ICALT Summer School 2005

Topics

The interdisciplinary summer school is intended for potsgraduate students, teachers and researchers specilizing in educational technology. The aim of the summer school is to focus on both technical and educational aspects of the field. The activities in the summer school are based on collaborative projects. Projects are done in heterogeneous groups in order to foster multi-disciplinary approaches into educational technology design. Lectures give inspiration and novel ides to the students' work.

The program of the ICALT Summer School 2005 consists of four tracks:

Creative Problem Solving; Prof. Erkki Sutinen, University of Joensuu, Finland
Adaptivity and Cognitive Profiling in Advanced Learning Technologies; Prof. Kinshuk, Massey University, New Zealand
Exploiting Dependency in Computer-Assisted Learning; Dr. Meurig Beynon, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Cyber Schooling: Improving Mobility and Situated Learning; Prof. Nian-Shing Chen, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

Overview of the Tracks

Track 1: Creative Problem Solving

Problem solving is a wide concept. It is common to see it as a set of tools or patterns which can applied to a closed or well-defined problem with a definite answer or design. However, problem solving can offer us much more. The term creative problem solving (CPS) is used for methodology to cope with problems of any kind, even with open or ill-defned problems. Traditionally, creative methods have not been considered a part of a computer scientist's or educational technologist's expertise or skills. For innovative systems, however, it is crucial that computer experts have a stronger contribution in formulating and even recognizing problems. Managing a problem up to its solution as a software product is a long process that needs creativity and flexibility from its very beginning.

We need professionals to unveil technical opportunities and help their clients in not only solving, but also in identifying problems which can be solved using the state-of-art technology. From this perspective, it is most bizarre that, for instance, most of CS education emphasizes closed problem solving methods instead of introducing young scientists to the talent of identifying, expressing, and formulating open, unspecified problems. This leads into the conservative principle of what-you-know-is-what-you-get, rather than the renewing design paradigm of what-you-need-is-what-you-get. The first principle builds upon a specified list of features, corresponding to a closed problem. The latter one states a customer's problem in a preliminary or even an obscure way, but gives the designer an open space for a truly innovative plan of action.

To give an idea what CPS is all about, we describe it as a process which has four phases: analysis, creating ideas, applying, and application. The process starts with the analysis phase, in which the problem is identified, defined, or clarified and information related to the problem is collected. In the phase of creating ideas, we generate new ideas and develop them further by reflecting and combining them with other ideas and known solutions to related problems. One may stimulate this phase with outside impulses of many kinds, like pictures, sounds, and imagined situations. In the evaluation phase, we consider the applicability of the created ideas and select the ideas to be realized. The realization itself takes place in the application phase, in which we can also consider how the solution fits to neighbor problems and what we have learned from the solving process. The process is not linear but rather cyclic, and each of the four phases can even take place simultaneously with one another. E.g. one may need to redne the problem several times during the process. Each phase has methods and check lists of its own.

The Creative Problem Solving Track in the Summer School will consider how CPS can be integrated with CS education or educational technology development.

Discussion topics

CPS as an educational principle in CS
Software and methods for CPS
Problem based learning Processes of Science
Should CPS be taught as a course of its own or integrated with other CS courses? Timin of CPS training
How to indoctrinate educators?
Problem identification and classfication

Track 2: Adaptivity and Cognitive Profiling in Advanced Learning Technologies

The concept of adaptivity has always been an important issue of research for learning systems. The research has shown that the application of adaptation can provide better learning environment. Individualized instruction through various adaptivity techniques makes these systems particularly interesting for corporate environment where the requirements change for each learner according to the role even if the educational content remains the same.

There have been many attempts in the last decade to include user models and adaptation features within systems with a view to improve the correspondence between user, task and system characteristics. Currently, there are many educational system design techniques and methods for supporting learning in adaptive systems.

This track deals with the design and development issues of adaptive educational systems. Participants will get an insight of "exploration space control" and "multiple representation approach" methodologies for providing adaptivity. Effectiveness of the methodologies will be explained with particular focus within the applied domains where learning is more concerned with the operational knowledge. These environments can accommodate both the 'instruction' and 'construction' of knowledge and involve active engagement; they have been more successful as demonstrated by the popularity and wide acceptance of simulation based tutoring systems. This track aims to provide the students with the knowledge that they need in order to make informed assessments and decisions about such environments.

A major area of concern in adaptive educational systems is the difficulty in acquisition of cognitive skills as opposed to the physical skills that can be imitated. Cognitive skills are concerned with analysis, interpretation and decision making processes required to perform the procedural tasks. Much of these processes run inside a human mind and therefore they do not lend themselves to direct imitation. The development of cognitive skills therefore largely relies on self-explanation. It is important for a learning system designer to consider acquisition of cognitive skills, and provide adequate adaptive mechanisms to ensure that the learners do not end up with rote learning, and mis- or missing conceptions.

The track will have particular focus on techniques for development of cognitive profiles of the learners and make use of those profiles to provide adaptation in the learning process. Starting with the needs and requirements analysis, the participants will go through the step-by-step design process using the formalization of the methodologies and analysing various cognitive traits of the learner that are required for adaptation process.

The participants of this track will consider five questions that can be asked about any adaptive educational systems:

What are the various aspects of learning facilitated by such systems?
What are the theoretical issues, which underlie development of such systems?
What functions are served by adaptation?
What pedagogical issues are important in the development of such systems?
How one can go about practically developing such systems?

Track 3: Exploiting Dependency in Computer-Assisted Learning

The notion of dependency is familiar from spreadsheet software. The formula that defines a spreadsheet cell ensures that its value changes 'instantaneously' when other cells are updated. The potential for spreadsheets to enhance the quality of the learning experience is well-recognised. The principal aim of this workshop is to explore the educational implications of using dependency from the broader perspective afforded by Empirical Modelling [EM], a methodology for modelling with dependency in which agency, observation and experiment play a central role. The workshop will combine presentations and practical sessions with the aim of giving participants the level of expertise and understanding needed to make effective use of EM in their own research on technology-enhanced learning. Particular emphasis will be given to introducing EM principles and tools to build models that offer unprecedented levels of interactivity and flexibility within a constructivist paradigm.

Computer support for constructivist learning will be discussed from three perspectives: those of the learner, the teacher and the educational software developer. The learner aspires to model-building that promotes personal understanding as it emerges from open-ended interaction, typically in the absence of an established theory. The teacher wishes to translate imaginative ideas for stimulating engagement and customisation to specific learner needs into realistic prescriptions for model-building activity. The developer seeks principles and tools to engineer interactive software that not only has a rich functionality, but also admits adaptation and extension without the same degree of pain and cost that was involved in the initial implementation. The workshop will show how modelling with dependency promises to address each requirement, and so contribute to the convergence of these three perspectives that is implicit in the constructivist ideal. The workshop will be designed to cater for participants whose interest and competence lies in any one - or all of these three roles. With this in mind, practical work will be directed at model comprehension and analysis as well as individual and collaborative model-building activities.

For more background, see the EM website.

Track 4: Cyber Schooling: Improving Mobility and Situated Learning

Use of technology in e-learning requires a systematic and effective approach to ensure that learning actually takes place and the technology acts as a catalyst not only to improve learning process but also to engage those in the learning who were not able to pursue this venue in traditional schooling environment. The Cyber Schooling is based on using information technology in various forms with e-learning to enhance the traditional school paradigm. It broadens the scope of educational environment to include those who were unable to participate in the learning process in traditional schooling environment, and extends the learning process to more contextual learning by including those scenarios where learning takes place in locations that provide context for the subject content.

The concept of Cyber School extends the traditional school while providing additional functions that have become available due to advances in the technology in recent years. This includes anytime and anywhere access to the teaching resources, better teacher-students and students-students interaction, and much more contextualized learning environment. Cyber Classroom breaks the restriction of space and time, and provides teachers and students with a common study environment well beyond the physical classroom of traditional schooling paradigm. Cyber Teacher Desk provides teachers with enhanced teaching aids and just-in-time access to students within and physical classroom and outside of it. Cyber Student Desk provides students with multifarious learning tools, mobility and situated learning potentials.

This track explores the Cyber Schooling to identify different scenarios in which the technology is able to serve the learning process. The framework takes the much-familiar traditional school structure as the basis and attempts to enhance it by the use of technology to overcome shortcomings of traditional education and study without time and space restriction. The Cyber Schooling framework includes four elements: Cyber School, Cyber Classroom, Cyber Teacher Desk (teacher's WiFi laptop) and Cyber Student Desk (student's WiFi laptop). This framework provides scenarios to overcome shortcomings of traditional education and enables learners to study in a familiar school-oriented environment without time and space restriction. The Cyber Schooling framework provides a clear picture of the scenarios in which Cyber School can be used along with the bandwidth requirements, mobility of network access and the extent of situated learning that can be achieved.

The track also discusses each scenario within the framework using real-life examples to provide practical utility of the framework. Finally, this track will conclude with summarizing the benefits of the framework in enhancing the traditional school system and improving potential for new situated learning opportunities.