Teaching programming at a distance: the Internet software visualization laboratory

This paper describes recent developments in our approach to teaching computer programming in the context of a part-time Masters course taught at a distance. Within our course, students are sent a pack which contains integrated text, software and video course material, using a uniform graphical representation to tell a consistent story of how the programming language works. The students communicate with their tutors over the phone and through surface mail. Through our empirical studies and experience teaching the course we have identified four current problems: (i) students' difficulty mapping between the graphical representations used in the course and the programs to which they relate, (ii) the lack of a conversational context for tutor help provided over the telephone, (iii) helping students who due to their other commitments tend to study at 'unsociable' hours, and (iv) providing software for the constantly changing and expanding range of platforms and operating systems used by students. We hope to alleviate these problems through our Internet Software Visualization Laboratory (ISVL), which supports individual exploration, and both synchronous and asynchronous communication. As a single user, students are aided by the extra mappings provided between the graphical representations used in the course and their computer programs, overcoming the problems of the original notation. ISVL can also be used as a synchronous communication medium whereby one of the users (generally the tutor) can provide an annotated demonstration of a program and its execution, a far richer alternative to technical discussions over the telephone. Finally, ISVL can be used to support asynchronous communication, helping students who work at unsociable hours by allowing the tutor to prepare short educational movies for them to view when convenient. The ISVL environment runs on a conventional web browser and is therefore platform independent, has modest hardware and bandwidth requirements, and is easy to distribute and maintain. Our planned experiments with ISVL will allow us to investigate ways in which new technology can be most appropriately applied in the service of distance education

Multi-Media As a Cognitive Tool

Two of the modalities used to present information to students, namely, animation and verbal representation are in a constant competition in effectiveness, without any persistent winner, except when it comes to conceptual versus procedural knowledge. Here, we present an architecture that combines the two into a multi-media tutoring system. This system is tested and results indicate that combining the two media leads to a cognitive interaction that promotes student learning with no less than 40% from their post classical-classroom session levels. A test for individual differences indicates that this group is almost equally divided between those described as “spatially oriented” and those described as “verbally oriented”. Learning across the two types of learners does not show any significant differences, except with respect to one question. This implies that perhaps, the two media may have ambiguous internal factors that support each other. Additionally, individual learning styles does not seem to be a clear-cut division, and is instead a “preference” of one modality as a primary source of learning, not an only one

Four dimensional presentations as a new representation method: a proposal for the use of interactive multimedia presentation in landscape architecture

Few studies on presentation methods in the profession of landscape architecture have been done in the past, because evaluating presentations raises primarily subjective issues. Today, interactive multimedia presentations offer an excellent opportunity to investigate the presentation methods employed by landscape architects, gCan new communication technologies help to enhance the communication between the presenter and his audience?h This is the fundamental question addressed in this thesis. It explores interactive multimedia presentations to see their potentials, and considers ways to integrate various multimedia as presentation methods for future landscape architectural presentations. The main terms, interactivity and multimedia, are explained to understand the features of interactive multimedia presentations. Conventions of traditional presentations and historical aspects are overviewed to deepen the meanings of presentation methods. An interactive multimedia presentation is actually produced to explore how multimedia can be effective tools and to document how the interactive multimedia presentations are produced. It used to be very difficult to represent the transitions between spaces in traditional paper board presentations; however, interactive multimedia presentations make it possible to visualize the transitions and relationship between the designed spaces three-dimensionally. Landscape architects today should make the most use of various media and utilize the new computer communication technologies to enhance their presentations. 3D modeling process greatly helps designers check and reevaluate their proposed designs as well. In fact, interactive multimedia presentations are useful not only for the presentations but also for total professional communication and educational purposes

Model-based engineering of animated interactive systems for the interactive television environment

Les interfaces graphiques étaient la plupart du temps statiques, et représentaient une succession d'états logiciels les uns après les autres. Cependant, les transitions animées entre ces états statiques font partie intégrante des interfaces utilisateurs modernes, et leurs processus de design et d'implémentations constituent un défi pour les designers et les développeurs. Cette thèse propose un processus de conception de systèmes interactifs centré sur les animations, ainsi qu'une architecture pour la définition et l'implémentation d'animations au sein des interfaces graphiques. L'architecture met en avant une approche à deux niveaux pour définir une vue haut niveau d'une animation (avec un intérêt particulier pour les objets animés, leurs propriétés à être animé et la composition d'animations) ainsi qu'une vue bas niveau traitant des aspects détaillés des animations tels que les timings et les optimisations. Concernant les spécifications formelles de ces deux niveaux, nous utilisons une approche qui facilite les réseaux de Petri orientés objets pour la conception, l'implémentation et la validation d'interfaces utilisateurs animées en fournissant une description complète et non-ambiguë de l'ensemble de l'interface utilisateur, y compris les animations. Enfin, nous décrivons la mise en pratique du processus présenté, illustré par un cas d'étude d'un prototype haute-fidélité d'une interface utilisateur, pour le domaine de la télévision interactive. Ce processus conduira à une spécification formelle et détaillée du système interactif, et incluera des animations utilisant des réseaux de Petri orientés objet (conçus avec l'outil PetShop CASE).Graphical User Interfaces used to be mostly static, representing one software state after the other. However, animated transitions between these static states are an integral part in modern user interfaces and processes for both their design and implementation remain a challenge for designers and developers. This thesis proposes a process for designing interactive systems focusing on animations, along with an architecture for the definition and implementation of animation in user interfaces. The architecture proposes a two levels approach for defining a high-level view of an animation (focusing on animated objects, their properties to be animated and on the composition of animations) and a low-level one dealing with detailed aspects of animations such as timing and optimization. For the formal specification of these two levels, we are using an approach facilitating object-oriented Petri nets to support the design, implementation and validation of animated user interfaces by providing a complete and unambiguous description of the entire user interface including animations. Finally, we describe the application of the presented process exemplified by a case study for a high-fidelity prototype of a user interface for the interactive Television domain. This process will lead to a detailed formal specification of the interactive system, including animations using object-oriented Petri nets (designed with the PetShop CASE tool)

Data mining technology for the evaluation of learning content interaction

Interactivity is central for the success of learning. In e-learning and other educational multimedia environments, the evaluation of interaction and behaviour is particularly crucial. Data mining – a non-intrusive, objective analysis technology – shall be proposed as the central evaluation technology for the analysis of the usage of computer-based educational environments and in particular of the interaction with educational content. Basic mining techniques are reviewed and their application in a Web-based third-level course environment is illustrated. Analytic models capturing interaction aspects from the application domain (learning) and the software infrastructure (interactive multimedia) are required for the meaningful interpretation of mining results

DocuDrama

This paper presents an approach combining concepts of virtual storytelling with cooperative processes. We will describe why storytelling is relevant in cooperation support applications. We will outline how storytelling concepts provide a new quality for groupware applications. Different prototypes illustrate a combination of a groupware application with various storytelling components in a Theatre of Work

The future of technology enhanced active learning – a roadmap

The notion of active learning refers to the active involvement of learner in the learning process, capturing ideas of learning-by-doing and the fact that active participation and knowledge construction leads to deeper and more sustained learning. Interactivity, in particular learnercontent interaction, is a central aspect of technology-enhanced active learning. In this roadmap, the pedagogical background is discussed, the essential dimensions of technology-enhanced active learning systems are outlined and the factors that are expected to influence these systems currently and in the future are identified. A central aim is to address this promising field from a best practices perspective, clarifying central issues and formulating an agenda for future developments in the form of a roadmap