Isabelle/PIDE as Platform for Educational Tools

The Isabelle/PIDE platform addresses the question whether proof assistants of the LCF family are suitable as technological basis for educational tools. The traditionally strong logical foundations of systems like HOL, Coq, or Isabelle have so far been counter-balanced by somewhat inaccessible interaction via the TTY (or minor variations like the well-known Proof General / Emacs interface). Thus the fundamental question of math education tools with fully-formal background theories has often been answered negatively due to accidental weaknesses of existing proof engines. The idea of "PIDE" (which means "Prover IDE") is to integrate existing provers like Isabelle into a larger environment, that facilitates access by end-users and other tools. We use Scala to expose the proof engine in ML to the JVM world, where many user-interfaces, editor frameworks, and educational tools already exist. This shall ultimately lead to combined mathematical assistants, where the logical engine is in the background, without obstructing the view on applications of formal methods, formalized mathematics, and math education in particular.Comment: In Proceedings THedu'11, arXiv:1202.453

Are International Educational Tests Good Accountability Tools?

incentives, education, School accountability, educational tests, TIMSS

MULTIMEDIA BASED EDUCATION TOOLS FOR STUDYING HIRAGANA AND KATAKANA LETTERS FOR BEGINERS USING MACROMEDIA FLASH

The advancement of technology in education today indicate that the use of foreign language is inevitable in the globalisation era. One of the example is the use of Japanese language in the international education and trading. Thus, the demand to study Japanese letter is increasing. Nevertheless the education tools to study it is somehow still conventional ones, such as papers, cards, and books which are less interesting, and people usually get bored and get some difficulties.This study aims to develop multimedia based education tools which could be used to complement the education process for Hiragana and Katakana letters, and to find out the relevancy of this education tools. This study uses Researh and Development approach. It is conducted on May 2011 at Focus Group Discussion (FGD) in “Pusat Budaya Jepang” learning institution. The subject being studied are 15 students, and the object are multimedia based education tools for studying Hiragana and Katakana letters. Research is performed in several steps : competency standard, problem and potential solution, analisis of needs, designs and implementations, products, expert validation, product revisions, trial usage, product revision and mass production. Data collection method being used are observation and unstructured interview. Analyzing technique being used is descriptive qualitatif analysis. Result of validation conducted by educational material expert stated that this educational tools are accordance with the cmpetency standard and are fit for educational purpose. So as media experts state that this educational tools are good example and are fit for educational purpose. Based trial usage to the students this tools fit for the purpose and make the educational process easier. Keyword : educational tools, multimedia, Hiaragana and Katakana letters, Macromedia Flash

Proprietary software tools as learning aids

Proprietary software tools, though not designed for educational use, have considerable educational potential. This paper describes, as case studies, the use of proprietary graphics- and audio-editing tools in two distance-taught courses produced by the Department of Information and Communication Technologies at the UK Open University – Europe's largest distance teaching institution. The paper examines the potential advantages and disadvantages of this type of software relative to conventional educational software in terms of constructivist learning theory, and describes how students use the software in the courses concerned. The paper concludes by suggesting further developments of this approach

Accessibility assessment of MOOC platforms in Spanish: UNED COMA, COLMENIA and Miriada X

This article develops a methodology for the assessment of MOOC courses, focusing on the degree of accessibility of three Spanish MOOC platforms: UNED COMA, COLMENIA and Miriada X. Four different criteria have been used in this context: automatic tools, disability simulators, testing tools and educational conten

OER Hub Researcher Pack

The OER Hub researcher pack will be of interest to anyone conducting research into the impact of open educational resources (OER) or open education. Building on the earlier release of tools developed, used and released by the OER Hub, the researcher pack provides explanation and guidance on how to use these tools. All material and tools are CC BY licensed and are available for reuse

Questions of quality in repositories of open educational resources: a literature review

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are freely available and openly licensed. Repositories of OER (ROER) are platforms that host and facilitate access to these resources. ROER should not just be designed to store this content – in keeping with the aims of the OER movement, they should support educators in embracing open educational practices (OEP) such as searching for and retrieving content that they will reuse, adapt or modify as needed, without economic barriers or copyright restrictions. This paper reviews key literature on OER and ROER, in order to understand the roles ROER are said or supposed to fulfil in relation to furthering the aims of the OER movement. Four themes which should shape repository design are identified, and the following 10 quality indicators (QI) for ROER effectiveness are discussed: featured resources; user evaluation tools; peer review; authorship of the resources; keywords of the resources; use of standardised metadata; multilingualism of the repositories; inclusion of social media tools; specification of the creative commons license; availability of the source code or original files. These QI form the basis of a method for the evaluation of ROER initiatives which, in concert with considerations of achievability and long-term sustainability, should assist in enhancement and development. Keywords: open educational resources; open access; open educational practice; repositories; quality assuranc

Investigation of the use of navigation tools in web-based learning: A data mining approach

Web-based learning is widespread in educational settings. The popularity of Web-based learning is in great measure because of its flexibility. Multiple navigation tools provided some of this flexibility. Different navigation tools offer different functions. Therefore, it is important to understand how the navigation tools are used by learners with different backgrounds, knowledge, and skills. This article presents two empirical studies in which data-mining approaches were used to analyze learners' navigation behavior. The results indicate that prior knowledge and subject content are two potential factors influencing the use of navigation tools. In addition, the lack of appropriate use of navigation tools may adversely influence learning performance. The results have been integrated into a model that can help designers develop Web-based learning programs and other Web-based applications that can be tailored to learners' needs