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Concept mapping has a history of use in many disciplines as a formal or semi-formal diagramming technique. Concept maps have an abstract structure as typed hypergraphs, and computer support for concept mapping can associate visual attributes with node types to provide an attractive and consistent appearance. Computer support can also provide interactive interfaces allowing arbitrary actions to be associated with nodes such as hypermedia links to other maps and documents. This article describes a general concept mapping system that is open architecture for integration with other systems, scriptable to support arbitrary interactions and computations, and cutomizable to emulate many styles of map. The system supports collaborative development of concept maps across local area and wide area networks, and integrates with World-Wide Web in both client helper and server gateway roles. A number of applications are illustrated ranging through education, artificial intelligence, active documents...

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Abstract not found

One aspect of second language teaching via multimedia to have received attention over the past few years is the impact of glossing individual vocabulary words through different modalities. This study examines which of the image modalities--dynamic video or still picture--is more effective in aiding vocabulary acquisition. The participants, 30 ESL students, were introduced to a hypermedia-learning program, designed by the researcher for reading comprehension. The program provides users reading a narrative English text with a variety of glosses or annotations for words in the form of printed text, graphics, video, and sound, all of which are intended to aid in the understanding and learning of unknown words. A within-subject design was used in this study with 30 participants being measured under three conditions: printed text definition alone, printed text definition coupled with still pictures, and printed text definition coupled with video clips. In order to assess the efficacy of each mode, a vocabulary test was designed and administered to participants after they had read the English narrative. Two types of tests were administered: recognition and production. In addition, a face-to-face interview was conducted, and questionnaires were distributed. Results of the both tests were analyzed using analysis of variance procedures. The investigation has yielded the conclusion that a video clip is more effective in teaching unknown vocabulary words than a still picture. Among the suggested factors that explain such a result are that video better builds a mental image, better creates curiosity leading to increased concentration, and embodies an advantageous combination of modalities (vivid or dynamic image, sound, and printed text).

This chapter states and explains that a Learning Design is the result of a knowledge engineering process where knowledge and competencies, learning design and delivery models are constructed in an integrated framework. We present a general graphical language and a knowledge editor that has been adapted to support the construction of learning designs compliant with the IMS-LD specification. We situate LD within our taxonomy of knowledge models as a multi-actor collaborative system. We move up one step in the abstraction scale, showing that the process of constructing learning designs can itself be viewed as a unit-of-learning (or a “unit-of-design”): designers can be seen as learning by constructing learning designs, individually, in teams and with staff support. This viewpoint enables us to discuss and compare various “design plays”. Further, the issue of representing knowledge, cognitive skills and competencies is addressed. The association between these “content ” models and learning design components can guide the construction of learning designs and help to classify them in repositories of LD templates.

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL), launched in December 2002, is emerging as a center of innovation in digital libraries as applied to education. As a part of this extensive project, the GetSmart system was created to apply knowledge management techniques in a learning environment. The design of the system is based on an analysis of learning theory and the information search process. Its key notion is the integration of search tools and curriculum support with concept mapping. More than 100 students at the University of Arizona and Virginia Tech used the system in the fall of 2002. A database of more than one thousand student-prepared concept maps has been collected with more than forty thousand relationships expressed in semantic, graphical, node-link representations. Preliminary analysis of the collected data is revealing interesting knowledge representation patterns.

In order to reuse and exchange learning objects we need information about these learning objects. The LOM draft standard defines a set of more than 70 attributes, which specify learning object properties like author, title, subject, and many others. Even though the LOM draft includes a category educational, no information is included in the standard to specify, which instructional roles are played by a learning object in a course. We show how to include this important didactic information using the concept of instructional roles and relations in a way, which is extensible and flexible enough to specify not only general didactic criteria, but rather specific criteria, as prescribed by different instructional theories.

Abstract. We discuss the motivation for a novel style of tutorial dialogue system that emphasizes reflection in a design context. Our current research focuses on the hypothesis that this type of dialogue will lead to better learning than previous tutorial dialogue systems because (1) it motivates students to explain more in order to justify their thinking, and (2) it supports students’ meta-cognitive ability to ask themselves good questions about the design choices they make. We present a preliminary cognitive task analysis of design exploration tasks using CyclePad, an articulate thermodynamics simulator [10]. Using this cognitive task analysis, we analyze data collected in two initial studies of students using CyclePad, one in an unguided manner, and one in a Wizard of Oz scenario. This analysis suggests ways in which tutorial dialogue can be used to assist students in their exploration and encourage a fruitful learning orientation. Finally, we conclude with some system desiderata derived from our analysis as well as plans for further exploration. 1