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NURAXI& Research Demonstrators

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Agenda

• Distance education, NURAXI and the demonstrators

• Research Area: Networked administration and networked learning – Presentation– Demo 1: Infrastructure, Registration and Database Management– Demo 2: ColWare : a sample of a collaborative learning environment

• Research Area : Producing individualized hypermedia courses – Introduction to learning styles– Demo 3: Competencies & Contents – Demo 4: Adaptive interfaces

• Conclusion / Future Work / Discussion

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Objectives

• Exemplify some of the main ideas of NURAXI

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Issues

• Intelligent Distance Learning Environments at Work– How to provide for effective adaptive individualized

courses ?– How to support dialogue and communication?– How to manage the BackOffice (registration, curriculum,

security, profiles…)?

• Authoring for Distance Learning Environments– How to create and/or adapt didactic material? – How to select didactic material?– How to rapidly assemble, reuse and update course

material? – How to manage huge numbers of documents

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intelligent distancelearningenvironments

• encompass basically two kinds of systems– system(s) for authors (design-time)– system(s) for learners \ tutors (run-time)

NURAXI

• NURAXI is a platform to– design– generate– deploy – manage– use

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Bfolders.ico

Demo 1 : NURAXI infrastructure (cf report 073)

Gw_net2.ico

Demo 2 : ColWare(cf report 072)

flowchart.ico

Demo 3 : Competency and Content

(cf report 070)

java awt.icoDemo 4 :

Dynamic adaptation(cf report 069)

Learning Styles (cf report 071)Teaching

Strategies Communication

Models

CollaborationModels

4 Steps Towards NURAXI

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4 Steps Towards NURAXITake 1• Research Area: Networked administration and networked learning

– Demo 1: Infrastructure, Registration and Database Management• DanielaTodorova, Daniele Maraschi

• Develop the back office (registration, course catalogues…)• Develop the basic infrastructure required to build and access on-line

courses

– Demo 2: ColWare : a sample of a collaborative learning environment

• J-C Pazzaglia, Marcello Cenati, Sylvain Giroux

• Design and implement a first collaborative learning environment• Use actual communication tools to provide for higher-level

environments• Integrate the notion of dialogue into the software architecture

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4 Steps Towards NURAXITake 2• Research Area : Producing individualized hypermedia courses

– Introduction to learning styles• Paolo Rossetti• Define the basis for learning style models needed to produce individualized

course• Towards adaptive trails

– Demo 3: Competencies & Contents • Lorenzo Sommaruga, Nadia Catenazzi• How to integrate XML documents and competency models to produce adaptive

individualized learning material ?• Towards a learning environment model

– Demo 4: Adaptive interfaces• Claude Moulin, Guiseppe Cuccinelli

• How to provide for dynamic adaptation / presentation of adaptive individualized learning material ?

• How to support multiple learning styles ?• How to support multiple teaching strategies ?• Towards a learning environment model

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BackOffice

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Actors and functionalities

• Personalized sites for 7 different types of actors: – system administrator, – academic administrator, – author, – tutor, – librarian, – student – guest

• Role based communication facilities: chat, mail...

• Used for management of collaboration under Jigsaw schema

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Actors and functionalities (cont.)

• Registration of new users• Uniform management of resources:

– courses – virtual library

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ColWare

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Subscribing a Jigsaw

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Starting a Jigsaw

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Exchanging messages

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Monitoring a Jigsaw

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Learning Styles

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• Logical vs. Intuitive refers to the preferred organization of the material.

• A logical learner prefers a clearly-structured course, starting from A and logically building to Z, presenting theory before practice, values facts and details, dislikes ambiguity.

• An intuitive learner prefers a flexible course, starting from wherever s/he chooses, practice before theory, values creativity and ‘the big picture’, dislikes rigidity.

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• Introvert vs. Extrovert refers to the preferred method of learning.

• An introvert learner prefers a quiet environment, time to internalize, individual practice, values self-reflection, dislikes uncomfortable social situations.

• An extrovert learner prefers a lively environment, time to relate to others, group practice, values sharing experiences, dislikes solitude.

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• The resulting learning style descriptions are:

• LI logical-introvert (structured material in an internal way)

• LE logical-extrovert (structured material in a social way)

• II intuitive-introvert (flexible material in an internal way)

• IE intuitive-extrovert (flexible material in a social way)

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Logical

Extrovert

Intuitive

Introvert

Structured layout Flowing layout

‘cold’ colours ‘warm’ colours

Graphical Presentation

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Competencies

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Co

mp

osed

Un

itCompetence 2

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

Composed Unit

Competencies Content Units Presentation -

Adaptive Interface

Profile

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

BasicUnit

Re-usable

ExpoEducationExpoEducation ‘99, ‘99, Bari 16 Aprile 1999 © L. Sommaruga

CompetencyApplication Fields

COMPETENCIES

ASSESSMENT

JOBMARKET

INDIVIDUAL/HUMAN

RESOURCE

TRAINING

ExpoEducationExpoEducation ‘99, ‘99, Bari 16 Aprile 1999 © L. Sommaruga

Competencies for Trainingand Assessment

Competencies can be assumed at the basis of:

• the training design and development

• the creation of didactical material

• the initial positioning process of

learners in the training path

• the on-going progress assessment

• the final assessment and certification

Learning

Authoring

Assessment

ExpoEducationExpoEducation ‘99 , ‘99 , Bari 16 Aprile 1999 © L. Sommaruga

Competencies for Trainingand Assessment

Competencies can be assumed at the basis of:

• the training design and development

• the creation of didactical material

• the initial positioning process of

learners in the training path

• the on-going progress assessment

• the final assessment and certification

Learning

Authoring

Assessment

Competence 1

Comp. 3

Competency

Level

LS1LS1

LS3LS3LS4LS4LS2LS2

Learning Styles

TrainingObjectives

TeachingStyles

TU

TO

RS T

U D

E N

T

A Layered Learning Environment Model

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Teaching Styles

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The following sequences and modifications are applied to obtain four recommended learning paths:

LI: first definitions, then read, then reproduce in cloze

LE: first definitions, then read, then discuss in jigsaw cloze

II: first read, then match-up, then review definitions

IE: first read, then jigsaw match-up, then confirm definitions

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Demo structure

• Tutoring Styles– progressive– demanding– helpful

• Learning Styles – layout

• colours, size, fonts, text justifications, tables disposition

– specific activities• order of presentation• selection of specific activities

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July 19th, 1999

NURAXI& Research Demonstrators

Conclusion / Future Work / Discussion

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Issues Intelligent Distance Learning Environment

• How to provide for effective individualized courses ?

– Competency model : to select what to teach (D3 - D4)– Ontologies for documents: which document to select (D3

- D4)– Learning styles : who is learning (D3 - D4)– Teaching strategies : how to teach (D4)– Adaptive interface : how to present (D4 - D3)– Generation and selection of didactic material : (D3)– Dynamic generation and selection of didactic material :

(D4)

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Issues Intelligent Distance Learning Environment

• How to support dialogue and communication?

– Shaping the learning environments according to the collaboration models (D2)

• High-level collaborative environment – ColLab : in particular, shaping the e-mail functions according to

the dialogue structure (D2)

• Modeling and structuring conversations– agent conversation languages (D2)

• Modeling and structuring collaborations– JigSaw (D2)

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Issues Intelligent Distance Learning Environment

• How to organize and manage the BackOffice?

– Identifying actors and roles (D1)

– Book keeping of actor profiles (D1)

– Establishing registration procedures (D1)

– Providing for curriculum maintenance (D1)

– Implementing security where it is necessary• logins, passwords and roles (D1)• provide access to functions only to authorized users (D1)

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Issues Authoring Distance Learning Environments

• How to create and/or adapt didactic material ?

– DTD as templates (D3 - D4)

– XML and XSL to adapt the presentation of documents (D4)

– RDF for reusing existing didactic material (to be explored)

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Issues Authoring Distance Learning Environments

• How to select didactic material ?

– Competencies models (D3)– Documents models (D3- D4)– Dynamic computation according to previous

actions (D4)

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Issues Authoring Distance Learning Environments

• How to rapidly assemble, reuse and update course material ?

– Assemble & reuse• A model based on JavaBeans (D2 - under development)• Ontologies (D2-D3-D4)• XML to add meta-information on documents (D3-D4)• XSL to present to same material using various forms (D4-D3)

– Update• Web-based courses (D1-D2-D3-D4)• Dynamic computation (D4)

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Issues Authoring Distance Learning Environments

• How to manage huge numbers of documents ?

– XML and ontologies (D3)– Databases (D1)

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Steps to a release of the demos

• Improving the user-friendliness of interfaces

• Getting the touch of a professional graphist on the Web sites and on the interfaces

• More tests

• Encapsulating the demos into a presentation framework (Director, screen snapshots, movies…)