A multicase study for the evaluation of a pattern-based visual design process for collaborative learning (original) (raw)

COLLAGE: A collaborative Learning Design editor based on patterns

Educational Technology & Society, 2006

This paper introduces Collage, a high-level IMS-LD compliant authoring tool that is specialized for CSCL (Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning). Nowadays CSCL is a key trend in e-learning since it highlights the importance of social interactions as an essential element of learning. CSCL is an interdisciplinary domain, which demands participatory design techniques that allow teachers to get directly involved in design activities. Developing CSCL designs using LD is a difficult task for teachers since LD is a complex technical specification and modelling collaborative characteristics can be tricky. Collage helps teachers in the process of creating their own potentially effective collaborative Learning Designs by reusing and customizing patterns, according to the requirements of a particular learning situation. These patterns, called Collaborative Learning Flow Patterns (CLFPs), represent best practices that are repetitively used by practitioners when structuring the flow of (collaborative) learning activities. An example of an LD that can be created using Collage is illustrated in the paper. Preliminary evaluation results show that teachers with experience in CL but without LD knowledge, can successfully design real collaborative learning experiences using Collage.

An extensible approach to visually editing adaptive learning activities and designs based on services

Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 2010

Collage is a pattern-based visual design authoring tool for the creation of collaborative learning scripts computationally modelled with IMS Learning Design (LD). The pattern-based visual approach aims to provide teachers with design ideas that are based on broadly accepted practices. Besides, it seeks hiding the LD notation so that teachers can easily create their own designs. The use of visual representations supports both the understanding of the design ideas and the usability of the authoring tool. This paper presents a multicase study comprising three different cases that evaluate the approach from different perspectives. The first case includes workshops where teachers use Collage. A second case implies the design of a scenario proposed by a third-party using related approaches. The third case analyzes a situation where students follow a design created with Collage. The cross-case analysis provides a global understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the pattern-based visual design approach.

A Pattern-based and Teacher-Centered Approach for Learning Design

Computers and Advanced Technology in Education, 2012

Teaching is changing in deep, due to, on one hand, the evolutions of the society expectations and, on another hand, the widely spreading of new technologies. By the way, teachers and trainers need now to structure and formalize their internal designs and should become designers but do not have the competence. We aim to help them during the instructional design process. In that way we propose some methods and tools to support the scenario design activity and the implementation of the resulting models. We present an adaptive user-centered pattern-based learning design approach and the editor tool to support it. A case study is proposed to illustrate the design process.

Designing Collaborative Learning Sessions that Promote Creative Problem Solving Using Design Patterns

2010

Solving problems is considered as a very important learning activity in formal educational settings concerning all grades of education from primary to tertiary education. Students’ engagement in problem solving activities helps them to acquire not only knowledge and skills on a subject domain but also useful attitudes such as thinking, flexibility, creativity, and productivity which are very important to real life. As a result numerous problem solving models and creativity techniques, mostly collaborative ones, have been proposed for aiding students solve problems. These models specify the steps of a systematic process of solution-building for a given problem description. One main open research question is “how can students learn how to apply a problem solving model”? Research has demonstrated the potential of collaborative learning sessions for enhancing young children's cognitive development and learning. The scope of this paper is to show how collaborative learning flow patte...

Reflections on developing a tool for creating visual representations of learning designs

Over the past four years we have been developing CompendiumLD, a software tool for designing learning activities using a flexible visual interface. It has been developed as a tool to support lecturers, teachers and others involved in education to help them articulate their ideas and map out a design or learning sequence. CompendiumLD is a specialised version of Compendium, a tool for managing connections between information and ideas, which has been applied in many domains including the mapping of discussions and arguments. As most of the core knowledge mapping facilities provided by Compendium are included within CompendiumLD, it can be used for learning design, and applied it to other information mapping and modelling problems. Evidence gathered since CompendiumLD’s first release has shown the many conditions in which it is likely to be applied and appreciated by users, and that the need for visualising learning designs as a solution to understanding how all components of planned ...

Visual Design of coherent Technology-Enhanced Learning Systems: a few lessons learned from CPM language

Visual instructional design languages currently provide notations for representing the intermediate and final results of a knowledge engineering process. As some languages particularly focus on the formal representation of a learning design that can be transformed into machine interpretable code (i.e., IML-LD players), others have been developed to support the creativity of designers while exploring their problem-spaces and solutions. This chapter introduces CPM (Computer Problem-based Metamodel), a visual language for the instructional design of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) situations. On the one hand, CPM sketches of a PBL situation can improve communication within multidisciplinary ID teams; on the other hand, CPM blueprints can describe the functional components that a Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) system should offer to support such a PBL situation.

Visual Design of coherent Technology-Enhanced Learning Systems

Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications

Visual instructional design languages currently provide notations for representing the intermediate and final results of a knowledge engineering process. As some languages particularly focus on the formal representation of a learning design that can be transformed into machine interpretable code (i.e., IML-LD players), others have been developed to support the creativity of designers while exploring their problem-spaces and solutions. This chapter introduces CPM (Computer Problem-based Metamodel), a visual language for the instructional design of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) situations. On the one hand, CPM sketches of a PBL situation can improve communication within multidisciplinary ID teams; on the other hand, CPM blueprints can describe the functional components that a Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) system should offer to support such a PBL situation. We first present the aims and the fundamentals of CPM language. Then, we analyze CPM usability using a set of CPM diagrams produced in a case study in a 'real-world' setting

Published in Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P, Lahti, H. & Hakkarainen, K. (2005). Three Design Experiments for Computer Supported Collaborative Design. Art, Design, and Communication in Higher Education, 4, 101-119.

The purpose of the present article is to examine how virtual design studio environments can be used to aid collaborative designing and describe some of our experiences in supporting collaborative design with such environments. The authors will introduce three design projects. These were projects, respectively, for designing clothes for premature babies, conference bags and tactile books for visually impaired children; they constitute a continuum in terms of being design experiments, each of which highlights certain perspectives on the virtual design process. Our approach, in which the first author was acting as a teacher in each project, made it possible to address current problems faced in the field of virtual designing. The purpose of our design experiments is set up, foster, and investigate an iterative design process, in which previous observations and lessons can be applied to enhancement of educational settings and practices. The authors examined how participants create shared design ideas, to what extent users can be involved in the design process (participatory designing), and how expert knowledge is utilized. According to our experiments, the progressive inquiry model can fruitfully be applied to collaborative designing to facilitate participants' interaction processes of developing design ideas and sharing their expertise through the virtual design studio.