WoSS&N

1. WoSS&N National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Gaithersburg, Maryland –February 22-25, 2005 Building Intelligent Learning Management Systems to implement the Teacher-Student dialogue Keith Maycock and John G.Keating Department of Computer Science National University of Ireland Maynooth.

2. Acknowledgement This project is jointly funded by IRCSET and IBM Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

3. Agenda • Motivation • Intelligent systems and Learning • Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • Effects of adding help on the activity tree • Locating a learning experience in a learning experience repository • Conclusion • Questions Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

4. Agenda • Motivation • Intelligent systems and Learning • Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • Effects of adding help on the activity tree • Locating a learning experience in a learning experience repository • Conclusion • Questions Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

5. Motivation LMS Student Profile of student Profile of student LMS LMS Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

6. Motivation • Individually tutored students against classroom environment. • In a typical classroom environment every student, on average, asks about 0.1 questions every hour. • The speed with which different students can progress through instruction varies by factors of three to seven. • With individual tutoring, students may ask or answer on average 120 questions per hour. • The achievement of individually tutored students may exceed that of classroom students by as much as two standard deviations – an improvement which is equivalent to raising the performance of 50th percentile students to that of 98th percentile students. • Expected influx into higher education. • Currently there are roughly 70 million people in higher education, this number is expected to more than double before 2025. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

7. Motivation • Industry and learning • Technology is increasing at a rapid rate and businesses are having to spend a substantial amount of money to keep their staff up to date with the state of the art. • It is for all the above reasons that e-learning must traverse into an on-demand framework tailored to the individual needs of each user to reduce time-spent learning and increase productivity. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

8. Agenda • Motivation • Intelligent systems and Learning • Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • Effects of adding help on the activity tree • Locating a learning experience in a learning experience repository • Conclusion • Questions Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

9. What are Intelligent systems? • Artificial intelligence aims to implement machines that simulate intelligent human behavior. • This intelligent human behavior is often misunderstood, as there are multiple definitions such as, verbal, spatial and emotional intelligence. • In the context of our project, we consider intelligence as the ability to learn from past experiences and subsequent profiling. • A direct correlation can be mapped over to our definition of machine intelligence, as our intelligent learning management system will learn from past experiences when evaluating problems with different users. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

10. Understanding Learning • This project is focused on the vocal aspect of learning with respect to the teacher student • relationship. • The importance of language can be seen clearly throughout the evolution of hominids. • With the emergence of language the hominid evolution accelerated. • It is believed that with the introduction of language, this gave hominids the ability to create an internal visual perception of a complex reality thus enabling hominids to think through problems • The introduction of language also enabled hominids to project into a future state of reality when dealing with problems. • How does this relate to e-learning. • We believe that if learning objects suited to a particular user are returned, it would increase the ability of each user to learn more effectively as the user is constantly reading and thus creating an internal representation of each learning object encountered Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

11. Agenda • Motivation • Intelligent systems and Learning • Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • Effects of adding help on the activity tree • Locating a learning experience in a learning experience repository • Conclusion • Questions Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

12. Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • The ADL initiative was established in November 1997. Their mission is to bring the highest quality of instructional material, tailored to the needs of each individual anytime anywhere. • The ADL produced the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) as the backbone for producing reusable-learning objects. • Each SCORM compliant learning object has the following fields, with various meta data components. • <manifest> • <organisations> • <resources> • <(sub)manifests> • The SCORM is defined within three books. • The content aggregation (CAM) book defines the learning content using XML tags. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

13. Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • The SCORM Run Time Environment (RTE) describes the LMS requirements for interacting with learning objects. • The Sequencing and Navigation (SN) defines the various methods of delivering courses to clients Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

14. Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • The following represents the basic schematic of how the learning management system interacts with the learning object. Launches Learning Object LMS Data Model API Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

15. Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • Building learning objects is the first step in developing intelligent learning management systems and bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework. • Extending the manifest to include a personal element with various attributes, such as, name, age, address, ability, learning preference and associated metadata would enable the LMS to initiate conversation with the client on a ‘personal’ level. • <manifest> • <organisations> • <resources> • <(sub)manifests> • <Personal> Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

16. Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • The <Personal> field would initially be empty in every learning object. Once the learning experience has commenced the users personal profile would be dynamically filled from locally stored information. • Technology is changing rapidly and correspondingly, adaptive on-demand technology training is now an essential part of day-to-day business. It should be possible for users to log into any LMS and get instant access to learning objects. • Adding the <Personal> element into the manifest allows each user the freedom to log onto any LMS and initiate a learning experience. • Giving the users this freedom is essentially bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework. Allowing users instant access to tailor made learning objects. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

17. Agenda • Motivation • Intelligent systems and Learning • Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • Effects of adding help on the activity tree • Locating a learning experience in a learning experience repository • Conclusion • Questions Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

18. Effects of adding help on the Activity tree • An Activity Tree is a general term that represents an instance of hierarchical learning activities and the corresponding sequencing information for the interoperable application of specified sequencing behaviors. • The Activity Tree is not a static structure and is free to change dynamically with the needs of the learning object vender. • The structural change to a learning objects activity tree is seen below, when a learner prompts the LMS for help. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

19. Effects of adding help on the Activity tree Course Module1 Module2 Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Learner has problem With lesson 2 and prompts the LMS for help. Once the learning experience has concluded, the transformation from lesson two to the new sub manifst is saved in a learning experience repository. LMS returnes a learning object suited to the learners needs and creates a (sub)manifest at the point of help. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

20. Agenda • Motivation • Intelligent systems and Learning • Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework • Effects of adding help on the activity tree • Locating a learning experience in a learning experience repository • Conclusion • Questions Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

21. Locating a learning experience in a Learning Experience Repository • Before the learning object can be stored in a learning experience repository, the learning object should be sent to an ADL certification center to maintain high standards and ensure that changes made to the learning object’s Activity Diagram conforms to the SCORM standard. • The ADL certification center should append an element to indicate that the current learning object was changed • The ADL certification center should also give the learning object a unique-learning Experience Repository Number (LERN) that represents the location of the learning object in the learning experience repository. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

22. Locating a learning experience in a Learning Experience Repository • The changes made to the basic schematic of how an LMS interacts with a learning object are shown below. Launches Learning Object Changes LMS SCORM Cert. Data Model Learning experience repository. Api Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

23. Procedure for LMS interacting with learning objects LMS Launches learning object No problem with learning experience Problem with learning experience Checks if learning object has LERN Learning experience repository LMS Has LERN No LERN New problem Same problem Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

24. Procedure for LMS interacting with learning objects New problem Same problem LMS LMS LMS offers previous solution to the problem searches Returns a new learning object at the point of confusion within the activity tree Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

25. Procedure for LMS interacting with learning objects • After the learning experience has concluded and a change has occurred within the learning objects activity tree. ADL certification center Learning experience repository Learning object with changes incorporated Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

26. Agenda • Motivation • Intelligent systems and Learning. • Bringing e-learning into an on-demand framework. • Effects of adding help on the activity tree. • Locating a learning experience in a learning experience repository. • Conclusion. • Questions. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

27. Conclusion • We believe that extending the manifest and building learning experience repositories is the next step in achieving an automated one-to-one tutoring experience and binging e-learning into an on demand framework. • The LMS would have the same ability as an intelligent, experienced visually impaired teacher, being able to make suggestions based on a vast amount of meta-data available for both the learning object and the client and also based on past experiences with similar clients. • Future models could include a visual aid for the LMS in the form of a camera, which would enable the LMS to monitor the clients body language. • Neural Networks, for example, could be trained to recognise when a client is stressed, confused, frustrated or simply not relaxed, and automatically suggest help for the current learning experience. Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth

28. Questions and Answers Keith Maycock National University of Ireland Maynooth