The PALO Language: A Cognitive Approach of Educational

Modelling Languages

CEN/ISSS EML PT Meeting

Miguel Rodríguez ArtachoEML PT Technical Editor

Torino October 2, 2001

Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)Dept. Languages and Computer Systems http://www.lsi.uned.es

Contents Definition and Use of an EML Components of Instructional

Systems in the PALO Language Description levels Examples

Authoring Process with PALO Experiences

What is an ELM

An EML is a declarative description of: Educational content Components Activities Scheduling

Organized in courses or Units of Study

Inmmediate benefits of an EML A technological independence from

the final delivery format:CD-ROM, PDF, E-BOOK,Interactive WEB SITE...

Higher level of abstraction in the authoring process.

Maintainability & Reusability.

How: The description of an Instructional system

Structure Domain knowledge Activities & tools Model of use Instructional Model

Generic EML’s

XML file

Technology independent description

Why do we need this?

Interoperability+ Interchangeability+ Maintainability+ Reusability

= STANDARDS

Structure

Defines the organization of the learning material, resources and activities.

Ex. “Course”, “Module”, “Part”, “Subpart”, ...

Depending on the delivery format, this can describe the “table of contents” (printed delivery format), the navigational model (HTML delivery format), etc.

Domain Knowledge

The content matter of the learning scenario, Course or Unit of Study

Different approaches (REUSABILITY and GRANULARITY) Local Resources (labelled with metadata)

• Ex. IMS Content Packaging Distributed resources (id.)

• Ex. ARIADNE KPS Knowledge representation based on an ontology

• Cognitive approach used in PALO Language

Activities and tools

Describe the work with the learning material and the interaction of the communities in the Instructional System

Classification of activities depend on the pedagogical approach of the learning scenario

Collaborative / Individual Interactivity Management of tools

Individual/Cooperative paradigm

Description of the of comunities, and roles of the participants in a given activity

Explicit description of the communities involved in an activity

Based in the description of Activity Theory (Nardi, 96)

Instructional Model

Some features of the EML could allow the creation of learning scenarios with a given pedagogical or instructional model

Pedagogical model is implicit in the DTD (Instructional templates)

Explicit elements of the EML (tags) can define scenarios based in a given instructional theories (constructivist elements in PALO)

EML vs. PALO

EML PALO

Learning Model

Individual/Cooperative

Individual

Structure Unit of Study Courses

Domain Model

Knowledge Object

Domain Ontologies

Theories of instruction

ExplicitEmbedded

InstructionalTemplates

Authoring Process

ConceptoEjercitaProblema

Es Solución

Solución

<!DOCTYPE cea system " [] ><cea nombre=“cea.dtd” con Linux" dir="ricli9900"

<gestion> <bdobjetos tipo <bdobjetos tipo <bdtareas tipo=" bdtareas>

<metainformacion tipo="dc" cod="rfc2731"> <contenido> <ambito>UNED</ambito>...

Selection of a DTDAccording to the Pedagogical model

Design of the Domain

Model

Creation of the PALO description

Instance of the Domain Model

Labels in PALODESIGN LEVEL LABELS ATTRIBUTES

Management Level Gestión (management)

Bdobjetos (objectsdb)

Bdtareas (taskdb)

Metainformación

(Metadata)

Tipo (type)

Lugar (host)

Sgbd (dbms)

Scheduling Level Fecha (date)

Structure Level directorio (directory)

apartado (part)

modulo (module) subapartado (subpart)

tema (part) subtema (subpart)

Sección (secction)

Nombre (name)

Etiqueta (label)

Traza (trace)

Task Level Tarea (task)

Calificador (calificator)

Nombre (name)

tipo (type)

Puntuable (assesable)

peso (weight) traza (trace)

Content Level Talcual (as-is)

Lista (list)

Elemento (element)

Relación (relation)

Glosario (glossary)

tipo (type) sujeto (antecedent)

dominio (domain) faq

Nombre (name)

Categoría (category)

Cognitive Design Process

Creation of a generic domain to describe content matter = ONTOLOGY

Creation of one or more instances for a particular domain matter

Conceptualisation Phase

Instantiation Phase

Prob004Prob003Prob002

ConceptInvolveProblem

Is Solution

Solution

An example: Models and Meta-Models

Prob001 Involve Con 031

Sol 023

Is Solution

Model

Instance

PALO production cycle

PALO Template (DTD)

Domain

Knowledge

Base

PALO File (SGML)

PARSER

Editing Process

PALO Compiler

Domain Model

PALO Document

Student Scenario

Tutor Scenario

Information models

Management Use Work (Dymanic)

Domain Knowledge Model(Static)

History Started in 1997 in the framework of a

CICYT project (Spanish Ministery of Education)

Development 1997-2000 1998 PALO v1.0 1999 PALO v2.0 Actually PALO v3.7

New releases include new tags or new instructional templates (DTD’s)

Actual uses of PALO Open Courses

4 annual courses (Wap technology, Linux Administration, Internet Technologies, web DB-backed sites)

More than 650 students Regular matters

Support to regular students with • Didactic Guide• Programming practise environment• Evaluation environment

Future developments Migration from SGML to XML New parser tools in java “New” ideas:

Resource and tool (Not implicit in the TASK definition) Cooperative activities Definition of communities and

roles that perform an activity Concept of “active Document” leaves the door open

for Adaptability Framework: DiViLAB project Software freely available with GPL Content Definition language for Tec-Infor

platform (http://www.uned.es/iued)

Some references... PALO Web site: http://sensei.lsi.uned

.es/palo DiViLAB Project: http://www.divilab.org UNED Dept. Languages and Computer

Systems: http://www.lsi.uned.es

Thanks!