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.     

Computer-aided authoring of assessment instruments: An activity-theoretical approach

Abstract

Various researches have been conducted on the role and importance of assessment in education as well as its impact on the learner and the overall learning process. In fact, the way assessment is formulated in a particular subject shapes the way students learn. They focus their learning to comply with assessment requirements that they anticipate. In this article, the study is focused on the written examination papers (teacher-made tests) that are normally prepared at the end of a semester or an academic year to assess students of secondary and tertiary levels. The study also investigates how well papers are set and balanced according to the cognitive levels defined by Bloom (1956) and the learning outcomes/objectives as defined for the subjects. A collaborative process model as a framework for the design of such tests that can enhance the evaluation process is proposed. A brief argument is made for a case for a computer-supported collaborative environment to implement such a framework and which is based on activity theory. Such a framework is implemented in the form of MYSTIC; a collaborative authoring software for assessment instruments. The software allows stand-alone as well as collaborative authoring of examination papers and also helps academics' decision-making concerning the examination paper balancing and moderating process by graphically displaying and comparing marks allocated per question paper against the learning objectives     

Flexible authoring and delivery of online courses using IMS Learning Design

Since the publication of the IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) specification in 2003, many initiatives have been undertaken to build authoring tools that are simple enough to be used by non-technical instructors and teachers. IMS LD's technical complexity is believed to be a major burden for the adoption of the specification. We have developed a new approach for course authoring and delivery that hides most of the complexities and is powerful enough to create highly flexible online courses. Key aspects in this approach are (1) integration of IMS LD authoring and delivery tools in order to enable teachers to adapt courses in runtime and (2) the use of templates to standardize aspects of the LD. This article reports on the research and development of this approach, as well as a first implementation by the Open University of the Netherlands as part of an integrated e-learning system.     

Novice and experienced instructional software developers: effects on materials created with instructional software templates

The development of instructional software is a complex process, posing high demands to the technical and didactical expertise of developers. Domain specialists rather than professional developers are often responsible for it, but authoring tools with pre-structured templates claim to compensate for this limited experience. This study compares instructional software products made by developers with low production experience (n = 6) and high production experience (n = 8), working with a template-based authoring tool. It is hypothesized that those with high production experience will be more productive and create software with a higher didactical quality than those with low production experience, whereas no differences with regard to technical and authoring quality are expected. The results show that the didactical quality was unsatisfactory and did not differ between groups. Nevertheless the templates compensated for differences in experience because the technical and authoring quality was equal for both groups, indicating that templates enable domain specialists to participate successfully in the production process.     

多媒体创作软件在教学课件制作中的应用

计算机辅助教学（CAI）已经得到普及,作为CAI系统核心部分的课件的好坏直接决定了教学效果的优劣。各种多媒体创作软件以其自身的优势在教学课件的制作中起到了关键性作用。针对目前教学中对积件型课件的需求情况,提出较为合适的综合使用多媒体创作软件制作积件型课件的方案。     

E-learning中基于Web的概念图协同创作系统研究

概念图是学生协作知识建构的一种有效支持工具,然而在Web环境下概念图的协同创作系统的研究却并不多见。鉴于此,文章通过对协作学习中概念图的理论研究,分析了概念图协作创建过程中学习者的认知过程,设计了基于概念图的协作知识建构的理论模型,设计了概念图协作创作系统的功能模型和动态模型,介绍了基于Flex和FMS技术的系统实现方案,讨论了系统功能和实现过程。文章的研究成果能丰富协作知识建构的理论研究,推进概念图在网络协作学习实践中的应用。     

Understanding metacognition through the use of pupil views templates: Pupil views of Learning to Learn

As part of the Learning to Learn Phase 3 Evaluation [for full detail see Higgins, S., Wall, K., Baumfield, V., Hall, E., Leat, D., Moseley, D., et al. (2007). Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation: Final Report. London: Campaign for Learning. Available at: www.campaignforlearning.org.uk; Higgins, S., Wall, K., Falzon, C., Hall, E., Leat, D., Baumfield, V., et al. (2005). Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation Year One Final Report. London: Campaign for Learning. Available at: http://www.campaignforlearning.org.uk; Higgins, S., Wall, K., Baumfield, V., Hall, E., Leat, D., Woolner, P. et al. (2006). Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation: Year Two Report. London: Campaign for Learning. Available at: http://www.campaignforlearning.org.uk] teachers across three Local Authorities in England were supported in using an approach fitting ideas of professional enquiry through action research [Baumfield, V., Hall, E., & Wall, K. (2008). Action research in the classroom. London: Sage]. In this complex project, teachers have explored different innovations that they believe to fit under the umbrella term of Learning to Learn, implementing and investigating approaches ranging from cooperative learning [Kagan, S. (2001). Cooperative learning. Kagan Publishing. www.Kaganonline.com] to Assessment for Learning [Black, P. J. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education, 5, 7–73] to Thinking Skills [Baumfield, V. & Higgins, S. (1997). ‘But no one has maths at a party: Pupils’ reasoning strategies in a thinking skills programme. Curriculum, 18(3), 140–148]. As part of these enquiries teachers have increasingly involved pupils and their perspective for providing critical insight to processes associated with Learning to Learn. This corresponds to debates around pupil voice [for example, Flutter, J. & Ruddock, J. (2004). Consulting pupils: What's in it for schools? London: Routledge Falmer], and also the fact that teachers in the project see pupils as having characteristics that can support the development of a Learning to Learn philosophy [Hall, E., Leat, D., Wall, K., Higgins, S., & Edwards, G. (2006) Learning to Learn: Teacher research in the zone of proximal development. Teacher Development, 10(2)] This paper will use the method of pupil views templates [Wall, K. & Higgins, S. (2006). Facilitating and supporting talk with pupils about metacognition: A research and learning tool. International Journal of Research and Methods in Education, 29(1), 39–53] used by teachers as a pragmatic tool [Baumfield, V., Hall, E., Higgins, S., & Wall, K. (2007). Tools for enquiry and the role of feedback in teachers’ learning. Paper presented at the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction Conference] to research pupils’ perspectives of Learning to Learn and the processes they perceive to be involved. It will use an analysis frame to examine and explore data about pupils’ declarative knowledge of the process of learning and therefore aspects of their metacognitive knowledge and skilfulness [Veenman, M. V. J. & Spaans, M. A. (2005). Relation between intellectual and metacognitive skills: Age and task difference. Learning and Individual Differences, 15, 159–176].     

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.     

Turning to case studies as a mechanism for learning in action learning

Case studies are a useful means of capturing and sharing experiential knowledge by allowing researchers to explore the social, organisational and political contexts of a specific case. Although accounts of action learning are often reported using a case study approach, it is not common to see individual case studies being used as a learning practice within action learning sets. Drawing on a network action learning (NAL) project, this paper explores how the process of coaching, articulating, authoring, sharing and editing case studies provided a vehicle for learning and research within a NAL set. The intended contribution of this paper to the theory of action learning is to extend the range of learning practices to include the case study within the NAL set. It discusses how case studies act as boundary objects, which are artefacts that can be used to cross boundaries between groups in order to facilitate learning that might not otherwise occur.     

多媒体作品的创作与开发

通过分析目前流行的创作工具的特点,提出了一个集多媒体信息处理、剧本编辑及演播于一体的创作系统的总体结构、设计方法及主要的实现技术。     

教学中的信息本质与智能教学系统元信息结构研究

为简化智能教学系统设计,增强可维护性,提出了一种信息元结构。通过分析教学过程中的认识论信息内涵,得出授课单元的三元信息结构:内容、条件和效用。建立了基于该结构的智能教学系统创作工具的工作模型,证实了它能够支持高效清晰的智能教学系统创作。     

Post-critical writing praxis as a qualitative researcher

The intention of this paper is to unsettle our habits of scholarly writing and reading, from within the grids of intelligibility of Western, rationalist materiality, so as to make visible what we/I no longer often see: the academic writing and publishing constraints that discipline our assemblages of knowledge. Taking poststructuralist articulations of the ‘critical’ and ‘ethical’ as heuristics for developing a praxis of critical deconstructive authoring, where agency is coterminous with, not external to, the event of writing, it puts to work Foucault’s perspective that the subject is a form, not a substance, (Foucault, 1984 Foucault, M. (1984). The ethics of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), (2000) Essential works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984 – Vol. 1 ethics, subjectivity and truth (pp. 281–302). London: Penguin [Google Scholar], p. 290) to explore one way of crafting ‘an academic subject yet to come’ (Ball, 2016 Ball, S. (2016). Neoliberal education? Confronting the slouching beast. Policy Futures in Education, 14(8), 1046–1059.10.1177/1478210316664259[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 2). Beginning with a brief consideration of the normative mechanisms that govern scholarly writing, it then uses some of the conceptual tools of Foucault, Derrida and Spivak to unfold and vindicate spaces in the grids of governance for reforming the subject.     

Classroom effects are as large as grade-level effects on curriculum-based measurement maze reading scores of secondary school students with and without special educational needs

Background

Previous studies used curriculum-based measurement (CBM) maze scores as an indicator of the reading comprehension level of secondary school students with and without special educational needs in multiple grades, pinpointing a high influence of both student- and context-related variables. However, studies on cumulative influence are necessary for better understanding of data-based decision-making.

Methods

We examined a sample of 1066 secondary school students using four linear mixed-effect models: How much variance in maze scores exists between multiple student characteristics (i.e., gender, immigration background, learning disability and developmental language disorder) and context variables (i.e., classroom, grade and school type) across Grades 5–8?

Results

The intra-class correlation (ICC) results show that the influence by the context-related variable classroom (ICC = .094) is almost as large as by the variable grade level (ICC = .126). School type (i.e., inclusive school vs. special school) has the least influence (ICC = .02). In addition, the effects of student-related variables explain only a small proportion of the variance (marginal R² = .114).

Conclusions

Maze scores can be used as a screening instrument for students with multiple characteristics across grades; they also show that it makes no difference which type of school students attend. As teachers and further classroom-related variables have almost as much influence as grade level, we discuss that teachers can minimise classroom effects by using maze scores as a formative approach.     

作为创作工具的多媒体课件开发

分析了用于多媒体课件开发的创作工具应具备的基本功能,并探讨了用创作工具开发课件的方法和步骤．     

A concept to simplify authoring of adaptive hypermedia eLearning structures

Adaptive Learning Systems have been developed to improve learning success by increasing learner satisfaction, learning speed, and educational effectiveness. However, authoring adaptive eLearning structures is still a complicated task for lecturers, because they are unaccustomed to the way of thinking and to the workflows that are needed for the creation process. This paper describes a research project developing a concept that helps authors with the structure creation process, focussed on sequencing of content. Therefore, the issue was approached from the authors' perspective. First, storytelling theory has helped understand content structures and provided insights into how authors work. Second, by investigating the linear structure of learning content, information for sequencing could be extracted, providing the basis for an approach that is based on relations of different authors' content, and defining interdependencies that delinearise the content structure.     

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.     

The influence of a game-making project on male and female learners’ attitudes to computing

There is a pressing need for gender inclusive approaches to engage young people in computer science. A recent popular approach has been to harness learners’ enthusiasm for computer games to motivate them to learn computer science concepts through game authoring. This article describes a study in which 992 learners across 13 schools took part in a game-making project. It provides evidence from 225 pre-test and post-test questionnaires on how learners’ attitudes to computing changed during the project, as well as qualitative reflections from the class teachers on how the project affected their learners. Results indicate that girls did not enjoy the experience as much as boys, and that in fact, the project may make pupils less inclined to study computing in the future. This has important implications for future efforts to engage young people in computing.     

Developing a database of authoring system software

AuthorBase, a working prototype database of authoring system software, was developed as part of a study of authoring software conducted by the National Library of Medicine. In this article, the authors discuss development issues ranging from the scope of the database to what information to document. The prototype demonstrates that records of reasonable integrity can be derived from vendor-supplied information. However, users should understand that the database is only a starting point in searching for authoring software and a resource for becoming generally familiar with the technology.     

一种基于角色和协作的软件需求获取方法

精确地获取客户的需求是一个必需的任务.本文提出了在网络协作平台上的一个协作方法和过程.该方法有许多角色,每种角色在网络环境下同时执行一些需求编写、复查、评论等任务.不同的角色负责不同的任务.基于协作方式,提出了一些角色关系.为了达到协作工作的目的,平台提供了几种协作服务,以满足一个软件系统的开发需求.所有的用户通过不同的协作模式完成他们的工作.所有的涉众完成各自的需求编写后,一个综合的软件需求文档就会产生.