The pedagogical and technological basis of 2nd generation e-learning in satellite meteorology

 

 

 

Charles Duncan

 

Intrallect Ltd

The Glass Cube, Houstoun Road, Livingston EH54 5BZ. Scotland

C.Duncan@intrallect.com

 

Abstract

 

 

The development of on-line education and training in satellite meteorology has been a major success story in many places (EuroMET, COMET, ASMET, CIRA to name but a few). The subject lends itself to the graphical and interactive medium of web-based learning. This paper discusses the next generation in e-learning, the next major leap forward in how on-line material can be used in education programmes.

 

The key topics which differentiate 1st generation e-learning (such as EuroMET and ASMET) from 2nd generation e-learning is that the latest developments make sharing and reuse of e-learning very much easier. This is achieved to two major advances: granularity and interoperability. Granularity is a measure of the size of the chunks that comprise the training material. The smaller the chunks the more likely they are to be reused in different contexts. Interoperability has been made possible through the establishment of standards that allow e-learning material produced in one system to be edited in another and delivered in a third.

 

In order to achieve maximum flexibility an approach based on very small "units of study" is described which, when combined with the Educational Modelling Language, an emerging international standard, permits teachers to build completely different on-line material by resusing existing resources.

 

This presentation will cover the reasoning behind these 2nd generation approaches, the standards that make it possible, the new freedom that such systems offer and some practical examples through the MSG-CAL and EUMETCAL programmes.
1.      Introduction

Over the past decade e-Learning has developed from an experimental mode of training promoted by a small number of devoted enthusiasts to a well-established addition to the range of training strategies used by most organisations. While web-based training material is now sufficiently common to allow people to find several alternative approaches to the same topic the effort of creating interactive, interesting and motivating lessons has prevented a massive expansion of e-learning authors. If the choice of web-based learning is to become as wide and varied as the choice of textbooks in a good bookshop then the effort required to become an e-learning author needs to be no greater than the effort of using a word processor. This has not been the case during the first generation of e-learning but with the appearance of second generation tools the potential for massive growth has begun to be realised.

2.      Reuse, sharing and granularisation

The difference between the first and second generations of e-Learning can be summed up by the words "reuse", "sharing" and "granularisation".

·         Reuse describes the ability to take an existing unit of e-learning and use it as the basis for a new unit - for example, it is common that a PowerPoint presentation can be broken up into its component images and bulleted lists and these can be reused in a handout. However, in the past, it has been difficult to achieve reuse in e-learning as the media are often embedded with the technology and specialist tools and skills are required to extract the basic elements that can be readily reused.

·         Sharing not only requires a willingness to join a community of co-workers but also needs considerable technological support for a "learning object economy" (Campbell, 2003). If it takes too long to find existing material and establish if it can be adapted then the tendency is to "reinvent the wheel". This is not only inefficient on a global and local scale but it means that teachers spend too high a proportion of their time on technical creation issues rather than on pedagogical development and student contact.

·         Granularisation is key to reuse and sharing. If e-learning material is broken into smaller and smaller granules then the probability of finding different small useful elements from different sources is greatly enhanced. The opposite effect is obvious when e-learning is produced in large integrated courses (as was often found on CD-ROMs) because if a teacher dislikes any small part of a complete course they may reject all the rest if they cannot disaggregate the course into smaller granules.

Second generation e-Learning tools, such as those developed for EUMETSAT's MSG CAL, are designed from the outset to make reuse, sharing and granularisation effective.

 

Barriers to reuse, sharing and granularisation include:

·         Embedding pedagogy and technology in the same file (e.g HTML and Javascript)

·         Using proprietary file formats which can only be edited using commercial tools (e.g Flash)

·         Integrating lessons to the extent that they cannot easily be disaggregated

·         Embedding navigation that will be meaningless if taken out-of-context

·         Relying on an encompassing environment that may not exist elsewhere (e.g VLEs)

·         Requiring plug-ins, particularly those for a particular software version (e.g Director)

 

3.      Existing Meteorological e-Learning

In order to check if existing e-Learning material is reuseable, shareable and able to be broken into granules consider some of the many examples:

·         EuroMET: http://euromet.meteo.fr/

·         COMET: http://www.comet.ucar.edu/

·         ASMET: contact EUMETSAT for available CD-ROMs

·         SATMANU: http://www.zamg.ac.at/docu/satmanu4.0/satmanu/main.htm

Each of these admirably meets the needs of its intended users - but could it be used by others in a totally different context?

 

There are also many other examples of e-learning, including non-web-based material, but it is only "shareable" if can be discovered.

 

4.      e-Learning Standards

One of the most significant changes in the last two years is the introduction of interoperability standards. These define the way in which e-learning produced by one system can operate on other systems which support the same standards. If we consider the various processes involved in education and training they include definition of competencies, design of courses, creation of specific activities, dialogue with students, assessment and, of course, administration. These are captured in Figure 1.

 

 

1.       An encapsulation of processes in the creation, delivery and management of education/training (from Duncan, 2001)

One of the main interoperability organisations is the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS, 2001). Figure 2 shows how each of the interoperability specifications from IMS maps onto the education and training process shown in Figure 1.

 

 

2.       IMS Interoperability specifications relating to educational processes (from Duncan, 2001)

The remainder of this paper focuses on only a few of these specifications. QTI (Question and Test Interoperability) is fundamental as it describes the way in which a variety of questions and interactions can be specified. Learning Design is being derived from EML (Educational Modelling Language, Koper, 2001) although at the time of writing no public specifications had yet been published for Learning Design. As a result the EUMETSAT MSG CAL was based on EML and QTI. The role of metadata and digital repositories are also significant in discovering and accessing learning objects.

5.      MSG CAL

EUMETSAT set out some pedagogical imperatives before defining the technology to be used for MSG-CAL. These included:

·         Any modules produced must be considered part of a library which will expand in the future and all modules will be useable together.

·         The context of use (distance learning of large numbers, self-study on a forecaster workstation, classroom demonstration, or any other pedagogical strategy) should not be determined by the technology but by the teacher.

·         The modules should be useable in Africa as well as across Europe. This has implications both for technological support and for case studies.

·         EUMETSAT should not need to rely on specialist technologists to maintain and expand the e-learning courses.

 

Working with EUMETSAT, Intrallect and Adelink produced a solution which depends heavily on emerging international standards in e-Learning. First, the lesson is described independently of any technology using a language specifically designed for describing education - the Education Modelling Language (EML) (Koper, 2001). Second, the language was enhanced by including capabilities from another international standard QTI (Question and Test Interoperability from the IMS Consortium (IMS, 2001). Next, multiple layers of granularisation were defined to allow the smallest granules to be reused and built into new lessons by non-specialists. Finally, and only at the last stage, the lessons are processed to produced a version suitable for the technology used by the audience.

 

The overall structure of MSG-CAL granularity is shown in Figure 3. The design permits any resource, knowledge object, unit of study or module to be extracted, edited, reused or used as a template for a new object. None of the objects described in Figure 3 contain any technological dependence - they only contain EML and QTI which is simply text that can edited in any editor or word processor.

 

3.       Granular structure of MSG-CAL

Although many different types of knowledge object can be created using EML and QTI a series of templates of typical interactions has been developed for MSG-CAL. These are described in Table 4.

 

Name

Interaction

MCQ (multiple choice question)

Multiple choice question. The question, options and feedback may all include images. There can be many questions in a quiz or only one. More than one correct answer is allowable.

Matrix question

Similar to a multiple choice question but there can be several choices such as true/false or visible/ir/wv.

Image hotspot

Question in which the answer is given by clicking on an area in an image. Multiple correct and incorrect answers are possible. Multi-spectral images are supported through toggling images from one channel to the next.

Drag and drop

Both text-based and image-based drag and drop exercises are possible. These require the student to correctly place objects in defined locations. Multiple correct locations are possible and mismatched numbers of draggable objects and drop locations are also possible. Useful for getting students to label diagrams or construct logical process sequences.

Animation

Animate sequences of images with ability to play in single-step, loop or swing modes. Student can control play speed. Includes ability to play only every second image to simulate first generation Meteosat.

Slide show

Sequences of images with extended captions with forward and backward paying under student control.

4.       Templates useful in creating interactions for MSG-CAL. Many more can be created using the EML and QTI languages.

 

The knowledge objects and units of study for MSG-CAL have been assembled into three modules on "Calibration", "The 1.6 and 3.9 Channels" and "Rapidly Developing Storms". Many of the units of study, such as "1.6 channel" or "fire detection" could be reused in other modules in different topics. Figure 5 shows how a knowledge object appears. The unit of study, within which the knowledge object sits, defines properties such as the content of the reference library indicated by the icon showing books. The paths through the module indicate different units of study and the order in which they can be taken.

 

 

5.       Example of a knowledge object after being processed for display on a desktop web browser. The module structure illustrating several units of study is shown in a pop-up window.

 

Figure 6 illustrates the concept of extracting various knowledge objects or larger granules from a digital repository to build a new module and process it for different technologies or organisations.

 

 

 

6.       Conceptual development of new modules. By gathering and reusing existing knowledge objects, units of study and modules from existing libraries a new module can be assembled which can be processed to produce different versions which run on alternative technologies or have the style and logos of different organisations.

6.      The Future

The greatest benefit of a reuse and sharing approach is realised once a significant community of users is established. At a recent EUMETSAT course groups from Africa, Europe and the US developed a series of knowledge objects and units of study and assembled them into a module. The entire process was achieved in two days by people who had never used these tools before and the only skill they needed was to be able to edit files using MS Wordpad. With this degree of ease of use many, many authors can work together and build libraries of learning objects at various levels of granularity. All of these authors can take comfort from the fact that their work is not tied to any technology and it can be fitted to any technology that may develop in the future with ease.

7.      References

 

Campbell. L. (2003), “Engaging with the Learning Object Economy” in “Reusing Educational Resources for Networked Learning” (ed. Littlejohn, A), Kogan Page.

 

Duncan, C. (2001), “Introduction to Learning Content Standards” in CETIS Educational Content Special Interest Group, http://www.cetis.ac.uk/educational-content/

 

IMS (2001), IMS Global Learning Consortium, http://www.imsproject.org/

 

IMQ-QTI (2002), IMS Question and Test Interoperability Specifications v1.2, http://www.imsproject.org/question/

 

Koper, R (2001), “Modelling units of study from a pedagogical perspective”, http://eml.ou.nl/introduction/docs/ped-metamodel.pdf