This document reports on an evaluative study of the impact and sustainability of the Open Flexibl... more This document reports on an evaluative study of the impact and sustainability of the Open Flexible and Distance Learning (OFDL) Project. The evaluation aimed to explore the impact of the OFDL Project on students, teachers and further education (FE) lecturers. The research design employed a mixed methods approach, involving both quantitative and qualitative methods to supplement and enrich the data sources, which were drawn mainly from teaching staff and students in a representative sample of secondary schools and FE colleges in Scotland. The main point to note from this research is that FE colleges appear to be making much more use of the OFDL resources than schools. The FE colleges have provided evidence that they are contextualising the resources to suit the needs of their students and that the way forward is with more blended teaching approaches. The evidence suggests that schools need to be given the opportunity, with encouragement and support from the local councils in conjunction with Learning and Teaching Scotland, to develop some online resources suitable for their own settings.
The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the problems inherent in the automated diagnosis... more The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the problems inherent in the automated diagnosis of misconceptions held by a student who is performing some task connected with building simple electrical circuits, and to outline a possible approach to diagnosis by describing the design for an, as yet, unbuilt system CARoM (Computer Aided Recognition of Misconceptions) that is to support the diagnosis of a wide range of students’ mistaken beliefs connected with simple electrical circuits.
International Conference on Lightning Protection, 1994
The interest in the use of Logic Programming in education stems from the great enthusiasm for Pro... more The interest in the use of Logic Programming in education stems from the great enthusiasm for Prolog that arose in the late seventies. However, Prolog is n either the purest Logic Programming language nor the easiest language for novices to come to terms with — but the opportunity to introduce very powerful ideas by teaching students to program in Prolog has been seized by many teachers at all levels of education. The continued success of Logic Programming depends in part on improved support for learning Prolog. Therefore, we concentrate here on issues connected with the development of a more integrated and complete view of learning and teaching Prolog.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), May 1, 2004
Abstract: Heidrun Allert's paper is, at least for this reader, a very interesting contributio... more Abstract: Heidrun Allert's paper is, at least for this reader, a very interesting contribution to the debate over the future of the semantic web from an educational perspective. The main contribution is a proposal for a new form of metadata relating to the notion of a "Learning Role" which is used to provide a way of avoiding the static nature of many schemes for describing ontological structures. This is a constructive approach to a somewhat difficult situation in the world of educational metadata. At the very least, the proposal deserves to be fleshed out into a more substantial proposal and discussed by various interested parties. Paper: Allert, H. (2004) Coherent Social Systems for Learning: An Approach for Contextualized and Community-Centred Metadata . Editors: Terry Anderson and Denise Whitelock.
ABSTRACT It may be that visual programming languages (VPLs) are best used as a form of “scaffoldi... more ABSTRACT It may be that visual programming languages (VPLs) are best used as a form of “scaffolding” for novices, whereby a graphical environment provides support until such time as novices are able to transfer to a text-based programming language. Before creating such an environment however, we need evidence that VPLs really are of benefit to novices rather than appealing to common-sense conjectures. We have selected a key issue that novices find particularly difficult-recursion-and consider both whether VPLs actually do scaffold the novice programmer in any significant way and whether there is any promise of improvement in the near future. We conclude that recursion is not scaffolded by current VPLs any more than by current text-based programming languages. However, there is some evidence that it is possible to provide support for comprehension, although this support may be impractical if the main use of the representation is that of construction. The more effective representation can be thought of as the application of a sequence of “unfolding” operations. We therefore suggest a representation which incorporates a specific symbol indicating recursion. We hypothesise that novices, given tools of this kind, should benefit from building programs with this structure visible
This special issue of Instructional Science is part B of two parts devoted to fundamental researc... more This special issue of Instructional Science is part B of two parts devoted to fundamental research that informs the teaching community about some of the issues and problems connected with teaching, learning and using Prolog. Both in part A (Pain et al., 1990) and here, the focus is on the improvement of our understanding in order to encourage the best
Allowing the student to have some control over the diagnosis inspecting and changing the model th... more Allowing the student to have some control over the diagnosis inspecting and changing the model the system has made of him is a feasible approach in student modelling which tracks the dynamics of student behaviour and provides for reflective learning. We present an approach for maintaining the student model in interactive diagnosis where a computer and a student discuss about
Hidden curriculum, hidden feelings; emotions, relationships and learning with ICT and the whole c... more Hidden curriculum, hidden feelings; emotions, relationships and learning with ICT and the whole child -. Bridget Cooper Computer Based Learning, Leeds University, email: BLCooper@cbl.leeds. ac.uk. Paul Brna Northumbria University, email: P.Brna@unn.ac.uk. ...
Learning environments can benefit from drawing on studies of film theory, the practices of the th... more Learning environments can benefit from drawing on studies of film theory, the practices of the theatre, developments in the games industry, and oral storytelling, as well as theories of narrative. There is a need to tie in work in these areas to educational, cognitive, affective, and social explanations of learning (and their associated empirical results) in order to develop a better understanding of how to design interactive learning environments and a much more theoretically driven understanding of the relationship between the structure of the interaction, the associated emotional value and the quality of learning. The idea for this special issue came from papers presented at the Narrative and Interactive Learning Environments (NILE) 2006 conference. After a call for papers, six papers were accepted for publication – each of which explores issues in the relationship between narrative and interactive learning environments. In the first paper Hazel seeks to construct a rationale for the notion of a ‘‘narrative pedagogy’’. Going back to first principles, he seeks to focus on the complex and profound issue of pedagogy. The paper introduces an issue that may prompt an interesting debate amongst readers around what we understand of the brain’s structure and the extent to which we can know ourselves through its study. We believe that Hazel’s approach may be controversial but that his paper nevertheless makes a useful contribution to the important debate about how narrative can be coupled to the concerns of the pedagogue. A strong theoretical focus is also a characteristic of the second paper by Dolk and den Hertog, who provide an educational approach grounded in experience and data. Based on their extensive experience in the classroom, they describe their approach to helping student teachers learn to observe and interpret learner behaviour. Using a multimedia learning environment, they encourage students to build narratives about the connection between a learner’s behaviour and theory. Their approach involves a six step non-linear process that takes the student teacher from situation observation through generalization to a didactic approach for teacher education. South, Gabbitas and Merrill decided to use a narrative-based approach to teach English to non-native speakers. They found that this improved the contextualisation and motivated the students to learn. They found the assessment of learning gains to be problematic, since standard decontextualised tests were not appropriate for the aim of teaching the use of English in such a way that speakers were sensitive to contextual factors. Patera, Draper, and Naef also provide a context – in their case an imaginary one called the Magic Cottage. In this environment, learners are intended to develop their creative writing. The Magic Cottage is a desktop three-dimensional virtual reality environment which children explore; the environment is designed to stimulate the imagination through graphics, sounds, and interactions. The results, while tentative, lead to the suggestion that Interactive Learning Environments Vol. 16, No. 3, December 2008, 195–197
International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning, 2008
ABSTRACT This paper describes a narrative centred design approach, which has been developed to pr... more ABSTRACT This paper describes a narrative centred design approach, which has been developed to produce multimedia-based Interactive Learning Environments (ILEs) that incorporate a 'designed-in' narrative intended to provide users with a rich and engaging learning experience. The Narrative Centred Informant Design (NCID) approach is introduced and described. NCID has been developed from an analysis of narrative theory and computer games development, and incorporates dramatic and narrative devices that are meaningful to the target learner group. One of the major issues addressed is how to ensure that the ILE will appeal to students who find the domain knowledge difficult. The development of a prototype ILE that utilises the NCID approach is described and the design process is outlined. The paper concludes by identifying how the design framework can be further developed and refined.
This document reports on an evaluative study of the impact and sustainability of the Open Flexibl... more This document reports on an evaluative study of the impact and sustainability of the Open Flexible and Distance Learning (OFDL) Project. The evaluation aimed to explore the impact of the OFDL Project on students, teachers and further education (FE) lecturers. The research design employed a mixed methods approach, involving both quantitative and qualitative methods to supplement and enrich the data sources, which were drawn mainly from teaching staff and students in a representative sample of secondary schools and FE colleges in Scotland. The main point to note from this research is that FE colleges appear to be making much more use of the OFDL resources than schools. The FE colleges have provided evidence that they are contextualising the resources to suit the needs of their students and that the way forward is with more blended teaching approaches. The evidence suggests that schools need to be given the opportunity, with encouragement and support from the local councils in conjunction with Learning and Teaching Scotland, to develop some online resources suitable for their own settings.
The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the problems inherent in the automated diagnosis... more The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the problems inherent in the automated diagnosis of misconceptions held by a student who is performing some task connected with building simple electrical circuits, and to outline a possible approach to diagnosis by describing the design for an, as yet, unbuilt system CARoM (Computer Aided Recognition of Misconceptions) that is to support the diagnosis of a wide range of students’ mistaken beliefs connected with simple electrical circuits.
International Conference on Lightning Protection, 1994
The interest in the use of Logic Programming in education stems from the great enthusiasm for Pro... more The interest in the use of Logic Programming in education stems from the great enthusiasm for Prolog that arose in the late seventies. However, Prolog is n either the purest Logic Programming language nor the easiest language for novices to come to terms with — but the opportunity to introduce very powerful ideas by teaching students to program in Prolog has been seized by many teachers at all levels of education. The continued success of Logic Programming depends in part on improved support for learning Prolog. Therefore, we concentrate here on issues connected with the development of a more integrated and complete view of learning and teaching Prolog.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), May 1, 2004
Abstract: Heidrun Allert's paper is, at least for this reader, a very interesting contributio... more Abstract: Heidrun Allert's paper is, at least for this reader, a very interesting contribution to the debate over the future of the semantic web from an educational perspective. The main contribution is a proposal for a new form of metadata relating to the notion of a "Learning Role" which is used to provide a way of avoiding the static nature of many schemes for describing ontological structures. This is a constructive approach to a somewhat difficult situation in the world of educational metadata. At the very least, the proposal deserves to be fleshed out into a more substantial proposal and discussed by various interested parties. Paper: Allert, H. (2004) Coherent Social Systems for Learning: An Approach for Contextualized and Community-Centred Metadata . Editors: Terry Anderson and Denise Whitelock.
ABSTRACT It may be that visual programming languages (VPLs) are best used as a form of “scaffoldi... more ABSTRACT It may be that visual programming languages (VPLs) are best used as a form of “scaffolding” for novices, whereby a graphical environment provides support until such time as novices are able to transfer to a text-based programming language. Before creating such an environment however, we need evidence that VPLs really are of benefit to novices rather than appealing to common-sense conjectures. We have selected a key issue that novices find particularly difficult-recursion-and consider both whether VPLs actually do scaffold the novice programmer in any significant way and whether there is any promise of improvement in the near future. We conclude that recursion is not scaffolded by current VPLs any more than by current text-based programming languages. However, there is some evidence that it is possible to provide support for comprehension, although this support may be impractical if the main use of the representation is that of construction. The more effective representation can be thought of as the application of a sequence of “unfolding” operations. We therefore suggest a representation which incorporates a specific symbol indicating recursion. We hypothesise that novices, given tools of this kind, should benefit from building programs with this structure visible
This special issue of Instructional Science is part B of two parts devoted to fundamental researc... more This special issue of Instructional Science is part B of two parts devoted to fundamental research that informs the teaching community about some of the issues and problems connected with teaching, learning and using Prolog. Both in part A (Pain et al., 1990) and here, the focus is on the improvement of our understanding in order to encourage the best
Allowing the student to have some control over the diagnosis inspecting and changing the model th... more Allowing the student to have some control over the diagnosis inspecting and changing the model the system has made of him is a feasible approach in student modelling which tracks the dynamics of student behaviour and provides for reflective learning. We present an approach for maintaining the student model in interactive diagnosis where a computer and a student discuss about
Hidden curriculum, hidden feelings; emotions, relationships and learning with ICT and the whole c... more Hidden curriculum, hidden feelings; emotions, relationships and learning with ICT and the whole child -. Bridget Cooper Computer Based Learning, Leeds University, email: BLCooper@cbl.leeds. ac.uk. Paul Brna Northumbria University, email: P.Brna@unn.ac.uk. ...
Learning environments can benefit from drawing on studies of film theory, the practices of the th... more Learning environments can benefit from drawing on studies of film theory, the practices of the theatre, developments in the games industry, and oral storytelling, as well as theories of narrative. There is a need to tie in work in these areas to educational, cognitive, affective, and social explanations of learning (and their associated empirical results) in order to develop a better understanding of how to design interactive learning environments and a much more theoretically driven understanding of the relationship between the structure of the interaction, the associated emotional value and the quality of learning. The idea for this special issue came from papers presented at the Narrative and Interactive Learning Environments (NILE) 2006 conference. After a call for papers, six papers were accepted for publication – each of which explores issues in the relationship between narrative and interactive learning environments. In the first paper Hazel seeks to construct a rationale for the notion of a ‘‘narrative pedagogy’’. Going back to first principles, he seeks to focus on the complex and profound issue of pedagogy. The paper introduces an issue that may prompt an interesting debate amongst readers around what we understand of the brain’s structure and the extent to which we can know ourselves through its study. We believe that Hazel’s approach may be controversial but that his paper nevertheless makes a useful contribution to the important debate about how narrative can be coupled to the concerns of the pedagogue. A strong theoretical focus is also a characteristic of the second paper by Dolk and den Hertog, who provide an educational approach grounded in experience and data. Based on their extensive experience in the classroom, they describe their approach to helping student teachers learn to observe and interpret learner behaviour. Using a multimedia learning environment, they encourage students to build narratives about the connection between a learner’s behaviour and theory. Their approach involves a six step non-linear process that takes the student teacher from situation observation through generalization to a didactic approach for teacher education. South, Gabbitas and Merrill decided to use a narrative-based approach to teach English to non-native speakers. They found that this improved the contextualisation and motivated the students to learn. They found the assessment of learning gains to be problematic, since standard decontextualised tests were not appropriate for the aim of teaching the use of English in such a way that speakers were sensitive to contextual factors. Patera, Draper, and Naef also provide a context – in their case an imaginary one called the Magic Cottage. In this environment, learners are intended to develop their creative writing. The Magic Cottage is a desktop three-dimensional virtual reality environment which children explore; the environment is designed to stimulate the imagination through graphics, sounds, and interactions. The results, while tentative, lead to the suggestion that Interactive Learning Environments Vol. 16, No. 3, December 2008, 195–197
International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning, 2008
ABSTRACT This paper describes a narrative centred design approach, which has been developed to pr... more ABSTRACT This paper describes a narrative centred design approach, which has been developed to produce multimedia-based Interactive Learning Environments (ILEs) that incorporate a 'designed-in' narrative intended to provide users with a rich and engaging learning experience. The Narrative Centred Informant Design (NCID) approach is introduced and described. NCID has been developed from an analysis of narrative theory and computer games development, and incorporates dramatic and narrative devices that are meaningful to the target learner group. One of the major issues addressed is how to ensure that the ILE will appeal to students who find the domain knowledge difficult. The development of a prototype ILE that utilises the NCID approach is described and the design process is outlined. The paper concludes by identifying how the design framework can be further developed and refined.
Uploads
Papers by Paul Brna