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Learning Activities Editor Tool: (November 2006)

FILATRO, Andrea, BOARETTO, Rogrio & NUNES, Cesar School of Future Unviersity of So Paulo Tidia-Ae Project

Abstract This article describes the Learning Activities Editor Tool, developed by Escola do Futuro (School of the Future) of University of So Paulo, in the scope of Tidia-Ae Project. This design time engine, based in IMS-Learning Design specification, has been develop in set with the player tool, in order to support either teachers which desire a simple planning tool to organize their learning contents or activities for local and delimited application, and more advanced users which need integrated solutions that can be spread in large scale. The article detaches the multifaceted solution developed to take care of to the variety of detected needs, analyzes the limitations of the IMS-LD specification and points the contributions of this work for the Tidia -Ae Project specifically and to the community of developers of open source e-learning tools.
Index TermsIMS Learning Design, Learning Activities Editor, instructional design

provide tight control structures for participants performance, until to a more anarchical use that maintains the libertarian spirit of first newsgroups and impulses the moderns practical communities (HEWSON & HUGHES, 2001). In the middle, Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) fight to mirror the conquers of a whole generation of constructivist and socioconstructivist practices.

II. A MULTIPLE ANSWER This cauldron of on-line educational practices, more or less conscientiously anchored in pedagogical foundations, represents a true challenge to the software developers and researchers. Such challenge was the focus of the project initiated in 1998 for the OUNL - Open University of the Netherlands, which discharged in EML (Educational Modelling La nguage), a proper notational system to describe an ample variety of educational processes (EML, 2000; KOPER & MANDERVELD, 2004). The EML formed the base for the IMS-Learning Design, specification approved in 2003 for the Global IMS Learning Consortium that is characterized for its comprehensiveness, completeness, formalism and interoperability. It aims to capture the teaching-learning process more than the content (HUMMEL & KOPER, 2005) and intends to support the design of any pedagogical approaches, also the face-to-face ones. Based on or inspired of IMS-LD, a series of engines has been developed to allow either the design or the play of learning actions (as Edubox, Reload, Coopercore, MOT+, LAMS). More specifically, design time tools (editors), and runtime tools (players). In Brazil, in the target of the TIDIA-Ae Project, the Escola do Futuro (School of the Future) of University of So Paulo has been developed an Learning Activities Editor Tool, with the extra challenge of supporting either teachers which desire a simple planning tool to organize a set of learning contents or activities for local and delimited application, and more advanced users which need integrated solutions that can be spread in large scale.

I. INTRODUCTION

eacher and textbook authors have been the main actors in authoring and designing contents and activities in Brazil, mainly supported by didactical resources as scholarly books designed by experts. At business world , it has been traditionally a work for instructional designers and media experts. With the advent of Web, on-line learning design competencies have become more and more a requirement for all of them. In Brazil, particularly, the low digital fluency of the fundamental and secondary teachers of a side, and the scarce pedagogical formation of the professors of high education of another one, extends the fan of knowledge, abilities and attitudes to be addressed when we think about solutions for planning, design, playing and evaluation of learning on-line. At same time, the diversity of on-line education practices reveals a multiple scene that goes since more militarized actions, whose Learning Management Systems (LMSs)

2 TIDIA-Ae (Technology of the Information for the Development of the Advanced Internet - Electronic Learning) is a research project whose general objective it is to construct a suit of integrated e-learning tools (see figure 1), based in free software and opened code. The team of development is composed for 16 laboratories of research of three So Paulo universities (USP, Unicamp and UFSCar), including School of Future, above mentioned. preconfigured templates to reading, discussion, authoring and experiencing learning actions (see figure 3).

Figure 3 Advanced level learning activities editor

Figure 1 Tidia-Ae learning management system

III. CRITICAL ANALYSIS In spite of all the persistence in making the versions of the Learning Activities Editor compatible with the international standards, we cannot leave to mention the limitations of the specification in the following aspects:

From a more specific analysis of different learning actions proposed for the several laboratories that compose the TidiaAe project, it was clear that they dont need one unique editor, but several of them. As a result, we developed different time design engines, both of them generating an IMS-LD package and playing in any application compatible with IMS-LD, but in a transparent way to the final users. The first one allows simples sequencing of learning flow and is narrowly integrated to TIDIA-Ae learning environment (see figure 2):

For the impossibility to configure directly the content and communication tools from the based-LD design engine, the Learning Activities Editor is not the true central office of operations to teachers and instructional designers. Since LD does not keep usage dates of learners' interactions, for example of the production of students and teachers in the collaboration tools, it becomes insufficient to plan contextualized actions of education (ROSMALEN & BOTICARIO, 2005). As a "manifest-centered" representation, once delivered, a learning action has to be play exactly as planned and cannot be changed on-the fly, reducing the possibilities of adaptation in runtime (TOWLE & HALM, 2005).

Although IMS-LD declares itself as a pedagogical meta-model (KOPER, 2001), all of restrictions privilege a fixed instructional design model, where every component of the learning action is carefully and previously planned. It reinforces the divide between conception and execution phases, moving away from the flexible and dynamic nature of the learning, fruit of unexpected interactions (BERGGREN et al., 2005). Figure 2 Simple level learning activit ies editor Another engine, more complex and double-interface, previews simple sequencing (Level A of learning design system) and more complex and personalized sequencing through setting of properties and conditions (Level B), as well notification services (Level C). Inspired on LAMS interface, it also offers

3 ______ IV. CONCLUSIONS In this current phase, TIDIA-Ae is a suite of content and communication tools integrated by context, user and tool managers. It has just started to recognize the importance of integrating pedagogical and instructional design functions to the classical LMS content-presentation and communication tools. One of our contributions as a development laboratory is defining and developing a Learning Editor Activities where teachers and instructional designers can plan, design, play and track learning-teaching processes. This is only the first stage in a wide way to create adaptive learning environments that matches with many rich educational practices, without overloading educators with complex technological details. At same time, we hope that our experience, deeply based on the realistic needs and diversified profiles of our community of practical, contributes to the world discussion about open source e-learning tools. A CKNOWLEDGMENT Tidia-Ae project was financially supported by the FAPESP Foundation of Support to the Research of the State of So Paulo. REFERENCES
[1] HEWSON, Lindsay & HUGHES, Chris. Generic structures for online teaching and learning. In: LOCKWOOD, Fred & GOOLEY, Anne (eds.) Innovation in Open and Distance Learning: Successful Development of Online and Web-based Learning (Open & Distance Learning S.). Chapter 7. University of New South Wales, Sidney, Austrlia, 2001. [2] EML (2000). Reference Manual for Edubox-EML/XML binding 1.0/1.0 (Beta version). Disponvel em http://learningnetworks.org/downloads/edubox1.0.html. [3] KOPER, R. & MANDERVELD, J. (2004). Educational Modelling Language: Modelling reusable, interoperable, rich and personalised units of learning. [4] HUMMEL, G. K. & KOPER, Rob (2005). From LO to LA: from a learning object centric view towards a learning activity perspective. Available at http://dspace.learningnetworks.org/retrieve/729/From+LO+to+LA_ submJTICL.pdf [5] ROSMALEN, Peter van & BOTICARIO, Jess. Using learning design to support design and runtime application. In: KOPER, Rob & TATTERSALL, Colin (eds.) (2005). Learning design: A Handbook on Modelling and Delivering Networked Education and Training. Springer Verlag. [6] TOWLEN, Bredon & HALM, Michael. Designing adaptive learning environment wi th Learning Design. In: KOPER, Rob & TATTERSALL, Colin (eds.) (2005). Learning design: A Handbook on Modelling and Delivering Networked Education and Training. Springer Verlag. [7] KOPER, R. (2001). Modeling Units of Study from a Pedagogical Perspective: the pedagogical meta-model behind EML. [8] BERGGREN et al. (2005) Practical and Pedagogical Issues for Teacher Adoption of IMS Learning Design Standards in Moodle LMS. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2005/02. Andrea Filatro is Master in Education, on-line teacher at Posgraduation Program of Instructional Design at University of Juiz de Fora, and author of Design Instrucional Contextualizado, Editora Senac So Paulo, 2004. Rogrio Boaretto is Cesar Nunes is