Patterns for e-Learning
by Jochen Dietermann - Tuesday, 11 March 2003, 07:53 PM
 

PATTERNS FOR E-LEARNING
---------------------------

After reading and thinking about the recommeded documents of our moderator Ken Larsson I'd like to tell you some of my ideas. Since this is work in progress, you should read this as an inspiration for your own ideas - and correct me if I am wrong ;-)

The articles point to a single theme environment (gardening) or to learning environments that are implemented in learning facilities, such as universities or high-schools. The last mentioned scenario includes a human moderator and/or teacher, that reads and corrects the work of the learner. To publish the working material both techniques are used open source and proprietary. All approaches crank on the lack of a standardized pattern for their learning environments.

I think this is drawback since for every new implementation the wheel must be discovered again and again. So I would like to say that it's time to think about global patterns for e-Learning which can be reused again. This also could be a step towards a free and global learning environment that is not limited to a special learning facility. Like in the Open-Source-Software movement thousands of volunteers may work in different projects and publish learning stuff to a worldwide community.

Now I want to start at the root and look at the structure of a scientific work-book. In common it behaves of the following parts:

- Title, subject
- Author(s), date of publication, abstract
- Table of contents
- One or more chapters with subchapters
- Optional: questions and answers
- Index, bibliography and optional glossary

The above structure can be easily conducted into XML and formatted by XSL-FO/XSLT. I would like to prefer XML and related techniques because they provide a greater flexibility for structured documents than HTML. XML also divides strictly the content from formatting which makes it easier to let the content be scanned and analyzed by automated tools such as "Spiders" and "Agents".

With the "Semantic Web" (RDF, Web Ontologies) the World Wide Web Consortiums (W3C) has made some researches in making better searchable websites. Their ideas are also helpful in building an open source e-Learning framework. This framework consits of the above XML pattern, XSLT for formatting the documents, DTD or XML Schema to validate the structure of the content and RDF for providing data about the data (metadata).

Let's take a short look at multimedia: The articles make clear that streaming media is not the best way to presentate courses in the WWW. Instead it could be used Flash or - in the future - SVG for dynamic presentation.

Another item in an open education environment is the help on getting the right material and the help on lessons that come with these materials. The first one could be solved by RDF and a special database. The tutor problem is some more difficult but there is a system called "ATLAS" where this problem has an interesting solution. (For information on this look at my links in the participants library).

This is the end of my private little brainstorming. Maybe you got some more ideas or different ones that you think work better. I'm looking forward for them and a lively discussion.

Jochen

      Re: Patterns for e-Learning
      by Monika Hanesch - Tuesday, 11 March 2003, 09:28 PM
       

      I read your posting with interest. It surely would be very instructive if I could understand all the TLAs. (nix für ungut, Jochen :-)

      Re: Patterns for e-Learning
      by Tobias Mueller-Prothmann - Wednesday, 12 March 2003, 11:59 AM
       

      Jochen, I agree very much with your demand "to think about global patterns for e-Learning which can be reused again" and your pointing to OSS-movement (or may be better just development?). Indeed the wheel must NOT be discovered again and again.

      So as studygroup technology the development of an XML-based elearning solution would be challenging! An XML-based solution would not only be able to be "reused again", and it would also not only be platform-independent, but it would also allow distributed learning environments and computer based machine-to-machine-communications and data exchange.

      So far as a first remark on that topic... and some online articles/papers:

      http://www.learningcircuits.com/2002/dec2002/shank.htm
      http://www.itsc.org.sg/synthesis/2001/itsc-synthesis2001-kinchew-xml-eLearning.pdf
      http://www.cdacindia.com/html/pdf/Session5.3.pdf

      ... added to library.

      Re: Patterns for e-Learning
      by Tobias Mueller-Prothmann - Wednesday, 12 March 2003, 12:58 PM
       

      hmmm, cannot add them all to library (maximum 2 reached).

      Re: Patterns for e-Learning
      by Jessica Smaaland - Wednesday, 12 March 2003, 04:59 PM
        It’s an interesting thought you have, and I think it could be made possible quite easy. Right now I’m writing my master thesis, which is about open standards, but for businesses. One of the most promising open standards solutions in this area is called ebXML. It contains several protocols in different levels, from a general business view to how a message should be transported. When this is well developed, it must be a pretty easy task to transfer the ideas and solutions to other areas.

      Re: Patterns... - A little help for understanding
      by Jochen Dietermann - Wednesday, 12 March 2003, 06:05 PM
       

      Hello Monika,

      I think you get a little bit lost in the second part, so I'd like to explain: The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the fellower of HTML. Its advantages are a better readability for both computer and humans, and it provides a more flexible structure. That means you haven't got any given tags like <p>, <ol> or something - instead you can choose your own tag-names. To format the content one needs an extra file with the ending ".xsl" which stands for Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). Inside the XSL-file Formatting Objects (FO) are defined which giving the document its "face". The last step is the transformation of the XML-document by a parser - that is called Extensible Stylesheet Transformation (XSLT) and is necessary for the fact that a web browser can render the content with the right formatting.

      The "Semantic Web" is a collection of techniques that shall provide better searchable web-sites. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is one of the included methods besides XML. RDF's can be considered as an index that includes extra information about the content of a web-site. It includes a relationship about the linkage of the information between the sides of a web-presence and - more important - between different presences respectivly domains.

      ATLAS is a representative of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). The idea behind ITS's is the communication in a learning environment without a human moderator. That is to say that the computer is the teacher and by this fact it must be possible for the system to react on the students behaviour in an intelligent way. It must give tips and answers to the special topic the student is working on at the moment.

      I hope you see clearer now (und ich nehme nie wat für ungut) ;-)

      Jochen

      Re: Patterns for e-Learning
      by Attila Szöcs - Wednesday, 12 March 2003, 11:35 PM
       

      An interesting approach towards the portability of an eLearning environment has been undertaken at the University of Passau/Germany over the past few years.
      At the heart of the so called Passau Knowledge Management System is the - of course XML-based - Learning Material Markup Language (see the article 'Teachware Management Framework' in the Participant's Library).
      I hope, we will all do some more reading on the subject of eLearning and XML (+ related technologies - see the hyperlinks provided by Tobias) as from the technological point of view I think it certainly the most interesting approach.

      Attila

      Re: Patterns... - A little help for understanding
      by Monika Hanesch - Thursday, 13 March 2003, 05:45 PM
       

      Hi Jochen
      thanks for the information. I knew it was a posting I could learn something from.
      Monika

      Re: Patterns for e-Learning
      by Håkan Jeppsson - Monday, 17 March 2003, 11:50 AM
       

      Your are on the right track.

      The Open Knowledge Initiative are also attending this issue for providing learning technology for fullfill the needs of free Online Courses for the higher educations.

      http://web.mit.edu/oki/product/index.html