2009 Ninth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies
OpenScenario : a flexible integrated environment to develop Educational Activities based on Pedagogical Scenarios Jean-Michel Jullien*, Christian Martel**, Laurence Vignollet***, Maia Wentland**** *IUFM, LIRMEF-CRIS Lyon1 EA 647, Lyon, France **Pentila Corp. Le Bourget-du-Lac, France *** Scenario Team, University of Savoie, France ****ISI, HEC, University of Lausanne, Switzerland jean–
[email protected],
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[email protected] Abstract
necessity to master the pace or temporality, content access, richness of interactions, traceability, awareness, cooperation, etc. It hence facilitates the design, operationalization and execution of learning situations [2]. Although we share the belief that substantial improvements will come from relying on modeling languages to create pedagogical activities based on pedagogical scenarios, we think, as do Miao & al in [3] that these approaches have to be improved. With Henri et al. [4], we advocate that teachers, professors or pedagogues in general, do not follow a linear cycle while creating pedagogical activities. They usually take a “bottom-up” approach, starting from resources they already know and have at hand. But they also iterate, refine and adapt their “models”, taking into consideration the participants’ reactions to events, thus leaving room for improvisation and change. Moreover, most teachers want to be able to “pilot” the activity and modify it “on-the-fly” if necessary. We therefore claim that building pedagogical activities cannot be done in a sequential mode as if it were a logical suite of formalized actions. In order to contribute resolving this issue, we propose an open integrated e-infrastructure, called OpenScenario, that combines the robustness of Learning Design and provides the required flexibility to leave room for pedagogical creativeness. In this paper we first explain our approach and describe the theoretical basis of the 4 pillars of pedagogy that we coined. We then depict OpenScenario, our scenario-based flexible environment. Before concluding, we illustrate one of its possible uses by reporting on EMé, a full-fledged application for competencies assessment.
Creating technology enhanced collaborative learning activities remains a difficult task. Despite the very serious and costly efforts deployed during the past years, teachers or trainers have not yet fully integrated the possibilities offered by the technology probably because the tools provided do not match their habits and requirements. In order to contribute resolving this issue, we propose OpenScenario, an open integrated e-infrastructure articulated around the notion of the 4 pillars of pedagogy that we coined recently. OpenScenario allows, through a unique interface, to access all tools and services required to flexibly create, deploy, monitor and assess scenario-based activities, and in particular pedagogical activities In this paper we will briefly explain our approach, describe the theoretical basis of the 4 pillars of pedagogy, depict OpenScenario and illustrate one of its possible uses by describing EME, a real life fullyfledged application for Competencies Assessment.
1. Introduction The use of ICT in education still remains mechanical and cumbersome: nor has the existence of easily accessible and well populated Learning Objects Repositories significantly contributed to a “share-andreuse” breakthrough, neither have technical solutions in designing collaborative learning activities brought a major transformation of pedagogues’, teachers’ or trainers’ habits. However, recent developments in Learning Design [1] open very promising new avenues. In particular, the scenario-based approach allows dealing elegantly with the several distinct, but unavoidable, dimensions of the collaborative activities to be considered in any given pedagogical situation. To mention a few: the potential plurality of roles, the different localizations, the 978-0-7695-3711-5/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICALT.2009.24
2. The need for a flexible pedagogical LifeCycle 509
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We question the sequential nature of the creation process, in particular that of creatingg a pedagogical activity. This process is traditionallyy segmented [5] into 1) a design phase in which the aactivity model is built; 2) an operationalization or instanntiation phase in which the resources and the participannts are chosen to populate the model and 3) an executionn phase in which the activity takes place i.e. the particippants proceed to do what was expected of them in the initial scenario. But reality is much more complex. Therefore, we propose to consider the process as a succession of entwined scenarization phases. To bbetter match the teachers’ requirements, it follows that th the infrastructure should not only support the three abbove mentioned phases (conception, operationalization,, execution), but also offer the possibility to monitorr the execution phase and, if necessary, modify the prrogression of the activity. This implies that the initiall design of the pedagogical activity could be modiffied or that the conditions of its operationalization coulld be changed. Achieving this goal poses a real ergonomic and technological challenge to the leearning design community. In effect, it requires designning a malleable and flexible environment [6] that doess not impose too rigid a “style of modeling” on a tteacher creating pedagogical activities. The aim of OpenScenario is to ddevelop such an Integrated Development Environmennt of Activities based on pedagogical Scenarios, an IDE EAS, to support, among others, entwined phases.
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borative pedagogical Several experiments on collab scenarios, in a secondary education context (TPElec and MATES) carried in the framework of the Kaleïdoscope Network of Excellence E ; The development of a domain specific language to design pedagogical proceduress (patterns) ; The reuse of the model driven engineering (MDE), results to build an IDEAS ; The creation of several scenario editors, either online or standalone. This integration is the core of OpenScenario.
3.1 The theoretical basis: th he four pillars of pedagogy Notwithstanding the diversitty of the above mentioned results, the experience gained in the years devoted to obtaining them gave g us a better understanding of the nature of a ped dagogical activity. We consider an activity to be peedagogical (and thus different from a game activity, a research activity, a commercial activity or any otther activity) if it possesses the following four main characteristics: c • The activity is devised prior to o it taking place ; • The progression of the activiity explicitly creates the conditions for learning (in n case of a learning activity) and contributes to its happening ; y can be observed by • The progression of the activity all the actors and this observ vation contributes to the success of the learning ; • The results obtained by the learners during the activity are evaluated. Together, these characteristics constitute what we define as the four pillars of the pedagogy p [9]. These pillars form, to our mind, thee backbone of the pedagogical activities and correspo ond to the phases of organization, learning, observation, and evaluation. It follows subsequently that creating activities in an IDEAS should rely on these four pillars. More precisely, it can translate into the general g requirements of OpenScenario: • Organize the activity while dessigning it ; • Support the observation of the activity during execution, in real time, and allow a the observer’s on-the-fly interventions, should he or she decide to intervene ; • Facilitate the re-use of learrning objects (LO), educational resources availab ble at large and of pedagogical scenarios, consideered as LO ; • Assist in evaluating the resu ults obtained by the learners during the learning activities they are involved in, so as to measure th heir progress.
Figure 1: A flexible pedagogica al life-cycle
3. OpenScenario OpenScenario is a technical ennvironment that integrates, in a unique infrastruucture, several significant results obtained in the lasst four years in Learning Design by the authors of thiss paper and their partners [7]: • The creation of an original llearning design language, called LDL ; • The ICALT workshop on LD bencchmarking ; • An in-depth study on the sccenarization of evaluation activities in Learning Design [8] ;
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Obviously, some of these ideas aree not new. They have been implemented, in one wayy or another, in many existing virtual learning enviroonments (VLE). The novelty comes from the fact thhat teachers are offered an infrastructure that helps them directly, immediately and reflexively design a VLE adapted to their own needs and those of their studdents. This VLE has to be integrated in the digital work environement as soon as it is created to become integgral part of the Educational Information System.
3.3 The OpenScenario Functio onal Architecture The challenge of building such an IDEAS resides in the fact that the life-cycle tools sh hould be available at the same time as access is given to the whole set of t alma mater. contents and services provided by the
3.2 OpenScenario Specifications The main purpose of OpenScenarioo is to propose a web-based IDEAS to easily: • design pedagogical activities eitherr from scratch or by modifying/adapting suitable oones, and insert them into Learning Object Repoositories (LORs) for future reuse. A pedagogical scenario can be built using an editor. The interface of the editor should be as intuitive as possible aand well adapted to the teachers’ way of thinking ffor appropriation to take place. It is foreseen that in the future, a mizable templates library of well commented custom of pedagogical scenarios will furthher facilitate the design. activities by • operationalize pedagogical populating them either by creatinng new ad hoc resources in case no adequate oness are found or by automatically extracting perttinent existing resources from LORs (such aas ARIADNE1, MERLOT2, etc.) as well as frrom the digital libraries accessible through thhe Web. The deployment needs to take place seeamlessly via an interface to Learning Manageement Systems (LMSs) such as Moodle3, Sakai4, etc. The access to all services and tools offeredd by the chosen platform should be made available. • execute the operationalized pedaggogical scenarios for the learning to take place. The traces should be monitored and recorded for (i) onn-the-fly analysis to be able to give useful feedbackk to the learners for auto-observation and to the teaachers to trigger adequate pedagogical reactions. Thhe observation is possible thanks to a “base of tracces” that records all the elements explicitly definedd as observables in the pedagogical activities. Thhe evaluation is dependant on the common competencies framework used (ii) future analyysis to supervise the general use of the environment.
Figure 2: OpenScenario Functiional Architecture
To allow a very high level of integration and flexibility of use, OpenScenario is designed as an interface centered on the activities the participants can develop in the framework of instittutional e-platforms. Hence a unique interface through which teachers will design, operationalize, execute, ob bserve, regulate and revise the pedagogical activities they t wish to devise. The interface imposes no sequeence of the various phases but rather authorizes goiing back and forth between phases at every stage off the design and the execution. The use of the differen nt services produces intelligible traces for on-the-fly mo onitoring the activity. The architecture is extensible and d can integrate any executable engine according to the needs. The functional architecture depicted above is partially operational and pedagogiical activities can be produced. The actual use of Op penScenario can be illustrated by the example of an ap pplication built from its components. This application, called EMé, is described in the following section.
4. EMé5: an OpenScenario application a A strong analogy has been n detected between learning and evaluation scenarios [8]. Relying on this analogy and deducing that the sam me tools can be used in both cases, one of the most reecent and significant
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http://www.ariadne-eu.org/ http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm 3 http://www.moodle.org/ 4 http://sakaiproject.org/portal 2
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assignments “assessors-competencies” and the evaluation scenario chosen. It also contains temporal information related to the beginning and end of the evaluation. At the end of the campaign, all applicants have obtained results about the competencies evaluated. The malleability [6] of this process comes from the numerous possibilities offered: on-the-fly addition and/or deletion of participants, temporal or interpersonal exceptions, or more simply the mere fact that it is possible to choose from any given evaluation scenario. The evaluation scenario refers to the protocol linked to an evaluation. It describes and formalizes: • the order in which interactions between participants will take place ; • the services and contents provided ; • the kind of observations to be made ; • assessments of work done. Scenarios are built with the editor taking into account the users’ preferences and/or the institutional constraints as expressed in the training plan.
applications developed with OpenScenario is called EMé (Environment Malléable d’Evaluation). It aims at providing a web-based support for evaluating the ICT competencies of individuals wanting to become teachers in the framework of a French national certificate6, called C2i level 2 (C2i2e). The idea is to provide the institutions in charge of these evaluations, the so-called IUFMs, with the means to build and organize these evaluations themselves (and does not necessarily have technical competencies) and, more importantly, by using the repository of competencies of the C2i2e, a national element of normalization enforced by the government and published on its site.
4.1 EMé Requirements An assessor should be able to prepare an evaluation campaign based on an existing scenario called “individual work” in which an applicant seeks to find an evaluator’s recognition of what she or he has accomplished. This scenario should make provision for the candidate to supply work showing that the competencies at stake are well mastered. EMé is used to prepare and launch evaluation campaigns for many thousands of individuals in a few minutes. It helps supervise the ongoing activity while the evaluation is being conducted, and allows modifying its course if necessary. Amongst others, it gives the possibility to add participants to the list of candidates, monitor the results achieved by the candidates on a real time basis, and communicate with them to help with their potential difficulties. The set of interactions between candidates and assessors is regulated by a scenario entirely designed by the pedagogues.
4.3 Validation and Certification The training plan contains a validation scenario that formalizes the validation rules to be applied by the different actors of the process. It provides the necessary criteria for assessing results (conformity, exhaustivity, validity) and the assessment file is transmitted to the jury in charge of issuing the certification. The certification activity is itself depicted in a certification scenario.
4.4 EMé architecture and interface The first version of EME has been developped reusing OpenScenario components and existing opensource ones. Its architecture is presented in figure 3. It is Web-based and in this version, it uses Bonita7 Workflow engine. Figure 4 figurates one of the EMé interfaces: the evaluation campain definition and operationalization.
4.2 Training Plan, Evaluation campaign and Evaluation Scenario At the organizational level, a common training plan sets the conditions of all evaluations. It specifies the useful elements to take into consideration such as: • Actors’ responsibilities (institutional, technical, pedagogical, etc.) ; • Actual competencies framework ; • Evaluation methods to be used ; • Types of scenario to be used (evaluation, validation, certification). The evaluation campaign federates all evaluations concerned with the common competencies framework. Specified by the pedagogical manager, it describes and contains: all local roles (applicant, assessor, tutor, etc.), the competencies to be evaluated, the table of 6
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http://www2.c2i.education.fr/sections/c2i2e/referentiel
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http://wiki.bonita.ow2.org/
are confident that our approach h goes in the right direction. Much work remains but prosp pects are very good and we foresee numerous openings for quick but elegant developments of educaational applications created by the teachers.
6. References A Handbook on [1] Koper R., Tattersall C., Learning Design, D Modelling and Delivering Networrked Education and Training, XXVIII, 2005, ISBN: 978-3-540-22814-1. [2] Botturi L., Stubbs S. T., Handbook of Visual Languages d Practices, Idea Group for Instructional Design: Theories and 781599047294 Inc (IGI), 2007, ISBN 1599047292, 97 on, J., Sloep, P. B., & [3] Miao, Y., Van der Klink, M., Boo Pedagogically Koper, R., “Enabling Teachers to Develop D Sound and Technically Executablee Learning Designs”. Distance Education, 30(2), 2009, http://hdl.handle.net/1820/1605
Figure 3: EME architectu ure Current Campaign
[4] Henri F., Teja I. de la, Lundgren K., K Ruelland D., Maina M., Basque J. et Cano J., (2007), “Pratique de design pédagogique et objets d’apprentissagee”, Actes du colloque Initiatives 2005 [on-line], Thematic debate, March, 2007, veshttp://www.initiatives.refer.org/Initiativ 2005/document.php?id=143.
C Current Scenario
[5] Hernández-Leo, D., Bote-Lorenzo,, M.L., Asensio-Pérez, J.I., Gómez-Sánchez, E., Villascllaras-Fernández, E.D., Jorrín-Abellán, I.M., Dimitriadis, Y., Y “Free- and Open Management: Source Software for a Course on Network N on Collaborative Authoring and Enactment of Scripts based b Learning Strategies”, IEEE Transacctions on Education. 50(4):292-301, November 2007.
C2i2e comptencies Participants and roles
[6] Bourguin, G. Derycke, A. Tarby, J.C., “Beyond the Interface: Co-evolution inside Interactive Systems - A ory”, IHM-HCI 2001, proposal founded on Activity Theo Springer Verlag, pp. 297-310.
e Figure 4: EME interface
5. Conclusion
[7] Vignollet, L., Martel, C., and Ferraaris, C., “Modelling the L and Implementing it “Planet Game” Case Study with LDL with LDI”, Journal of Interactive Media in Education. uary 2009 at: Accessed online on Janu http://jime.open.ac.uk/2008/18/
OpenScenario, our scenario-based oopen, integrated and flexible development environm ment, intends to reconcile the rigorousness of Learningg Design and the flexibility required for pedagogical creativity. Its specifications and functional architectuure are based on a theoretical framework articulated arround the notion of the 4 pillars of pedagogy. It is buuilt as a unique interface to all tools and services teeachers need to design, operationalize and executte pedagogical activities on an e-platform. Although aall of its features and functionalities have not yet been im mplemented, we have verified, in deploying the EME appplication in real life, that OpenScenario already offers an efficient and effective solution to the issue of desiggning evaluation activities. As these are analogous to leearning ones, we
[8] Durand G., Martel C., “A Common assessment Results 007, Hiroshima, Japan, Model for ILE”, In Proc. of ICCE 20 November 2007. [9] Ferraris C., Martel C., Vignollet L., “Helping Teachers in odology Based on the Designing CSCL Scenarios: a Metho LDL Language”, In Proc. CSCL, USA, July 2007. [10] Caron P.-A., Le Pallec X., Deryccke A., “Bricolage and Model Driven Approach to design disttant course”, in E-learn 2005, Vancouver October 2005.
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