JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7, JULY 2012, ISSN (Online) 2151-9617 https://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.

ORG

14

Contribution to Contents Modeling in the Computing Environment for the Human Learning (CEHL)
M. ELammari, F. Khoukhi and A. Bekkhoucha
Abstractthis paper presents the content model in our system SPACAM (educational system adaptive cognitive activity and motivation). Its main objective is to facilitate the structuring of learning units to the teacher-producer of educational materials. This model is inspired by recent works coming from the engineering in the field of learning. It allows the teacher to organize his/her pedagogy within contents while addressing the needs of learners. The resulting environment allows teachers to develop their scenarios by making explicit the various aspects related to the content model. To facilitate the design through reuse and adaptation, the environment imposes - at different levels of model-criteria (separation between activity and resources and between content and its scenario) according to two aspects: structuring and scenario creation.
Index Terms content model, CEHL, structuring, scenario, teaching strategies.

1 INTRODUCTION
HE evolution of communication and information technologies allowed the development of the adaptive teaching systems. While this development gave the possibility to any person upload courses on line, but this possibility is confronted with a multiplicity of variables. Among the questions to be posed: how to build a quality resource teaching? How to allow the teacher to organize his/her pedagogy within contents meeting learning requirements in terms of adaptability, orientation and portability? To achieve these goals, several reflections are essential. Indeed, it is necessary to propose to the contributor a model which will be adapted to him and which will allow him to structure the contents and to organize the educational path while ensuring simplicity and interoperability. To bring some lights to these questions and reflections, we propose, in this article, an approach to developing educational contents through a model of content within our system SPACAM. Dedicated to the teacher, this approach takes into account various works achieved in this field. Thus, we define firstly the pedagogical contents to produce and its approach of creation. Secondly, we study the state of the art in this domain in terms of conception. Finally, we approach our contribution by proposing a model of content with three levels (pedagogic, strategic and didactic)

model of contents. We cite the example of Piombo who defines this procedure as a method of production of the contents [2]. The author relies on a cycle made up of five phases: collecting training needs, pedagogical analysis, pedagogical conception, development of the pedagogical material and, validation and tests of the pedagogical material. In order to determine the important criteria in the approach of production, we present here after works relating to the conception of contents.

2.1 Content Design The conception of contents is generally based on two aspects: the aspect of structuring, Scenario development (the aspect of making sense of the resulting structure). 2.1.1 Content Structuring Learning situation structuring allows, firstly, to organize the tasks of the teacher to justify these choices at any time of the planning and, secondly, to improve the comprehensibility of other status designed by another teacher. Given the challenges, engineering in this area is necessary. This is explained by the definitions given by different researchers with reference to the definition of what can be an engineering in the field of learning as mentioned in [3]: "Work to define concepts, reproducible and / or 2 CONTENT CREATION METHODS reusable methods and techniques facilitating the implementaA brief review of literature enables us to notice that the tion (design, construction, testing, evaluation and diffusion) of approach of pedagogical creation of contents is based on training or learning environments to go beyond the ad hoc a process largely inspired from software engineering treatment of problems". methods. This development process is represented by a The pedagogical content contains a subset of procedure generally made up of five parts: analysis, con- knowledge of the domain of which it belongs to. It plays ception, development, test and diffusion [1]. This proce- the role of a structured knowledge. Hence, its structuring 2012 Journal of Computing Press, NY, USA, ISSN 2151-9617 dure was defined in other works as the life cycle of the http://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing/

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7, JULY 2012, ISSN (Online) 2151-9617 https://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

15

means breaking down of this knowledge into basic interlinked units with very fine granularity, materialized with medias. The goal is to present information (declarative knowledge), and to provide a space of work (pedagogical activities) or of exchange (groupware) [4], as well as facilitating research (the indexing), filtering (the adaptation of the contents) and the construction or the assembly of the contents (the re-use).

2.1.2 Content Scenarios Creation A learning scenario represents description that is carried out a priori (planned) or a posteriori (observed), of the progress of a learning situation or a learning unit aiming at the appropriation of a precise set of knowledge, while specifying the roles, the activities as well as the resources of handling the knowledge and the tools and services that are necessary to the implementation of the activities [5]. Thus, scenario development comes to define how the learner will access to the contents and which will be the pedagogical binder, the means offered to the learner so that he/she can appropriate the contents and assimilate them. The development of scenario of the contents consists in determining the scheduling of the concepts that the learner must tackle in his/her process[4].This stage makes it possible to give a meaning to the structure of the contents of the subject to be studied. In this perspective, pedagogical modeling languages propose models that are based on learning scenario. The objective of these languages is to provide models adapted to the pedagogical conception of various situations of learning while being based on the following principles: In the process of learning, it is not the objects of knowledge which is central but the activities. The pedagogical objects are defined according to their use in units of learning. The modes of organization of the activities of learning (order, sequence) strongly influence the way in which the appropriation of knowledge takes place. In this direction, several works were elaborated in order to refine the concept of scenario. In his work, EmmanuelleVilliot-Leclereq, gathered the approaches of conception of pedagogical scenarios in five categories [6]: Approaches that are centered on the planning of the situations of training; Approaches that are centered on knowledge; Approaches centered on the resources; Approaches that are centered on the activities; Approaches that are centered on the interactions.

model according to four levels of granularity: fragment, lesson, course, journey. journeys contain courses holding courses that are composed by fragments. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) [8], which attempts to standardize the protocols of diffusion, exchange and tracking of learning objects. This model is based on the contents of on- line training and thus completes LOM standard by proposing a model of aggregation that is specific to the contents. Its objectives are: exportation, importation, sharing and reuse of online learning contents. IMS-LD [9],In the same logic, we cite IMS Learning Design standard , EML language specification based on the highest level structuring learning situations into learning units (courses, lessons, case study, practical work, exercise, etc..). Each learning unit is described as a not necessarily linear composition of different types of activities (training, coaching and instrumentation) and specifies for each activity, the roles involved and the environment necessary for its implementation.

DISCUSSIONS

CONTENT STANDARD STRUCTURING

This study brings us to retain the following points: Knowledge is hierarchically broken down into imbricated information elements Introduced works highlight the concept of learning objects as important resources for learning devices; LOM helps to classify and to index pedagogical resources thanks to metadata; The structuration is based on the content and not on the activity of the learner in SCORM; IMS-LD is focusing on the notion of activity and allows specifying pedagogical scenarios; The notion of pedagogical object has been defined in a different or even contradictory manner by normalization approaches such as: LOM, SCORM and EML; All works are based on metadata approach that aims to standardize resources description in order to make them retrievable and reusable; The diversity of those definitions brought researchers in this field to dedicate their works to the analysis of the notion of pedagogical object; For example, in [10], the author has classified pedagogical object into three classes: Physical or digital pedagogical resources that are necessary to the realization of activities. Pedagogical activities that define precise modalities to acquisition, validation and communication of different knowledge; Learning units that allow to structure the education and organize it in space and time.

In this field, there are many works contributing to the efforts of standardization. Here we quote in this article the most important and most known ones: LOM (Learning Object Metadata) [7], which seeks to standardize the languages of indexing of the pedagogical data. This model is based on the concept of object of learning. Its objective is the sharing and the re-use of the pedagogical objects. LOM proposes a resource structuring

DESIGN APPROACH

2012 Journal of Computing Press, NY, USA, ISSN 2151-9617 http://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing/

The proposed structure is in the form of pedagogical content concepts, assembled around a general educational goal and a given learner profile. Their distribution is in the form of a tree whose root is the course of the domain to teach consisting of concepts that may be defined as follows: Chapter: is a set of lessons with a common objective

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7, JULY 2012, ISSN (Online) 2151-9617 https://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

16

(overall). Lesson: is the smallest pedagogical unit belonging to the course that can be taught. It has an elementary operational objective. However, it is not a physical unit but rather an educational unit. Pedagogical sequence: is a concept that organizes the course of more finely. It is characterized by: a title, a number, a type of scheduling, a goal, a duration (hours of work and spread of this work over time) and a content. It consists of coherently organized pedagogical activities. Educational activity: is a concept that represents the basic unit of a course. It is based on a part of the educational resource and indicates the necessity to focus on the learner. Each activity is characterized by: a title, a number, a scenario, an educational purpose, a type, time, communication tools that are specific to the activity and its prerequisites (link with other activities of the course). Educational Resource: is a set of grains that is organized in way to instrument the course. Sequence of grain: is a set of coherently organized grains. Grain: is the basic unit of pedagogical resource. Each grain can orchestrate a pedagogical activity for the learner so that he/she can achieve the educational goal associated with this activity. Each grain is composed of one or more medias (text, image, sound, video, animation, etc...).

PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT MODEL

The content models of adaptive systems of education devide the domain to study into elements of knowledge generically called concepts [11]. These concepts can be connected together to bring up different types of relationships used in the adaptation of navigation in content. A set of concepts must be processed to consider that the learning objective is achieved. In addition to knowledge modeling material to study is based on approaches which aim at organizing it following appropriate criteria. In this regard, several studies have been achieved. These include for example in the context of ITS, the approach to organize the subject to be studied under three perspectives [12]: Domain: Its aspect is implemented by a model of capabilities Pedagogy: Its aspect is implemented by a model of educational objectives; Didactic: Its aspect is implemented by a model organizing the different tactical means to teach. Other approaches are proposed in the field of adaptive learning systems, such as those used in the INSPIRE system [13]. The model structure of contents is composed of three layers interconnected: The layer of learning objectives; The layer of concepts; The layer of pedagogical materials. The pedagogical material means the pedagogical resource. This approach has been studied by Piombo, and on which he proposed a content model that enables indexing pedagogical resources by a domain ontology and peda-

gogical ontology. This content model consists of three conceptual models [2]: A conceptual model of the domain which is used to create ontology of the domain to be taught; A conceptual pedagogical model that is used to create pedagogical ontology; A conceptual model of learning objects used to describe learning resources. After this introduction we can formulate firstly, the following conclusion: all models are aimed at the production of adaptive pedagogical content for learners taking into account the different profiles of learners according to their objectives. Secondly, they also aimed at the following summarized points; The elementary units are defined on the basis of pedagogical objectives and their prerequisites; The connections between the various units of the structure of the contents allow designing learning journeys. This is based on content-oriented approaches who are concerned with the pedagogical dimension (journey); The scenario creation of each unit of content structure, allows the didactic planning. This is based on approaches oriented activities which are concerned with the didactic dimension (sequence); The pedagogical design is related to technical instrumentation that allows the description of pedagogical resources carrying content. Finally, we consider the points mentioned above as complementary to the contribution to the content modeling and its implementation. However, we propose a content model in our system SPACAM (Fig.1) [14]. This model is based on existing work by introducing the concept of pedagogical strategies in a learning situation. In this chapter we present the architecture of our system SPACAM to identify other components that interact with the proposed model.

6.1

Architecture SPACAM
Interface

Users
Learner Model CAM Model

Adaptation Learning Model Strategy

Content Model

Traces Model

B. LEARNERS

B. CONTENT

B.TRACES

Fig.1. Architecture of adaptive educational system SPACAM

2012 Journal of Computing Press, NY, USA, ISSN 2151-9617 http://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing/

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7, JULY 2012, ISSN (Online) 2151-9617 https://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

17

SPACAM system is composed of: A. Interface In our system, we propose to each user (learner) an interface from which he/she can seek and take courses, but first he/she must pass a test to determine his/her learning style. B. Data bases The system has three data bases: Learner data base contains information related to learners: their names, their levels, their preferences, their preferred learning style Content data bases contain information related to domains to be taught. Trace data bases contain learners traces that are collected while learning. C. Models Learner model is used to play a role in the pedagogical demarche at the level of the two phases of our adaptation strategy (knowledge level, preference and preferred learning style). Learner knowledge level is associated with pedagogical objectives and each objective is aimed at by a pedagogical sequence. That objective is supposed to be attained when learner performance is greater or equal to a threshold that is related to the objective Preferences are used to allow us selecting pedagogical characteristics of the pedagogical sequence to be presented to the learner depending on his/her preferred learning style. Content model in our system devides the domain to be studied into elements of knowledge that are represented and organized with capabilities following logical links existing between them. It is often assumed that when the processing of a set of concepts is treated by the concerned learner, some learning objective is reached. In this model, we use Bloom theory [15], which considers a course as a conceptual graph of pedagogical objectives. In this learning context, we are interested in cognitive domain, and then we can present the subject to be studied according to three criteria (Domain, Pedagogy and Didactic) [12]. Trace model: Our Trace model is based on the learners interactions during a learning session. We use three criteria of type of pedagogical activity that is proposed by the system in order to identify his/her traces: active, expositive and interrogative. CAM indicators model: In CAM model, we take into account three indicators: Cognitive indicator: gives information about knowledge acquisition by the learner during his/her learning activity; Activity indicator: informs the use of pedagogical resources and IT tools that are available in the learning platform; Motivation indicator: informs about the learners motivational state. Adaptation strategies:

Uses adaptation methods in order to build individualized path using the four models that constitute our system.

6.2 Content Model proposed This model helps the teacher to structure content of the subject to teach and to create content scenarios from the organization of the units while specifying pedagogical strategies for activities and pedagogical resources supporting knowledge. It offers a structural decomposition of the domain to be taught starting from business tasks to that of learning object. This decomposition shows at different levels considered adaptations in contents, depending on learning styles. However, domain knowledge to be taught are represented in the database as logical units and a relational composition of hierarchical elements according to their importance (general, specific and links). Indeed, they facilitate structuring and organizing concepts domain (teachers knowledge) and essential to create courses in order to clarify them. These concepts are linked to each other and each would be composed of fragments: Course general description; Example; MCQ (formative evaluation) MCQ (summative evaluation) . The proposed model is organized along three dimensions (pedagogic, didactic and strategic) - Pedagogic level: The educational component provides a framework for defining and organizing learning objectives. A learning objective is a description of a set of behaviours (or performances) a learner should be able to demonstrate following the process of learning. The educational objectives are the goals or targets that one wants to achieve when one proposes an educative task. However, it must be expressed in a clear manner by the teacher so that the learner knows in advance what level of knowledge he/she must arrive to and develop his method to achieve the desired goal. However, from this pedagogical objective, the teacher must define the pedagogical tools to implement, conduct evaluation instruments adapted to the target and estimate how long the course will take. Each pedagogical objective is associated with one or more pedagogical sequences; however, the division of the teaching into elementary units is required at this level. In this regard at least three levels of granularity are distinguished [16]: Elementary activity represents the finest granularity of a learning situation; Sequence of activities corresponds to an average granularity of a learning situation; Unity of pedagogical structuring represents the highest granularity of a learning situation (eg courses, semester, module ...). - Strategic level: To achieve the objectives related to a pedagogical sequence, the teacher chooses the strategy that he/she considers most appropriate. It is therefore necessary:

2012 Journal of Computing Press, NY, USA, ISSN 2151-9617 http://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing/

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7, JULY 2012, ISSN (Online) 2151-9617 https://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

18

On the one side, to adopt a learning strategy that is the most appropriate possible based on these factors (target population, subject to be taught and purpose) [17]. The learning strategies are designed to learners and are classified into four categories in learning psychology: Cognitive strategies (activation, acquisition, elaboration, organization of knowledge, integration, transfer); Affective strategies (reception, motivation, stress management, cooperation, conflict resolution); Management strategies (time, material resources, human resources, environment); Metacognitive strategies (planning, control, regulation and evaluation). On the other side, adopt a teaching strategy that is best corresponding to the learner according to his/her own way of learning (learning style). The teaching strategies are intended for teachers and are classified into four categories: lectures strategies; Strategies for individual work; Interactive strategies; Constructivist strategies. At this level the model allows course designers (teachers) the choice for the strategy they deem most appropriate. - Didactic level: This level represents the tactical level, the solution proposed to implement the activities and strategies formulated at this level are organizing educational resources associated with activities around two points: Its representation which is defined by the media to use and the instrumentation technique that defines its type. In this sense an educational resource is characterized by [piombo]: Its URI: uri of the page or file to load; Frame: composite (composed of nondecomposable) or atomic (not decomposable) such as a picture, animation, sound, etc; Representation: This information is used to adapt the activity to the learning style of students. It can be set to text, sound, drawing, diagram, image, video, picture, diagram, figure there; Type: The types are: definition, abstract, example, example-cons and exercise formative summative exercise. An activity may be associated with multiple resources, each designed to best meet different learning styles.

General Objectives

Learning Objectives

Pedagogical level

Feedback

Teaching methods

Pedagogical strategies Strategic level Teaching strategies Learning strategies

Pedagogical Resources Didactic level Mediatization Representation

Fig. 1 The model PSD (Pedagogic, Strategic and Didactic)

OUR SOLUTION AND EXISTING STANDARDS

To ensure the compatibility of our solution with the methods and models of existing systems, we focus our work on the goal of producing reusable and standard content. For this purpose, taking into consideration the structure and metadata that are proposed by the most advanced standards in field, ie SCORM and EML, is important in order to provide a pathway between our solution and the standards in this field. TABLE 1 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE CONCEPTS
INTRODUCED AND EXISTING STANDARDS SPACAM course chapter Lesson Pedagogical sequence Pedagogical activity Pedagogical resource Asset object SCORM organisation item Tree activity Ordered sequence of sco SCO EML Pedagogical structuring unit set of units Learning unit squence of activitys lmentary Elementary activity for a role

2012 Journal of Computing Press, NY, USA, ISSN 2151-9617 http://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing/

A summary was given by N.Bousbia [4]. It points out that the content design is considered at the level of scenarios (conduct of a learning unit) in the EML standard, while in SCORM it is articulated on the pathway without being

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7, JULY 2012, ISSN (Online) 2151-9617 https://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

19

completely covered. Also the interest of standardization and reuse in both standards really does not allow structuring educational content. Our solution is based on four trends: structuring, scenarios creation, pedagogy and didactics. Those trends represent the needs of world of education. Therefore, we can state that a passage between our solution and existing standards will still be possible. Indeed, the course covers learning units within the meaning of Pernin [16]. This is a pedagogical structure. It is represented by one or more sequences, part of the educational dimension, according to a given level. This sequence represents a scenario. It can be seen as a learning unit consisting of acts and using objects of the environment in the case of EML and, in the case of SCORM as an ordered series of sco (learning activity), and referring to Asset (media resource).

[6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

[11]

[12]

CONCLUSION

[13]

In this paper, we presented the important criteria in the process of content production. Indeed it was based on two aspects in the design of content (structuring and scenariosation). These two aspects allow, firstly, to organize the tasks of the teacher by allowing him/her to justify these choices at any time and, secondly, to give meaning to the content structure of the material to teach. The study of various works in the area, led us to retain certain principles: The structure is therefore the cutting of knowledge into fine-grained basic units interlinked and materialized in the media; The content scenario creation consists of determining the scheduling of concepts to be addressed by the learner in the process; However, as it is found that all standards are not yet stable and the absence of a standard in this area, we proposed a model of three levels (pedagogical, strategic and Didactic) by which the environment imposes criteria (separation between activity and resources and between content and its scenario) in two aspects: structuring and scripting to simplify design for reuse and adaptation.

[14]

[15] [16]

[17]

Emmanuelle Villiot-Leclercq, Modle de soutien llaboration et la rutilisation de scnarios pdagogiques LOM specification, Learning Object Metadata, http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/index.html Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), (2004). Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), Version 1.3. IMS Learning Design, http://www.imsglobal.org/learningdesign Jean-Philippe Pernin, Anne Lejeune, Dispositifs d'Apprentissage Instruments par les Technologies : vers une ingnierie centre sur les scnarios TICE 2004, 2004 - www-clips.imag.fr Brusilovsky P. Authoring Tools for Advanced Technology Learning Environments, chapter Developing Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Systems: from Design Models to Authoring Tools, pages 377{409. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. R.Nkambou G.Gauthier C.Frasson, Un modle de reprsentation des connaissances relatives au contenu dans un systme tutoriel intelligent, page 1, 1998. Papanikolaou K., Grigoriadou M., Kornilakis H., Magoulas G., Personalizing the Interaction in a Web-based Educational Hypermedia System: the case of INSPIRE, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 13(3), 213 267, 2003. M.El ammari, H.El kiss et F.Khoukhi, Une Contribution Dans Ladaptation Des Contenus Dans Les EIAH, ID: - ISBN 2-95167405-8 - 7me Colloque Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication pour l'Enseignement TICE 2010, Nancy, 6 - 8 dcembre 2010. B.S .Bloom, Taxonomie des objectives pdagogiques, Tome 2: Domaine affectif. Education nouvelle, inc, 1978. Jean-Philippe Pernin, Anne Lejeune, Dispositifs d'Apprentissage Instruments par les Technologies : vers une ingnierie centre sur les scnarios TICE 2004, 2004 - www-clips.imag.fr F.Lasnier, russir la formation par comptences. 2000, Montral: Gurin

REFERENCES
[1] Claes G. (1988). Contribution lapplication de lintelligence artificielle pour lenseignement assist par ordinateur. Thse de Doctorat, Universit Paris-Sud, 1988. Christophe Piombo, Modlisation probabiliste du style dapprentissage et application ladaptation de contenus pdagogiques indexs par une ontologie. Soutenue le 30 octobre 2007 Tchounikine P., Pour une ingnierie des environnements informatiques pour lapprentissage humain, revue 13, vol. 2(1), 59-95, http://ArchivesEiah.org, 2002 Nabila Bousbia, Amar Balla, Processus de modlisation de contenus pdagogiques destins la FOAD . revue e-TI Numro 3 J.P.pernin, Quels modles et quels outils pour la scnarisation d'activits dans les nouveaux dispositifs d'apprentissage ? (JeanPhilippe PERNIN, INRP, Sminaire "TIC, nouveaux mtiers et nouveaux dispositifs d'apprentissage", 2003)
2012 Journal of Computing Press, NY, USA, ISSN 2151-9617 http://sites.google.com/site/journalofcomputing/

[2]

[3]

[4] [5]