Is automated and personalized e-learning a utopia? MATI Montreal October 21, 2009 María Luisa Sein-Echaluce Dpto Matemática Aplicada Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

Zaragoza (Spain)

Content Our group I2FM (FMI) Automated and personalized itineraries WHY? Characteristics of MOODLE Conditionals WHAT?... HOW? Current experiments WHO?... WHEN?

Grupo I2FM: Investigación e Innovación en Formación Matemática

Universidad de Zaragoza (UZ):  Departamento de Matemática Aplicada E.U. de Ingeniería Técnica Industrial Centro Politécnico Superior  Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación Universidad Jaume I de Castellón (UJI)  Departamento de Matemática Aplicada y Métodos Estadísticos Group: Research and Innovation in Mathematical Training I2FM

Spanish collaborators Universidad Las Palmas de Gran Canaria ULPGC CICEI (Centro de Innovación para la Sociedad de la Información) Universidad Politécnica de Madrid UPM  LITI (Laboratorio de Innovación y Tecnología de la Información)  Cátedra UNESCO de Gestión y Política Universitaria  Departamento de Matemáticas y Métodos informáticos de la ETSI Minas

UZ UPM UJI ULPGC

e-LKE-EG project C1 = UZ + UJI + UPM pps Latex/pdf MAthematica Matlab WebCT DSED … TIC Cooperation & Education Mathematics First year student C2 = C1 + CILEA + Ostrava + Ireland C3 = C2 + ULPGC+ Canada+Chile MOODLE TEOREMA/e-LKG Projects e-learning Groupware KMS When? Who? What? Multilanguage Conditionals Improved quizzes Improved contents Competences Personalized learning

First year university student Aim: reduce the gap between Secondary Education and University Secondary

Formative weaknesses e-learning b-learning Virtual communities Teorema project First year university student EEES New Engineering Degree Active methodologie s Innovation in Mathematical training COMI Official subjects E-LKG project Face to face classes Groupware Competences

project e-LKG Platform: A new open source platform for integrated Groupware and Knowledge Management services in e-learning. Testing and starting up Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain (2006/2008) Universities: UJI, UPM, UNIZAR. ( e-L earning, K nowledge management, G roupware)

Plataform: MOODLE (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) An e-learning course in MOODLE  with better functionalities for personalization of learning paths  a big repository of mathematical resources  cooperative activities  tutorized learning process Open Source Flexible Big community

CILEA ( C onsorzio I nteruniversitario L ombardo per l’ E laborazione A utomatica, Milán ) Italian collaborators Spanish & English versions of TEOREMA in Zaragoza + e-LKG (adaptation to other degrees)

Unidades de aprendizaje TEOREMA TEaching On-line pRoject for Economic MAthematics

Learning Units (TEOREMA/eLKG) 1. Logic 2. Sets 3. Real Numbers 4. Algebra 5. Equations and Disequations 6. Analytic geometry 7. Trigonometry 8. Functions 9. Complex Numbers 10. Matrices and determinants 11. Derivatives 12. Primitives Repository of theoretical units and quizzes in English, Italian and Spanish (Knowledge Tree)

Studies and experiments Evaluation of the entrance profile at the University: Design of the evaluation, implementation and results. Experiments with different learning units of TEOREMA/eLKG with First year university students of Engineering and Business degrees at the UJI (Castellón), UNIZAR (Zaragoza) and Italian Universities (also in the last year of Secondary School) Opinion poll

WHY personalized itineraries ? E-learning means… anyone, anywhere, any time BUT… what about… …different backgrounds? …students starting the online course at different times? …different progress? etc.

Different itineraries have become necessary for the following reasons: They are widely demanded in the user community They allow to customize the learning process They allow curricular diversification They allow automize some tutor task

What to do with personalized paths? Identify prior knowledge of students and condition the activities and resources by obtained results. Set different learning paths by applying conditional activities Keep track of the course structure Follow the students’ progress during the course Establish flexible groups for each activity. Research the use of different options (styles, background, paths, etc...). Improve the managing of courses which are always open to enrolment.

CICEI (Centro de Innovación para la Sociedad de la Información) Univ. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Developers of Conditional Activities in MOODLE

HOW to make the itineraries? Conditioning activities in MOODLE: Choice: whether the student answered and what their answer was Forum: Topics started, number of messages, success (number of answers to a specific message) and grade Glossary: Entries added and the number of comments made Quiz: Rating and answers of the questions Task: whether the student sent it and its grade Wiki: Number of times edited For any resource: whether the student accessed etc

You can also condition on: Elapsed time (in days) since the course was first entered by the student Elapsed time (in days) since the official beginning of the course Elapsed time (in days) from a certain date Student language Student country

Who? and... When? After the previous studies of entrance profiles of students and the experiments with mathematical resources...we are carrying out... Implementation, evaluation and quality control of TWO courses with different path design Engineering and Business Degrees At three Spanish Universities (Castellón, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Zaragoza) Academical year

−Four mathematical units −Units will be opened depending on the questions answered correctly in the initial test. −Activities: All theories, quizzes and a general forum for each unit, final opinion poll. FIRST COURSE:

SECOND COURSE: −One mathematical unit −Sections are divided in two groups (elementary and advanced) −The mark and the questions answered wrongly in the Initial Test will establish the different paths. −Activities: theories and quizzes are organized in two versions (complete and “light”). Q&A forums. Tasks. Final opinion poll.

Aplication and evaluation of a prototype Facts and proposals  DEFINITION OF PATHWAYS  Section 2. P5 and P10 of IT: Both correct  Answer on a Q&A forum Only one wrong  Do the “light” version of the contents Both wrong  Seguir la versión completa de los contenidos Section 3. P1, P6 and P9 of IT: All correct  Do a simplification task Only one wrong  Versión Light Two or more wrong  Complete version Section 5: do the complete version in any way In case of IT=10, depending on the TUTOR The result of the initial test (TI) establishes the path proposed to the student If the initial test (TI) <5, the complete version will be done If 5<=Test Inicial (TI) <=10, the path depends on the answers

Theoretical Units Selfevaluation tests Open answer questions Forums Tasks Blogs Wikis Opinion poll Learning tests

Internationalization I2FM, Zaragoza I2FM 1 UPM, Madrid 2 LITI, Madrid 3 UJI, Castellón 4 Institute of Technology Sligo 5 CILEA, Milano 6 Università degli Studi Milano Bicocca 7 Università Cattolica el Sacro Cuore, Milano 8 CICEI Univ. Las Palmas Gran Canaria. 9 Technical University Ostrava 10 Scienter, Bologna y más

Cooperation with Italy −CILEA Repository of mathematical contents Implementation of Conditionals from CICEI Management of multilanguage courses in MOODLE (platform and content). −Universities in Milano Scientific supervision of mathematical material (theories and quizzes)

Cooperation with other foreign groups Ireland −Revision of English contents −Use of the TEOREMA/eLKG course −Comparison of results −Cooperative tasks Czech Republic In addition... −Possible translation into Czech −Activities 2.0 Canada (Université de Montreal) −“Drill-and-practice” integrated in Moodle

Cooperation with foreign groups We expect... − Translation into other languages − Experiments with our courses (without or with Conditionals) − New mathematical topics...

Contact: María Luisa Sein-Echaluce