wiki:eXe_as_a_personalised_learning_environment

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1. Use case name

Overview of the eXe personalised learning environment

2. Version

Version 0.1

3. Authors, countries and dates

  • Wayne Mackintosh, New Zealand, 28 May 2005.
  • Add your name, country and date here. For minor revisions, change version number as follows: 0.1.1; 0.1.2 etc. For major revisions, change version number as follows: 0.2; 0.3 etc.
  • Alternatively, add comments and points of clarity under the notes heading below.

4. Summary statement

Generic run time environment for independent study of multimedia content incorporating asynchronous interaction.

5. Scenario summary

This scenario attempts to describe a learning environment with the following challenges:

  • a learning task that necessitates the use of rich multimedia materials;
  • a project that requires asynchronous interaction with a predefined (known) community that is geographically dispersed;
  • participating institutions that do not have learning management systems;
  • infrastructure for broadband connectivity does not exist or is too expensive.

The challenges listed above are not necessarily limited to secondary education as intimated in the scenario below. However the secondary school environment highlights aspects of the challenge, for instance the installation of Learning Management Systems at individual schools is significantly lower than the tertiary sector.

Sophie is 15 years old and lives in a remote rural village. She has an inquiring mind and a keen interest in physics. She has chosen to participate in a group project on sound waves as part of the formal curriculum requirements for the current school year. This group project includes seven pupils from other schools distributed across the country. The project requires independent study of the interactive multi-media resources in preparation for a series of group activities which culminate in the presentation of a web site report.

The schools participating in the project do not have learning management systems and only have dial-up Internet access. These schools do not have sophisticated technical infrastructure and the number of terminals available for pupils is also limited. Unfortunately, Sophie's family do not have a computer at home. However, there is a community centre in the local village with access to the Internet. Unfortunately the costs of using the Internet at this centre are still expensive and downloads of large files using dial up access are beyond the financial means of Sophie's family.

The Ministry of Education distributed the multimedia content resources required for these (and other) projects on a collection of CDROMs to participating schools. These content resources were originally authored using eXe, thus individual schools have the capability to adapt and refine these materials according to local needs.

Sophie's school copied the multi-media resources for the wave project onto a USB memory stick. The wave project resources included: a number of multimedia clips demonstrating sounds and their corresponding waves; A prerecorded interview with a leading Physics professor conducted by school pupils; and numerous interactive iDevices providing tutor-pupil interaction via preprogrammed feedback. The school also loaded a copy of the eXe run time environment with the following applications onto the memory stick:

  • the content player module;
  • the forum module; and
  • the authoring module.

Sophie used a number of different locations and computer terminals for completing the project. She did some of her work at school, had two visits to the community centre and the opportunity of spending some time on her uncle's computer when the family visited for a weekend. Sophie would simply plug the memory stick into the USB port of the respective terminal to activate a learning session, and proceed where she left off. For the duration of her learning sessions she did not need to be connected to the Internet. Typically, Sophie would only connect to the Net two or three times a week to send and update discussion posts from the group. The group successfully completed their project by publishing a self-contained website on sound waves, incorporating a number of audio files. This was uploaded onto a central web server hosted by the Ministry of Education and also distributed to the participating schools as a zip folder for viewing locally.

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6. Preconditions

  • Multimedia learning content is prepared in advance;
  • Identity of participants in the learning group is known;
  • Run time environment is preloaded on removable media (memory stick);
  • Applications and modules required for successfull completion of the learning task are preloaded on the memory stick.

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7. Triggers

  • Learner plugs in memory stick into a computer that does not necessarily require network connectivity;
  • When completing a session the user is prompted whether they would like to update asynchronous messages. (If the user is working on non-networked machine, they can be reminded of this request when connecting to a terminal with Internet access.)

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8. Basic Course of events

  1. Teaching institution provides capability to preload the image required of a particular set of learning tasks onto a memory stick including multimedia content, applications required and identity information of the learner group;
  2. User plugs in memory stick and the eXe content player module launches automatically;
  3. User works through the multimedia content and interacts with the student-content interaction contained in the embedded iDevices;
  4. User completes a short formative assessment quiz embedded in the multimedia content. In the case of incorrect answers the user is directed via links to appropriate content revisions;
  5. User encounters an event requiring asynchronous student-student interaction. Clicking on the relevant link, the forum application is launched in the eXe run time environment. (This looks like an online discussion forum environment but user can submit a “post” without being online.)
  6. The user compiles a discussion forum post which is displayed in the eXe forum application;
  7. User completes current session, and is prompted whether or not to update forum posts. (User is working on a machine that is not connected to the Internet and selects to do this later.)
  8. The next day, the user plugs in the memory stick in a different machine for a subsequent learning session.
  9. The eXe content player “remembers” which components of the content have already been completed and automatically launches at the next appropriate screen of the content sequence. (Users can revisit previously completed sections.)
  10. User is prompted whether or not to update forum posts. (The user is now working on a machine with connectivity to the Internet and selects “yes”). The user's discussion forum posts are sent away to members of the group and their posts are downloaded and stored in the discussion forum application under relevant threads and date/time sequence. If specified, user data with regards to tracking is also routed to the relevant location.
  11. User continues with the learning materials as documented above.
  12. User reaches a point where she must commence with authoring the project report. A link is provided in the run time environment to launch the eXe authoring environment.
  13. The eXe run time environment incorporates version control of content authored in eXe to facilitate collaborative authoring of the project report, which is “e-mailed” as an .elp file when synchronizing online.

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9. Notes

  • Add any notes or points of clarrification here.