教育软件的交互性研究

信息技术与课堂教学整合过程中,教育软件的交互性受到了广大教师的关注。本文论述了教育软件交互性的内涵、交互的分类和设计以及交互性的课堂教学功用等方面的内容。     

DEVELOPING EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE: A PROFESSIONAL TOOL PERSPECTIVE

The selection, and use of educational software and its impact in schools are still controversial issues. In this paper we present an alternative conceptualisation of educational software based on considering the software as an instrument for teachers' professional performance. We review previous work in the areas of the design, development and evaluation of educational software and of the process of educational innovation. The review of these four areas converges to demonstrate the need for knowing and considering the context of use of educational software and for understanding users' perspectives about its roles and possibilities and hence supports a perspective on educational software which sees it as a professional tool for teachers' performance of their teaching role.     

Would boys and girls benefit from gender‐specific educational software?

Most boys and girls interact differently with educational software and have different preferences for the design of educational software. The question is whether the usage of educational software has the same consequences for both genders. This paper investigates the characteristics of drill‐and‐practice programmes or drills that are efficient for boys and girls. The experiment was carried out in order to find out the characteristics of drills that have statistically significant correlations with the learning outcome of boys and girls. The findings about statistically significant gender differences will be discussed. The paper concludes with some recommendations for composing drills appropriate for both genders.     

Parent-Child Collaborative Explanations: Methods of Identification and Analysis

Educational researchers are increasingly using design as a means of advancing their understanding. Historically design in educational research has served as a way to implement theories for testing. The emerging design research paradigm treats design as a strategy for developing and refining theories. In this article, I discuss the lessons that can be learned from design. Starting from a model that characterizes designs in terms of problem analyses, design solutions, and design processes, I describe 3 types of theories that can be developed through design research: domain theories, design frameworks, and design methodologies. I present examples from a design research program investigating software supports for reflective inquiry. I argue for design research as form of educational research because (a) design offers opportunities to learn unique lessons, (b) design research yields practical lessons that can be directly applied, and (c) design research engages researchers in the direct improvement of educational practice.     

Challenging Prospective Computer Engineers to Design Educational Software by Engaging Them in a Constructivist Learning Environment

This study focuses on the development of prospective computer engineers' knowledge of educational software design through their involvement in a constructivist learning environment emphasizing project based learning. Within this environment prospective computer engineers (PCE) adopted a variety of roles namely: learners, teachers, users, designers, implementers and evaluators of educational software dealing with concepts of computer science while also taking into account theoretical educational considerations regarding constructivism and social views of knowledge construction. The analysis of the data shows that PCE frequently start by considering traditional behavioristic views regarding teaching and learning as well as regarding the design of educational software. The PCE progressed to accept more constructivist views regarding teaching and learning as well as to designing educational software by communicating their knowledge with their colleagues and the teacher in the project based context. PCE also progressed through the evaluation of the educational software using real classrooms. By exploiting the given feedback, PCE improved the quality of software specifications.     

A Study of the Use of Ontologies for Building Computer-Aided Control Engineering Self-Learning Educational Software

This paper describes research on the use of knowledge models (ontologies) for building computer-aided educational software in the field of control engineering. Ontologies are able to represent in the computer a very rich conceptual model of a given domain. This model can be used later for a number of purposes in different software applications. In this study, domain ontology about the field of lead–lag compensator design has been built and used for automatic exercise generation, graphical user interface population and interaction with the user at any level of detail, including explanations about why things occur. An application called Onto-CELE (ontology-based control engineering learning environment) uses the ontology for implementing a learning environment that can be used for self and lifelong learning purposes. The experience has shown that the use of knowledge models as the basis for educational software applications is capable of showing students the whole complexity of the analysis and design processes at any level of detail. A practical experience with postgraduate students has shown the mentioned benefits and possibilities of the approach.     

Toward Educational Requirements Model for Mobile Learning Development and Adoption in Higher Education

Mobile learning (M-learning) is a learning paradigm that utilizes the advantages of mobility and wireless technologies in the learning and education process. It can be characterized by the ability to support and provide strong interaction between learners and instructors, offering high levels of learning motivation, collaboration, and flexibility to the learning activities. Despite the increased popularity of M-learning, there is no complete and well-defined set of educational requirements for M-learning in higher education which considers both instructional design and M-learning design. Therefore, this paper proposes a new educational requirements model for M-learning development and adoption in higher education. This set of requirements has been built from a literature study with focus on standards for learning and mobile application software quality and guidelines. This work presents the results of applying the proposed set of educational requirements on three different M-learning systems. Instructional designers and educational software developers may find the requirements useful in the development of M-learning systems. The effort described is part of an Omani-funded research project investigating the development, adoption and dissemination of M-learning in Oman.     

教学游戏设计中结构性要素的调查与分析

借鉴Pernsky对计算机游戏的结构性要素分类设计了评价表,对101个教学游戏进行了调查。调查发现,网上不同学科教学游戏中存在着一些问题。要解决这些问题应该：实现问题与背景的真正融合;追求教育性和游戏性相平衡;保持冲突和对抗的水平与学习者的技能和进度同步;设置灵活的交互激发学习者的兴趣。     

Design of Interactivity in Virtual Reality Applications with Emphasis on Educational Software Using Formal Interaction Specification

Virtual Reality (VR) technology has already entered into the area of the educational software and delivers systems where the trainees can use interactive virtual microworlds and benefit by transfer of experience, interacting directly with the learning domain. This paper describes the Virtual Multi Flow Graph (Virtual-MFG) graphical formal model and the Interaction Specification Workspace (ISW) software architecture for the interaction specification and design of VR applications with emphasis on educational software. The interaction designer specifies the interaction issues of the final system formally, using the tools of ISW. The virtual microworld's objects database is updated with these interaction specifications which include both the virtual objects' dynamic properties and their tutoring capabilities. The model is validated by applying it on an existing VR educational software (EIKON). The Virtual-MFG graphs specifying a learning scenario of EIKON along with the application of ISW on EIKON are also presented.     

独立学院综合教务管理系统本地化策略研究

随着独立学院的发展,教务工作逐步脱离母体,教务系统作为现代化教务工作的重要手段,其建设工作提上日程;而独立学院尚不具备自主开发的能力,购置专业软件成为主要途径,在以往的教务系统引进经验中,系统本地化问题一直被忽视,导致系统不能真正发挥作用;以南通大学杏林学院为例,在科学设计本地化流程的基础上,制定了适宜的本地化策略,使系统的搭建和应用更具有针对性,从而有助于提升学院的综合教务管理水平。     

关于提高教育软件创作质量的探讨

建立、完善教育软件质量评价体系，是评价教育软件质量好杯的重要手段，本从除教育软件质量评价体系以外的角度，论述了如何才能更好地提高教育软件的质量。     

Investigate and Decide Learning Environments: Specializing Task Models for Authoring Tool Design

The complexities of building educational software can be reduced by relying on appropriate tools for adapting and re-using similar, previous applications. Although researchers have been creating tools for automating some aspects of software design, most of these tools typically aim for generality, attempting to cover a broad class of interactive programs in many domains. However, this approach may not be effective for building complex interactive systems, and fails to re-apply the instruction and design expertise implicit within prior software applications. An alternative is to provide tools which use specialized, rather than general, task models, tailored specifically to a target category of software. In addition, an understanding of the authoring task itself can inform the design of such specialized authoring environments. This article presents a prototype authoring tool for interactive educational software, called IDLE-Tool. Investigate and Decide Learning Environments (IDLE) is introduced as the task model around which the tool is based, and a model of the authoring process, called Guided Case Adaptation, is offered as an approach to employing the model and an exemplar in tandem to effectively support the design process.     

App Store中儿童教育软件的现状分析与对策研究

数字化时代,移动教育资源为学前儿童的学习提供了崭新的模式。如何将移动教育资源更好地满足儿童的学习体验需求,满足他们的认知、心理特征,是设计开发者关注的话题。按照"评分""价格""人气"的分类标准,App Store儿童教育软件具有界面精美、视觉冲击力强,交互性强、学习趣味浓厚等优点;但也存在着软件资源只强调知识灌输,不注重启发式学习,一定程度上影响了儿童的身心健康成长等问题。对儿童教育软件的设计开发,要注意创设学习情境、寓教于乐;改善应用功能,引导合理使用移动资源。     

Building Educational Tools Based on Formal Concept Analysis

The increasing demand for quality in educational software makes it necessary to use tools and methodologies that support both the design and the development process of this kind of software. In this paper we propose Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) as the basis for a practical and well founded methodological approach to the design of educational applications. FCA is a technique that can be applied to model the linguistic conceptualizations that experts make when describing their expertise domain. Thus, FCA can be used as a complementary tool to support design decisions about the structure and the interface of educational applications. We also present how we are using FCA in two different projects: a help system for the Unix operating system, and a multimedia tutorial for improving second language text comprehension. In the final discussion we raise some questions about FCA applicability and introduce some future lines of work. © IFIP, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers     

Design Issues in the Use of Robots as Cognitive Enhancement Aids

Abstract

Robotic manipulators are being used in an investigation of their potential as effective classroom learning aids when used by severely orthopaedically disabled children to manipulate educational materials and to play games. During the course of the design and development of a prototype robotic system for educational use, several issues have surfaced that constitute serious considerations in the process. Of particular importance are issues involving accessibility, software design, curriculum integration and specific research questions involving spatial visualisation. Performance data from previous investigations has shown that learning to use robots can be easily accomplished, and that the consequent learning is remarkably resistant to decay over time.     

IDEA: Identifying design principles in educational applets

The Internet is increasingly being used as a medium for educational software in the form of miniature applications (e.g., applets) to explore concepts in a domain. One such effort in mathematics education, the Educational Software Components of Tomorrow (ESCOT) project, created 42 miniature applications each consisting of a context, a set of questions, and one or more interactive applets to help students explore a mathematical concept. They were designed by experts in interface design, educational technology, and classroom teaching. However, some applications were more successful for fostering student problem-solving than others. This article describes the method used to mine a subset (25) of these applets for design principles that describe successful learner-centered design by drawing on such data as videos of students using the software and summaries of written student work. Twenty-one design principles were identified, falling into the categories of motivation, presentation, and support for problem solving. The main purpose of this article is to operationalize a method for post hoc extraction of design principles from an existing library of educational software, although readers may also find the design principles themselves to be useful. This project was funded by a seed grant from the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies funded by the National Science Foundation (REC # 9720384), and was partially supported by Educational Testing Service. Any opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necesarily of Educational Testing Service.     

AIDA: a methodology independent support tool for educational software authoring

Many authoring tools have been proposed in an attempt to find more effective ways to face the challenge of developing educational software. However, most of them are reported to be restrictive, since they are strongly connected to a specific educational software development methodology. The AIDA (Ambiente Integrado para o Desenvolvimento de Aplicações educacionais) authoring environment was developed at the University of Coimbra having as its main objectives the support of most of the activities involved in authoring and making educational software development easier. The AIDA system is based on a design module, i.e. a prototyping tool allowing the creation of Windows-based software, including multimedia features. The system assists evaluation activities and it caters also for support on translation and cultural adaptation, as well as on the reutilization of educational materials. The use of the AIDA environment is illustrated by three small examples using different development methodologies.     

社会性软件——网络教研的有效工具

随着教育信息化的发展,网络教研成为一种重要的教研形式.如何发挥网络教研的优势是提高教研质量的关键.社会性软件是网络上实现“人与人交互”的重要工具,是显性知识管理和隐性知识转化的有效平台,它改变了知识传播的方式.在网络教研中,社会性软件的应用有利于教师进行教学反思和教育叙事研究,有利于教师专业化发展,有助于发挥网络教研的优势,使每个教师都成为教育的研究者.     

课件制作软件比较初探

随着现代教育技术越来越多地被应用到教学中来,制作多媒体课件也越来越重要,而选择合适的软件是课件制作的首要问题.文章就几款常用的课件制作软件在数据数据整合、教据处理、动画制作、交互设计能力及易用性、可修改性、播放的系统要求等方面做了一些比较研究,并据此提出各软件适用的情况.