Interactions in On-line Learning
Jost-Peter Kania and Debora Weber-Wulff
Virtuelle Fachhochschule - Project Group Berlin
Technische Fachhochschule Berlin
Luxemburger Str. 10
Germany - 13353 Berlin
{kania@tfh-berlin.de, weberwu@vfh.de}
http://vfh.tfh-berlin.de
Keywords:
e-learning, Teaching Methods, Teaching Materials, Tele-Teaching, Virtual University
Abstract
We often find multimedia applications that are called "interactive" media, but for which the interactions seem to be restricted to simple electronic page turning. In this paper we discuss the different aspects of interaction that we have implemented in multimedia instructional materials. Our goal is the creation of Internet-based multimedia materials that use a seminaristic instructional paradigm for encouraging coordination, cooperation and communication in distance learning.
In traditional instructional teaching and learning situations, we are accustomed to interacting with other human beings: a student asks the teacher a question, the teacher asks the students a question, the students talk with each other.
When we transform a learning experience into the on-line world of multimedia-based learning materials, we discover a jolting truth: interaction as we know it has all but disappeared. There is still something called interaction, but it seems to be based either on input methods (haptic interfaces and the like) or on navigational schemes. Interaction seems only to mean electronic page turning.
Perhaps this is because many researchers
concentrate on a human-machine interface and not so much as the learning materials
being a medium in the sense of offering a communication channel between the
teacher and the learner or between learners. Kevin Ryan quotes some comments
of Jonassen [Jo89] in [Ry95]:
“... interactive lessons require at least the appearance of two-way communication.“
Ryan goes on and states that to be truly interactive, a computer program must
use artificial intelligence in order to simulate the learning experience.
In the CSCL community (computer supported cooperative learning) there is awareness of the need for communication in learning processes, especially informal communication [DGB01]. But much of the on-line learning materials available do not include any sort of informal communication in the learning environment.
We have developed some interactive learning materials for the Virtuelle Fachhochschule, an Internet-based University of Applied Sciences in Germany that is offering a degree program in media and computer engineering and in business engineering [VFH01]. We have attempted to map as many aspects as possible of the traditional seminaristic instruction that is used at our non-virtual institutions onto digital media.
Digital media enable us to provide a means of accessing different parts of a collection of texts and other media in any order. This order may be determined solely by the user, or it can be programmed by the author of the collection, or there may be a combination of the two. In addition, numerous Internet-based services can be used to enable or enhance cooperative work amongst distributed learners. We feel that we can offer a degree of interactivity in our learning materials that goes far beyond electronic page turning but stops far short of necessitating the development of an artificial intelligence application.
In this paper we will be discussing some of our developments
One of the major distinguishing characteristics of a German Fachhochschule is the use of the seminaristic instructional paradigm. Most lectures and exercises are restricted to small groups of students (40 for a lecture, 20 for an exercise section). A seminaristic lecture does not consist of the teacher delivering a 90 minute extemporization on the topic of the day, but of the teacher asking questions, often difficult ones, and leading the students through discussions to discover certain points for themselves. Phases of discussion are followed by content presentation phases. Questions are often asked of the students that can foster discussion on the current topic. The topics of the lectures are explored in exercise sessions in a laboratory, usually with the professor in attendance for further discussion. We sometimes call this type of learning "active learning" (handlungsorientiertes Lernen [Me94]).
In order to transport this metaphor of instruction into digital media and the Internet we have to go beyond the traditional broadcast metaphor and explore various methods of encouraging students to interact with computer simulations, with themselves, with other students and with instructors. This means that we need aspects of telecooperation integrated into our learning materials and not just offered as part of a telelearning environment.
In this section we will give six examples of interactions that we have produced and explore some of the various aspects of interactions as we have implemented them. We have currently produced two courses, one on "Quality Management" with about 30 hours of instruction and an introduction to using the Internet (called "Propädeutikum virtuale" with about 20 hours of instruction) at the Technische Fachhochschule in Berlin for the Virtuelle Fachhochschule. In order to appreciate fully the interactions, we have an on-line version of this paper that has copies of the animations embedded in it: http://vfh.tfh-berlin.de/public/oldvfh/papers/LearningInteractions.html [this text]).
One of the typical uses of multimedia in educational materials is for visualizing complex processes. When the process is sequential, we can break it down into single steps and add a simple CD-player-like navigation so that the learner can at any point go on with the next step, repeat the last step, or start over. A running commentary gives a short explanation of what is happening, while the surrounding text explains the process in greater detail.
Figure 1 is an animation that explains how a binary file is transferred using FTP:
Figure 1: Binary file transfer (Animation)
The commentary can also be embedded in the animation, as shown in the example in Figure 2, called the House of Quality. Here we have a very complex matrix that must be filled out by an engineer for documenting the quality function deployment process. After a step-by-step explanation of the methodology, the individual steps of the process are explained again using an example in which ballpoint pens are being produced. As in the example in Figure 1, students can see the work being done a step at a time and can also go backwards in the process to repeat a step.
Figure 2: The House of Quality
Both of these animations, as well as many of the others that we use, were produced using Macromedia Flash. A popular plug-in for browsers, Flashplayer, is needed to view the animations.
Many complex processes need to be seen in their entirety in order to be comprehended. Many of these processes are those that involve feedback that will change the running of the system. In a first level the learner can be shown the entire process with the explanation texts hidden from view. On moving the mouse over one of the stations, the explanation is opened up for reading and disappears when the mouse moves away. Figure 3 is an example of the Statistical Process Control, which determines by means of the amount of loss produced the parameters to guide a production process.
Fig. 3 : Statistical Process Control (Animation)
In a second stage a complex simulation can be offered in which the learners can manipulate parameters and see the effects on the process. The former is easy to do in Flash, the latter requires complex programming and exact specification of the parameter effects that the learners can achieve. Even with authoring systems such as Toolbook or Director, the production of such a simulation is quite time-consuming, although when properly done it can be very useful to the learner. Ainslie Ellis [El00] has developed Toolbook simulations for demonstrating how Java manages storage when running an application. We have successfully replicated this effort using Flash for a module on Java.
In the module Propädeutikum virtuale our goal is to teach beginning students how to use the Internet services as study tools. One of the units teaches the use of email, starting with a vicarious learning situation animation in which the learner watches "over the shoulder" while a fictive student writes an email to a fellow fictive student.
It is, however, rather boring knowing how to write an email and not having anyone with whom one can correspond, so this unit is to be conducted synchronously over the Internet. The students register their email addresses at the start of the unit, and the first exercise requests that they write an email to the student that is after them in the list. This will ensure that all students have a new email in their inboxes for the second exercise, which is replying to an email message. We do, however, provide a button that will, in an emergency, produce a letter automatically and direct replies to an automatic waste basket.
The students quite enjoy this interaction, at first writing very timid letters such as "Hi s123456, my name is Mark, who are you?" As soon as the answer comes "This is Jeanette from Lübeck, where are you from?" they tend to begin a conversation to find out who the other person is, although this is not an explicit exercise! Getting to know someone in a virtual setting is vital to being able to effectively communicate when working on a common project. This exercise is very useful for helping students learn how to begin virtual conversations.
The unit continues through forwarding (forward a letter to the person behind you in the email list), courtesy copies and attachments, which are made to the three people in front and the three people in back of the learner in the list. At the end of the lesson each learner should have an awareness of who at least six other people in the group are.
The programming necessary for these exercises can be done using rather simple Perl scripts, which are available from the authors upon request.
It is difficult enough for students to learn how to collaborate in small groups when they are physically in the same room. When they are geographically distributed, the problem is even worse. Since they don’t really know the others in the group, they are often reluctant to give information and they are reluctant to ask questions, for fear of appearing stupid. In order to give students a non-threatening forum for practicing collaboration, we first teach the use of news groups: how to subscribe, how to start a thread, how to post, proper quoting etiquette and so on. In a later unit we teach searching the Internet for information by explaining how search machines work and discussing various problems that occur when indexing and retrieving information.
At the end of the unit we have a sort of group treasure hunt: We have six questions that are very hard to answer. The students who are synchronously logged on are encouraged to start threads in the class news group for the different questions. The students are to share both information about places, they have looked and not found information, as well as to post promising URLs. The goal is not that each individual student finds the answers and can describe the searching path, but that the group manages to find the answers in collaboration.
This exercise is just plain fun! Of course, the news group format will encourage people to get off on discussing neighboring topics. It is helpful to have a teacher monitor the conversation and nudge the discussions back on to topic. We try and find difficult questions for at least half of the questions that even the teachers do not know the answers to, so that the students can feel the thrill of real research.
As an example, one of the questions was whether or not it is permitted to keep dogs within the city limits of the town of Reykjavik in Iceland. After some digging around in pet sites, one of the students triumphantly declared that it is allowed: he had found the regulations for importing dogs into Iceland. Since Reykjavik is in Iceland and dogs can be imported, he concluded that it is allowed to keep dogs in the city and most of the other students went on to the next question. One student persevered in her search, however, and found a site with official information about the capital of Iceland, including the chapter noting that it is illegal to keep dogs within the city limits – they are only allowed to be kept in the countryside. She triumphantly informed the rest of the group of her discovery and the group learned that one does need verification of anything found on the Internet.
In the unit on the history of the Internet we experimented with using a didactical technique that is often used in schools, the questioning-developing discussion (fragend-entwickelndes Unterrichtsgespräch). The teacher poses a question, for example asking the learners what they think the Internet is (Figure 4). In face to face instruction, the answers are collected on a board in the classroom, and when the teacher is happy with the results a summing up of the answers, perhaps complemented with a personal definition, is given.
Figure 4: What is the Internet for you?
For the Internet we implemented HTML forms and Perl scripts that allow us to ask each learner a question, and then collect the answers in a list. The list is refreshed every 30 seconds, and the learner is encouraged to come back and look a few minutes later, to see what the others in the group have written.
After this collection board page the teacher can sum up with a page containing her personal view of the question. We have our implementation fully parameterized and offer simple tools for manipulating the board. A teacher can begin the instruction by clearing the board and, if desired, saving the current state. Should it become necessary, she can remove inappropriate answers that were offered by some students without erasing the entire board. She can also select which answer page she wants displayed right after the collection board page. Figure 4 shows the question page and Figure 5 is a selection of answers (in German) to the question “What is the Internet for you?”.
Figure 5: Answers to the Question in Figure 4
Mathematical functions can be quite abstract and the dependencies between the parameters can be difficult to understand. Software packages such as Mathematica or Maple can be very useful for visualizing such relationships, but they are generally too expensive to be packaged into a learning unit.
We developed a Java Applet to plot simple functions so that students can explore the dependencies. We have implemented the statistical functions for the normal distribution, for the binomial distribution and for the Weibull distribution. The parameters to the functions can be entered by a student and the function is plotted on the screen. Changing values of the parameters causes the new function to be plotted alongside of the original function and so the effect of the parameter on the resulting function can be clearly seen. Of course it is possible to reset the parameters to the default setting when the screen becomes too cluttered. Figure 6 is a screen shot of the Weibull distribution applet.
Figure 6: The Weibull Distribution ( Start the Java-Applet)
In this paper we have presented six different examples of interaction over and above electronic page turning that we have implemented in our work. We feel that interaction is an extremely important aspect of using multimedia in educational software that is often neglected. We hope to eventually be able to make tools available so that teachers and multimedia developers can easily incorporate interactions of this nature into their work.
Evaluations that we have conducted on our preliminary work are very encouraging, the students really enjoy using these interactions. They learn to communicate and cooperate with each other, which for us is the ultimate interaction. Some of our students report that they feel that they have now finally understood the more abstract concepts, even though they have had lessons about the concepts previously.
Our research project will be continuing on until 2003. We hope to develop more interactions of this kind and welcome ideas and comments. The Perl scripts are available from the authors.
We want to expressly thank the other members of the Virtuelle Fachhochschule team for the many discussions we have had on this topic. Particular thanks are due to Stefan Müller, our production chief, and his amazing group of students who are able to transform the wildest ideas that we have had into useful animations.
[DGB01] Draheim, D.; Gaiser, B.; Beuschel, W. “Chat with a friend” – zur unterstützenden Wirkung von informeller Kommunikation in studentischer Gruppenarbeit – eine qualitative Fallstudie. Preprint, FH Brandenburg 2001.
[El00] Ellis, A.: Toolbook multimedia demonstrations for Java programming. Tips and Techniques session, ITiCSE 2000, Helsinki.
[Jo89] Jonassen, D. Interactive lesson designs: A taxonomy. In Bosco et.al.: Interactive Video. Englewood Cliffs: Educational Technology Publications 1989.
[Me94] Meyer, H., Unterrichtsmethoden, Bd.1, Theorieband, Cornelsen Verlag 1994.
[Ry95] Ryan, K. http://kevinryan.com/research/tltmm95.htm, 2001-10-23
[VFH01] Virtuelle Fachhochschule,
Project group Berlin,
http://vfh.tfh-berlin.de,
2001-10-23 and
http://www.oncampus.de,
2001-10-23.