes the transition somewhat easy. The largest transition is moving to the object oriented paradigm. The built in network functionality of Java reduces much of the detail work necessary for adding email capabilities and accessing network documents. Although Java's AWT package is limited, it provides an adaquate cross platform GUI for displaying quiz questions and results. Java is slated as being a cross platform solution and this is attractive in education due to the diversity of hardware available in schools around the country and the world. The hardware on our campus is somewhat homogeneous; however, I hope this program will be useful to a wide range of institutions on a wide variety of computer platforms.

I would like to thank my lovely wife and my children as they have endured my many hours glued to the computer to complete this project. I would also like to thank Cedarville College which provided faculty incentive funds to get this project under way. I have enjoyed many hours of interaction with my colleagues, who provided many ideas which were incorporated into this version of WebRespond.  I would also like to thank the users of the first version of WebRespond, who provided valuable feedback for this current version.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my gratitude to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At a young age I recognized that I was a rebellious person and I lived by purely selfish motives. God, the creator of the universe, calls this sin and states that all people are sinners (Romans 3:23). Because God is perfect He must deal with sin. Sin has a penalty and that is death (Romans 6:23) or eternal separation from God. I knew at that young age that God was loving and that he provided a remedy for my sin (John 3:16). He sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, into this world to live a perfect life and to die in order to pay the penalty for my sins. This remedy is offered to me as a free gift (Romans 6:23) and I do not deserve it and can not earn it (Ephesians 2:8, 9). I received this gift of eternal life by faith trusting Christ alone for my hope of eternal life (Romans 10:9, 10, 13). Having established a right relationship with God I am able to establish a proper focus away from myself and towards God and others (Philippians 2:3-5). I am certainly not perfect and I fail often; however, this new focus gives me hope and joy as I live my life.