Structure of LO’s Modeling for eLearning Miguel Rodríguez Artacho LSI Dept. -- UNED University miguel@lsi.uned.es

What is ‘educational content’? Educational material developed to be consumed in computer based learning using on-line web environments Educational material has embedded pedagogical & instructional information Complex specifications and a variety of description standards Complex authoring process and difficult to maintain CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Educational Content: Desired properties Interoperability  Combine different specification in different contexts Maintainability  Contents must be maintainable and upgradeable Reusability  Allow ‘Cut & Paste’ for building new content Durability  Independence of the delivery technology CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Educational Content: Current problems Interoperability  It is not possible to re-assemble content Maintainability  Difficulty to update content, authoring not independent from VLE Reusability  Content embedded in VLE and nor searchable or retrievable Durability  Do not recover from a deep change in the delivery format or content format Lack of an abstraction level CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Educational Content: Abstraction Level Technical issues HTML tree, *.asp, form, GET/POST, ...  Pedagógical/Instructional Module, Task, Sequence, Prerequisite, Assignment, Exercise, Simulation, ... CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Learning Content Specification Lack of an appropriate abstraction level  Provide specifications with associated operational semantic. Not related with delivery formats Provide pedagogical design elements Authoring tools should not be in VLE’s but as standalone applications Make LO’s interoperable and reusable CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Learning Objects Interoperable educative content components Labeled with Metadata Context independent  reusable Organized in repositories (distributed) or in conceptual maps (ontology) Los LO son ladrillos o elementos bñasicos de la construcción de un escenario educativo. La creación de estos contenidos se hace mediante la asociación de metainformación a los objetos educativos y la búsqueda y recuperación de los mismos para reusarlos de acuerdo a su nivel de granularidad CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Uses of LO’s Metadata allow search and retrieval Aggregation of LO’s according to its aggregation level Repositories of LO’s ARIADNE (1997)  Development of LOM Other projects: OASIS, CELEBRATE (IST E.U.) Authoring process based on selection and aggregation CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Drawbacks De-contextualized learning Lack of personalization Reusability vs. Aggregation level Context vs. Interchangeability Lack of personalization No adaptability to students Complex business model Copyright restrictions Known problems of distribution (KaZaA, ...) CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Expressivity of contents Need of semantics associated to specifications Grouping of elements in semantic layers Meaningful elements for rest of layers Different specifications in different levels Classification of specifications depending on the covered levels CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Educational Content Management Pedagogical/Instructional Activity/Task Interoperability parameters with LMS Pedagogical/Instructional Pedagogical Information Activity/Task Educative processes y activities. Collaborative tasks and activities Secuencing Sequencing, prerrequisites, deadlines, dependencies Structure Navigational model Content Small LO’s, assets and formatted content Description levels of an educational material IMS -LD EML PALO … IMS -QTI SCORM 1.3 IMS SS IMS CP IMS -DR SCORM 1.2 CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Content Packaging: XML CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

IMS Content Package (Ex.) TOC 1 Lesson 1 lesson1.html Introduction intro1.html Content content1.htm Summary summary1.htm Lesson 2 … Introduction Content Summary IMS Manifest (XML) CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Educational Content Management Pedagogical/Instructional Activity/Task Interoperability parameters with LMS Pedagogical/Instructional Pedagogical Information Activity/Task Educative processes y activities. Collaborative tasks and activities Secuencing Sequencing, prerrequisites, deadlines, dependencies Structure Navigational model Content Small LO’s, assets and formatted content Description levels of an educational material IMS -LD EML PALO … IMS -QTI SCORM 1.3 IMS SS IMS CP IMS -DR SCORM 1.2 CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Sequencing Model (IMS) Figure I.1 above shows the various steps in the sequencing process. The control process is shown on the left. In normal operation, the overall sequencing process flows from navigation behavior to termination behavior to sequencing behavior to delivery behavior, followed by a wait while the learner interacts with the content resource, as described in steps 4-12 above. The right side of Figure I.1 shows the learner’s view of the learning experience. A content resource is delivered to the learner. The learner interacts with the content resource and results may be returned to the tracking model. The learner triggers an event that maps to a navigation request. The navigation request triggers the various steps in the sequencing process. Throughout all sequencing processes, a collection of state and tracking model data is maintained. Content resources may directly set values in the tracking model through a runtime communications interface to tracking model; this interface is not part of the specification and is not required. All of the other sequencing processes access and update elements of the tracking models. Changes to the state of an activity occur because of learner interaction with a content resource delivered for the activity or one of its descendents. If an external event affects the tracking, such as an instructor changing a grade, the model assumes processes are invoked as required to update the activity state model. CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Map SS and CP XML (Extensions) CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

IMS Specifications Describe separately different aspects of learning material Identify complexity of learning content authoring No RTE available for the whole mode (CP+SS+(LD|QTI)) CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Current Authoring model using LO’s Source: Carnegie Mellon www.lsal.cmu.edu/lsal Current Authoring model using LO’s CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Celebrate Demo Portal Celebrate created a Demo Portal to illustrate Search, retrieval and use of LO’s More than 1.500 LO’s currently available Mainly focused on schools, not for higher education Currently launching LIFE initiative to continue Celebrate (European School net, EUN) http://life.eun.org CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Celebrate Demo Portal CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

LO Examples Components of inner ear Process of destillation Change of State – Water CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Instructional Design & LO’s Research explores definition of activities as part of LO’s David Merrill (Utah Univ) proposes 4 types of LO’s Entities (objects) Properties (attributes of entities) Activities (Actions on objects) Processes (Change attributes triggered by activities)  Need to incorporate learning processes CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Concept of educational modeling language Content representation in a variety of levels Description of learning tasks: Modelization of activities and instructional processes Compatible with LO model Stored in repositories as another LO’s Use of ontology and conceptual maps to retrieve “low granularity” LO’s CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Educational Content Management Pedagogical/Instructional Activity/Task Interoperability parameters with LMS Pedagogical/Instructional Pedagogical Information Activity/Task Educative processes y activities. Collaborative tasks and activities Secuencing Sequencing, prerrequisites, deadlines, dependencies Structure Navigational model Content Small LO’s, assets and formatted content Description levels of an educational material IMS -LD EML PALO … IMS -QTI SCORM 1.3 IMS SS IMS CP IMS -DR SCORM 1.2 CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Evolution of Educational Modeling Languages CEN/ISSS Meeting in Torino (Oct 2001)  Introduction of: EML (UONL) PALO (UNED) Targeteam (German Mil. Forces Lab) Others See “Europe Focuses on EML” S. Wilson (CETIS) in http://www.cetis.ac.uk/content/20011015103421  Survey of Educational Modeling Languages  Development of IMS-LD based on EML (OU of the Nederlands) CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

IMS-LD Based on EML OUNL started 1997, research into pedagogies in use no description per pedagogy, but one meta-language to describe them all: Educational Modelling Language (EML), published in December 2000 CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

EML: simple yet powerful People engage in Activities, for which they use Resources People: one or many, learner or staff roles Activities: description, structured Resources: learning objects & services (chat, etc.) Many roles, activities and resources need co-ordination in a workflow: learning flow An instructional design/pedagogy/learning design essentially is a learning flow. CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

method play components Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 Role-part 1 Activity A play, as in a theatrical play, consists of acts, although there can be one-act plays. As in a theatrical play, acts run in sequence, with one starting when the previous act has finished. The transition from one act to another serves a synchronisation point for the multiple participants in a learning design. As in a theatrical play, an act includes one or more role-parts, which are ‘on stage’ at the same time. A role-part references both the role and the activity it is to perform in the act. Effectively it assigns an activity to a role, analogous to the script that the role has to perform in the act. An activity includes an activity-description and typically a pointer to an ‘environment’. The activity description says what the role should do with the things included in the environment, although it may have no environment, e.g. when it simply describes an offline activity. An environment may include both learning objects (content, content packages, SCOs, RIOs etc.), and/or services such as email and conference facilities which are to be used in the activity. The horizontal line dividing the diagram indicates the elements that are included in the method, which are above the line, and those included in the components, which are below the line. Thus the role-part acts as the link between these the method and the components. Environment Learning objects Learning services Activity- Description components CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

LD: XML - top level CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

LD: XML - method CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

LD: XML - components CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Example: Course creation in EML Roles: Definition of roles (ex. Student, staff member) and definition of the workspaces of each one of the roles, and also types of outcome Activities: Definition of content by mean of ona or more activities Methods: Definition of sequences of activities defining Activity structure Play per role Conditions Components: tools XML File (Example) CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Activity structure AS-boeing-simplified AS-introduction LA-fuel-valve-lesson-intro LA-fuel-valve-theory AS-lessons-and-procedure + E-interactive-electronic-training-manual AS-fuel-valve-lessons LA-lesson-hazards OR LA-lesson-components AS-fuel-valve-removal-procedure AS-tests + E-interactive-electronic-training-manual LA-knowledge-test-hazards LA-knowledge-test-components LA-performance-test CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Authoring process and use Requires a RTE to play the course (Edubox, Coppercore, etc.) Manage activities independently from LO’s and other static resources Manage static resources independently from activities defined in the course Reuse ALL: Resources, Activities, Course templates  !!This is it!! CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

More approaches to LO creation PALO Educational Modeling Language Developed at UNED University Presented in CEN/ISSS EML Workshop in Torino (2001) Features Uses of domain ontologies rather than metadata labeled LO’s Simple tasks (no roles) and sequencing CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Cognitive Design Process Conceptualisation Phase Creation of a generic domain to describe content matter = ONTOLOGY Instantiation Phase Creation of one or more instances for a particular domain matter CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

An example: Models and Meta-Models Concept Involve Problem Is Solution Solution Involve Con 031 Prob001 Prob002 Prob003 Prob004 Is Solution Instance Sol 023 CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Use of ontologies of LO’s Example Concept has illustrates Explanation prerequisite XML Example … Here you can find more <relation Name="Illustrates" Domain="Conceptual" Subject="invariant" Category="Example">examples</relation> of the concept invariant. Compound Functional group has belongs to IR spectrum Molecular Formulae CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

PALO production cycle PARSER Domain Knowledge Base PALO Template (DTD) PALO File (XML) PARSER Domain Knowledge Base CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Editing Process Student Scenario Tutor Scenario PALO Document Compiler Tutor Scenario Domain Model CBUC -- Barcelona, Junio 2004

Structure of LO’s Modeling for eLearning Thanks! Structure of LO’s Modeling for eLearning Miguel Rodríguez Artacho UNED University miguel@lsi.uned.es www.uned.es