Computer-Driven Instructional Design with INTUITEL

INTUITEL is a research project that was co-financed by the European Commission with the aim to advance state-of-the-art e-learning systems via addition of guidance and feedback for learners. Through a combination of pedagogical knowledge, measured learning progress and a broad range of environmental and background data, INTUITEL systems will provide guidance towards an optimal learning pathway. This allows INTUITEL-enabled learning management systems to offer learners automated, personalised learning support so far only provided by human tutors INTUITEL is - in the first place - a design pattern for the creation of adaptive e-learning systems. It focuses on the reusability of existing learning material and especially the annotation with semantic meta data. INTUITEL introduces a novel approach that describes learning material as well as didactic and pedagogical meta knowledge by the use of ontologies. Learning recommendations are inferred from these ontologies during runtime. This way INTUITEL solves a common problem in the field of adaptive systems: it is not restricted to a certain field. Any content from any domain can be annotated. The INTUITEL research team also developed a prototype system. Both the theoretical foundations and how to implement your own INTUITEL system are discussed in this book

Computer-Driven Instructional Design with INTUITEL

INTUITEL is a research project that was co-financed by the European Commission with the aim to advance state-of-the-art e-learning systems via addition of guidance and feedback for learners. Through a combination of pedagogical knowledge, measured learning progress and a broad range of environmental and background data, INTUITEL systems will provide guidance towards an optimal learning pathway. This allows INTUITEL-enabled learning management systems to offer learners automated, personalised learning support so far only provided by human tutors INTUITEL is - in the first place - a design pattern for the creation of adaptive e-learning systems. It focuses on the reusability of existing learning material and especially the annotation with semantic meta data. INTUITEL introduces a novel approach that describes learning material as well as didactic and pedagogical meta knowledge by the use of ontologies. Learning recommendations are inferred from these ontologies during runtime. This way INTUITEL solves a common problem in the field of adaptive systems: it is not restricted to a certain field. Any content from any domain can be annotated. The INTUITEL research team also developed a prototype system. Both the theoretical foundations and how to implement your own INTUITEL system are discussed in this book

Programming unplugged : insights from theoretical models and teacher experiences.

Unplugged approaches to teaching Computational Thinking (CT), which are based on activities that do not require the use of a digital device or programming, are widely used in computing education. Evidence from the literature and practice indicates that this approach can be used successfully, although views on the value of Unplugged computing have been varied. Recently it was found that rather than comparing Unplugged with other approaches, combining Unplugged with teaching programming enabled students to achieve the same level of programming competence, but with higher self-efficacy, and a larger vocabulary in the programming language compared to a similar time span spent on programming alone. Despite this improved understanding of how to use Unplugged activities, there is little understanding of why they are effective and what ways they can be combined with plugged-in exercises effectively in a programming classroom and for teachers’ professional development (PD). In this thesis we use practical observations viewed through the lenses of theories of learning to understand why the Unplugged approach is effective. Computational Thinking in school curricula is about teaching students to understand how to use computation to solve problems, to create, and to discover new questions that can fruitfully be explored in other disciplines and professions as well as Computer Science. Teachers need to be able to effectively communicate the ideas of Computational Thinking to students and apply these within the context of their classroom. Our initial studies with teachers indicated that understanding the nature of the commonly identi- fied difficulties and confusion caused by computer jargon among teachers is important for finding ways for effective classroom delivery. We found that the concerns from teach- ers finding computer jargon difficult can be because the computational context in which they are applied makes them difficult for teachers to understand, rather than not knowing their meanings in the first place, and appropriate support can enable teachers to learn the techniques and skills that the terminology refers to. Using Unplugged material in teachers’ professional development, we tried to understand how they perceive the utility of Unplugged, particularly in introductory programming and understanding the jargon. Findings indicate that alternating Unplugged content in introductory programming does not hinder the teachers’ teaching efficacy and self-efficacy towards computer programming, yet teachers can be equipped with more content within the same time frame as a conventional teaching approach. Another lens that we use to understand how Unplugged and programming relate is the Notional Machine (NM), an abstract model of a computer created by teachers to facilitate learners’ understanding. It represents something they can (mentally) interact with to draw learners’ attention to hidden aspects of computing, is implicit in all programming teaching methods, and is a key to successful programming. We explore how Unplugged activities seem to have a close connection with Notional Machine, and therefore use the lens of Notional Machine to understand the relationship between Un- plugged and programming. Reviewing the existing Unplugged activities through this lens, we can understand where Unplugged has been successful in teaching programming and why. We also identify the possible gaps in Unplugged activities that need addressing for it to be further successful as a programming education tool. Accordingly, in our professional development experimental studies we developed and trialled new Unplugged activities focusing on modeling basic programming concepts, and studied their usefulness in alternating with conventional programming teaching practices. The usefulness of Unplugged activities in introductory programming was then considered through the lens of Semantic Waves, a concept that describes an ideal learning journey of a novice learner over a course of learning while shifting between expert and novice understanding, abstract and concrete context, and technical and simple meanings. Studying the behavior of the Semantic Waves of Unplugged activities we saw how, heuristically, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) can be seen as a differentiation of a semantic profile of an Unplugged activity, essentially shifting learners back and forth between existing and new knowledge, while learning a programming concept. The Semantic Waves of Unplugged activities used to model programming concepts were analysed and compared with a plugged-in only lessons that taught the same concepts to show how alternating Unplugged activities with plugged-in experience successfully covers a wider semantic range, indicating the possibility of avoiding both learner anxiety as well as boredom, and enabling teachers to find better teaching strategies that suit their classrooms. Semantic profiles show the balance between what learners know and what they should know about what is actually happening, and the use of Unplugged activities supports the flow needed for creating effective semantic profiles, particularly in programming classrooms

The use of microcomputers in mathematics teaching in Fiji

At the end of 1983 the Ministry of Education in Fiji informed schools that computers would be introduced in 1984. In February 1984 some selected schools received the first microcomputers. At a Conference on Computers in the Classroom, held in August 1984 at the University of the South Pacific. the Head of Mathematics at a senior secondary school said, in a paper presented at the conference: 'while there may have been some pre-planning at headquarters level it seems that no arrangement was made with individual schools.’ Amongst the problems highlighted in the paper by the Head of Mathematics was: 'the difficulty in deciding on a suitable type programme to offer to the students.' This thesis primarily concerns the application of microcomputers in teaching mathematics in Fiji. The author's experience shows that teachers in Fiji are aware of the need to respond to the microcomputer technology but this response is restricted due to the almost total lack of staff with even a basic knowledge of computers. [Continues.

USING BLOCKCHAIN TO BUILD DECENTRALIZED ACCESS CONTROL IN A PEER-TO-PEER E-LEARNING PLATFORM

In the context of E-learning platforms, the amount of research focusing on access control is proliferating. However, research related to the decentralized access control in this field is scarce. To improve such area of research, an innovative model of decentralized access control used to protect the collaborative peer-to-peer E-learning platform has been proposed. In this model, the integrity, authenticity, non-repudiation and traceability of E-learning resources are ensured by using Blockchain platform. Also, RESTful web service and Go/Java programming language will be used as tools to implement this model. A key metric is measured to evaluate the proposed model: average response time. To increase the accuracy, some experiments (144) have been carried out. The same experiment is conducted in two comparatively different network environment: Local Area Network (LAN) and Cloud Web Service (such as Amazon Web Service). LAN running environment represents the optimal condition while Cloud environment stands for the actual condition in the real world. When the number of clients in my proposed E-learning platform is relatively small (consisting of one to thirty concurrent clients interacting with E-learning resources), the average response time in the LAN environment is much faster (nearly 1.5 times) than that in Cloud environment. Nevertheless, when the number of clients is on a large scale, the difference of average response time between this two environment becomes insignificant. Besides, adding servers in both environments can increase the horizontal scalability. Furthermore, adding servers in Cloud environment can boost the system performance dramatically. However, extending the delay could have an impact on the system performance but negligible

A Software Developer's Work Is Never Done

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68688/2/10.1177_105256298801200403.pd

Development of Cognitive Capabilities in Humanoid Robots

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/645 on 03.04.2017 by CS (TIS)Building intelligent systems with human level of competence is the ultimate grand challenge for science and technology in general, and especially for the computational intelligence community. Recent theories in autonomous cognitive systems have focused on the close integration (grounding) of communication with perception, categorisation and action. Cognitive systems are essential for integrated multi-platform systems that are capable of sensing and communicating. This thesis presents a cognitive system for a humanoid robot that integrates abilities such as object detection and recognition, which are merged with natural language understanding and refined motor controls. The work includes three studies; (1) the use of generic manipulation of objects using the NMFT algorithm, by successfully testing the extension of the NMFT to control robot behaviour; (2) a study of the development of a robotic simulator; (3) robotic simulation experiments showing that a humanoid robot is able to acquire complex behavioural, cognitive, and linguistic skills through individual and social learning. The robot is able to learn to handle and manipulate objects autonomously, to cooperate with human users, and to adapt its abilities to changes in internal and environmental conditions. The model and the experimental results reported in this thesis, emphasise the importance of embodied cognition, i.e. the humanoid robot's physical interaction between its body and the environment

INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS FOR INDUSTRY USING REINFORCEMENT LEARNING TECHNIQUE

The rise of Intelligent Systems has happened gradually, then suddenly. They are gradual because we are aware that this field of computing has come a long way along with the history of computers. Yet, the sudden astonishing changes that affect mankind seem to take everyone in surprise. Their occurrence is reshaping the real world and our interaction with our digital life is changing in profound ways. Can computers think? We don’t have evidence on that, whatever the answer to that question is. But what we know is that computers do learn. Indeed, the whole process of computer evolution revolves around machines that are able to follow instructions and practice and eventually get better at what they are initially produced to accomplish. Consequently, the questions that we try to answer are related to the types of learning that intelligent programs use with special regards to one of the most researched methods of Machine Learning – Reinforcement Learning. On the other hand, it is crucial to apply the intelligent self-learning machines in industry, environment, enterprise, medicine and all the other sectors where we need to see the substantial changes that correspond with the era of machines that can learn. The intersection point in this research is the application of intelligent programs in industry using a very specific learning technique – Reinforcement Learning