daad project “joint course on software engineering” humboldt university berlin, university of...

DAAD Project“Joint Course on Software Engineering”

Humboldt University Berlin, University of Novi Sad, University of Plovdiv,University of Skopje, University of Belgrade, University of Niš, University of Kragujevac

Version: June 12, 2006

On the transformation of existing teaching material to eLessons

2DAAD project „Joint Course on Software Engineering“ ©

Facts:

During the last several meetings, Sam Joachim presented “trends” and “criteria” concerning the “good e-Learning material”

Naturally, his main interest was with the influence and connection of e-Learning with the JCSE course


Facts:

The first presentation was mainly concerned with the attempts of standardization of teaching material.

As a conclusion, Sam summarized common opinions about advantages of standardized e-Learning material, presented in the form of so-called “learning objects”


Facts:

The second presentation was provoked by one attempt of creation of e-Learning material, performed in Novi Sad.

This attempt was – in a positive meaning – put “under autopsy”, in order to analyze relationship between trends in process and product creation, and the actual result.


Facts:

We liked what Sam had to say about e-Learning, so (as can be noticed on a slide in Serbian on the right) we used that knowledge!

As a part of a material presented to students before they start creating their e-Lessons, translated and adjusted presentation of Sam is given.


What next?

Of course, we didn’t stop there.

Combined efforts of Humboldt University and University of Novi Sad, made a couple of important books from this area available to us.


What next?

Theory asks: How can we help people learn in an effective, attractive, and accessible way?

Theory says: There is no straightforward answer – depending on the specific situation, solution X will work best for person Y!

Yet, based on analyses of techniques and experiences, we are trying to come to a set of prescriptive, realistic rules:“If learning situation S, then use learning design method M, with probability P.”


“Learning Design”, Rob Koper and Colin Tattersall (eds)

This book has a subtitle “A Handbook on Modelling and Delivering Networked Education and Training”.

Since we are very interested in performing e-Learning for our courses, this seemed to be the right thing for us.

Authors of the book are the members of a “Valkenburg group” – 33 experts in e-Learning, (coming from 4 continents) – a group existing, and performing valuable work in the area since 1997.



At first, the project was internally funded by the Open University of Netherlands, through a 5 year research and development project.

Later, the work of a “Valkenburg group” has been funded by the European Commission under the UNFOLD project (FP6 programme).

The target audience for a book are e-Learning course and tool developers interested in innovation of e-Learning, people who want to improve the effectiveness and attractiveness of e-Learning, and finally those who want to create truly interoperable courses, including content, services, and processes.



As stated by the group, the goal of a book is “… to present the current state of the art in the development of e-Learning courses using Learning Design …”

It provides: • information about Learning Design,

• how to implement it in practice,

• what tools to use, and

• what pitfalls to avoid

It is based on the experience of the members in both building tools, and using these tools in practice.

Yet, the book goes beyond the current state by looking at future advancements.


“e-Learning Standards”, Colin Fallon and Sharon Brown

This book, claim its authors, is intended to help “…personnel tasked with setting up an e-Learning infrastructure…”

e-Learning was adopted not only by users of CBT, delivered either by CD-ROM’s or LAN, which is considered a natural progression, but also by huge number of other organizations.

The main aim of the book is to help people build e-Learning environments for their organizations, and taught them how to develop their own standard-conformant courses.


“e-Learning Standards”, Colin Fallon and Sharon Brown

Authors present two interesting opinions:• “… these days, there is a abundance of information about e-Learning

standards – probably an overabundance.”• “… we are not standards experts, we do not sit on any standards

committees or working groups.”

Yet, they wrote a book about e-Learning standards. Why?• “We are LMS vendors and courseware developers, who have ‘been there,

done that, bought the T-shirt.’ • We are part of the team that developed the world’s first LMS to be certified

for web-based interoperability.• We have developed dozens of lessons for standard-conformant e-

Learning courses.• We felt that this book was an opportunity to share the fruits of our

experience to benefit others like us.• We also hear many horror stories about e-Learning products that have not

fulfilled their purchasers’ expectations. We set out to help buyers make well-informed decisions about their purchases.”


About Learning Design and Learning Standards?

Learning Design provides a conceptual model for the description of teaching and learning processes

Learning Design was specified by the IMS, a consortium of global e-Learning software companies and users (see imsglobal.org for details)

Or, as said by the authors: ” … the team analyzed common characteristics of available pedagogical approaches, and through a process of abstraction and experimentation, arrived at a ‘pedagogical meta-language’ that formed the base of a LD …”


Why are we concerned?What are we concerned with? The general feeling of the experts in e-Learning field is:

the most of the current e-Learning offerings lack one or more of the following aspects:• they are of a poor pedagogical quality,• they lack portability,• they lack adequate tooling.

Pedagogical quality is considered to be the key issue!

To be successful, e-Learning must both:• offer effective and attractive courses and programs to learners,• while providing a pleasant and effective work environment for staff

members developing the course materials


What does Learning Design enables?

Using LD, courses can be described that are based on active participation of learners, such as:

• Educational role and game playing courses, where multiple users perform a variety of interdependent tasks,

• Problem-based learning courses, where teams of learners collaborate in problem solving,

• Learning community approaches, based on social-constructivist principles, stimulating collaboration and sharing of knowledge and resources,


What does Learning Design enables?

Using LD, courses can be described … :

• Performance support approaches, where learning tasks are assigned depending on assessed knowledge gaps,

• Adaptive courses where the pedagogical model, the learning process, and content are adapted to learning needs, preferences, or learning styles of learners, and

• Peer coaching and assessment approaches, where learners support each other.


Conclusion?

So – the basic idea of Learning Design is in essence simple. It represents a vocabulary which users of any pedagogical approach understand, and into which existing designs can be translated.

The core of LD can be summarized as a view that: “… when learning, people in specific groups and roles engage in activities using an environment with appropriate resources and services.”


Conclusion?

This approach is important because it adds to existing e-Learning standards (like SCORM), that only supported the model of a single learners, working in isolation.

Important capability of LD is integration of discussions and collaborative approaches to learning:

• allowing learners to work in several groups, so that each group could do different things at the same time to support more complex types of collaborations (as in project-based learning);

• allowing different learners to do the same things at different times, such as taking turns in different roles, or a large group accessing a limited resource in a sequence of smaller groups.


If learning situation S then use Learning Design method M The right-hand side of the equation is the key-part: the learning design

method!

A learning design method describes a teaching-learning process – it helps us model this process.

As in a movie scenario, a learning design method consists of several components:• Metadata: descriptive data used for identification;• Roles: “persons” participating in certain “activities”;• Acts: activities of which a course consists;• Environment: description of a set-up;• Role-part: describing activities of a role when its hers turn;• Sequence of activities: both sequentially, or those performed

simultaneously, and• Conditions: comments, explaining how a role should adapt to a situation.


Learning design method

So, LD method presents how in general:• Roles perform activities within an environment. • The environment is filled with resources that can be used. • Every activity is closely related to the environment needed to

perform that activity.

And, how can we create rules that work, i.e. rules that offer a high probability that learners will indeed attain the intended learning outcomes?

The answer to this question must cover two aspects:• the particulars of the situation or situations in which the rule is

used, and• its success within that specific context.


Learning design rules

There are three categories of good rules:• those derived from instructional design theory,• those derived from best practices, and• those derived from patterns in best practices.

To enable learning designers to search for, share, and reuse learning design methods, a standard notation must be available and used.


Transformation – what is that?

So, finally we came to “rules derived from best practices” and “rules derived from patterns in best practices”.

Why is that important?

Because we all have a lot of “classic” teaching material personally created, or borrowed/ presented / downloaded from someone else.

Because we do not want to disregard all of the hard work invested and good experience gained over the years for creation of a high-quality teaching material!



So, what’s our problem? There are several points to be investigated (ideas mostly suggested by Z.Budimac and

K.Bothe):

• What is the essence of a good teaching materials? - How do we recognize it? How do we extract it?

• What is the criteria for a good e-Learning materials?- What is it we want to create? How do we do it?

• What are the differences in two approaches?- And, thus, what will be the difficulties and the challenge

of the proposed transfer?



There are several points to be investigated:

• What is the proper methodological strategy of transforming teaching materials to e-learning materials?

- In order to avoid the greatest pitfall of e-Learning = poor pedagogical quality

• What about the tools?- How do we do it? Based on the proposed methodology

and needed pedagogy, is there some tool support available? If not, can we create it (at least theoretically)?


Schematic of a transformation process:

knowledgegrid

.doc

.ppt

.pdf

eLesson

.

.

.

Essence

What is the essence?Text? Pictures? Style?

Tool Tool 2

Automated.Some AI?

Half-bakedessence

Tool 3 Final document

Interactivity.Some NI

XML?

Moodle

Ahyco

Something

Somethingelse

.

.

.

Tool 4

daad project “joint course on software engineering” humboldt university berlin, university of...

Documents

daad project joint course

software engineering

jcse course slide

good elearning material

development project

university of ni

university of belgrade

university of skopje