Smart Teacher: A Modern Information Technology of E-learning System

Bara Saber Al-hourani

Department of Computer Engineering The Hashemite University

Supervised by Eng.Ghada Al-Mashaqbeh

June 2010

Abstract
E-learning is continuously improving to accelerate the educational process day after day. One of the important issues in the e-learning research field is how to serve the student in an efficient and intelligent. This paper considers main studying steps which take the student all the way from introducing the scientific topic to the level of full understanding. This paper also tackles graphical concerns that affect the quality of electronic teaching, such as font types and sizes, contrast and colors. A sample lesson is built to prove the concept, which explains the digital counters topic of the digital logic course offered by the Computer Engineering Department. This lesson includes a designed video, examples and tests. The approach was tested and proved that it amplifies the level of understanding for students.

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Acknowledgement
I would like to express my great appreciation and gratefulness to the great help and support that have continuously been offered by my supervisor Eng. Ghada along the period of the research.. I would like to express my deepest grateful appreciation to Eng. Basel Abu-Jamous for the unlimited collaborative support and sincere guidance to the project. I would like to thank the students who contributed in testing the project. I would also like to thank all my colleagues who supported me all the way in the project.

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1. Introduction
In October 1999, during a CBT Systems seminar in Los Angeles, a strange new word was used for the first time in a professional environment e-Learning. E-learning techniques have been used before that time, but the word itself is not that old. Today you may find terms like "Internet-Based training" or "Web-Based Training" which were used previously for elearning. You may also find some variations of e-learning term such as elearning, Elearning, and eLearning. E-learning can be defined as instruction delivered via a computer that is intended to promote learning [6]. Annual investments in training are high and growing. Were spent on training workers in corporate and governmental organizations in the United States [14]. The striking increases of e-learning methodologies, & the highly growing finance that governments are ready to pay show that elearning is a recommended effective method support the Educational process. As academic achievement depends on how students study, for the digital students - students born after 1980 Net-Generation - it depends on the system they study from. Tell me, and I'll forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I'll understand Chinese Proverb In this project we aim at building a smart system that tackles the problems of students, lecturers and employers each in his area. It describes the result of my study of others e-learning programs and has a complete learning area that follows the steps of How to Study while taking many presenting issues into consideration. Its main principle is to visualize every new scientific concept and keep on touch with the students step by step while they are solving related problems. This is to guarantee that students are able to acquire the expected knowledge and skills. 1

The How to Study steps include testing the student to try to point and deal with his weaknesses. A proposed technique to do this is by analyzing his responses to special example problems that are designed to discover his weakness points. The following example illustrates this idea: Example: After explaining a mathematics lesson about square roots, the system asks the student this question: Q: [ =?]. If the student had a wrong answer, the system would try to break down the question to light different aspects, for example it may ask him to solve [7 + 9 =?] to check if the students problem is in the addition operation. If he answered correctly with an answer of (16), the system gives him the next step which is [ =?]. If the answer to this was wrong, then the system knows that the problem is in solving square roots not in the addition part. This leads to many options like redirecting him to a special lesson prepared to deal with this specific problem for example. This strategy helps the system to find the weakness points of the student, focusing on them and strengthen them as a final step. In this discussion I will try the Smart Teacher approach to explain Counters, a subject within the digital logic course offered by the Computer Engineering Department at the Hashemite University. Note that most of the rest of this paper discusses teaching counters concept, even though, this is not more than an example to prove the concept which should be applicable to be applied on any other scientific subject. My research includes performance evaluation for the Smart Teacher system, which is based on a practical experiment on a group of students, previous e-learning applications and other researches. Smart Teacher, which is an application of modern information technology of education, is developed using C#.Net 2008 with the support of Windows Movie Maker to produce the needed media.

2. Previous works
WinlogiLab and Logic Tester are two already developed programs that are developed by Mr Charles Hacker. I used them in my evaluation to have a completed test for the Smart Teacher technology. (5)(6). Some other previous works are discussed in the few following sections:

2.1. E-front
It is complete e-learning software with a good looking Ajaxed interface. It enables administrators to create and manage lessons easily with various tools like: 1- Content Editors (has a flexible visual content editor and support for pictures, sound, video, flash or java). 2- File manager & digital Library (for file sharing). 3- Test builders. 4- Ability to assign projects. 5- Creating Surveys.[18]

2.2. Dokeos
Beside the standard course management features, it offers Flash based videoconferencing which enables you to organize live training and meetings remotely. The system has a "coaching" feature to interact with the learners through agenda, forums, chat, videoconference, open questions-answers and assignment feedbacks. Its main product is called SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), which is a collection of standards and specifications for webbased e-learning. It defines communication between client side content and a host system called the run-time environment, which is commonly supported by a learning management system. SCORM also defines how content may be packaged into a transferable ZIP file which it calls its "Package Interchange Format".[19] 3

2.3. eLab ( Build highly interactive e-Learning courses in a snap! ) eLab enables the rapid development, integration, updating and deployment of eLearning courseware and content.[20]

3. Smart Teacher
Effective studying has an important role for any successful student. I have searched for the essential steps of How to Study and I have summarized them in figure 1.

Introduction and Motivation Reading the Lesson Quik Review Solve related Problems Test yourself
Figure 1. Essential How to Study Steps

Next, I will show how Smart Teacher techniques take these steps into consideration. I will apply them into my program to explain counters subject.

3.1 Step One: Brief Preface

People are able to understand Material more easily if they have some prior knowledge of the Topic, or the information has Particular interest or significance to them.[4]
Figure 2 . "Pulse Modulated Signals"

Counter is a new scientific concept for the student. I included photos for counters and photos for devices that include counters to show what they mean. The lesson has a brief introduction which tells the student what he is going to be able to do after studying counters, I mean we need to study them to build something larger than just counters, and this will motivate him. 5

Figure 2 and figure 3 show Pulse Modulated Signals and Digital Watches respectively, which are examples for the images that show usages of the counters in industry.

Figure 3. "Digital Watches

3.2 Step Two: Visualized Lesson

Tests have proven that telling the student the themes that a text has can improve his ability to detect and remember these themes, if compared with letting him read the text without any guidance (12). In this step the student is given the lessons video to watch after his mind was prepared by step 1. The lessons video starts explaining what counters mean, what their types are, how I could design a counter and what the differences between their types are. It is created using Windows Movie Maker. To describe a new definition just like counters, I used pictures in a certain order, starting from the big particular object that students are familiar with from their real life, going step by step until reaching what I want to talk about. The video lesson is not like most of Figure 4. "From counters ICs to CPU" the video lessons that are already available. Most of the videos that we can find now only have shots for class lectures. But here we explain the material in a friendly visualized way which presents the topic while considering many visual parameters discussed bellow. This is such as showing definitions in images. Does it help your audience to learn and apply relevant skills and knowledge? It is what you should ask yourself after you finish designing your lesson and be careful to apply instructional Design. 6

3.3. Instructional Design

Instructional Design is defined as the systematic development of instructional specifications using learning and instructional theory. This is to ensure the quality of instruction.[3] Using the principles and models of instructional design, the lesson is made interesting, exciting and control students attention and concentration. Three Valuable Coefficients play an essential role:
3.3.1. Fonts and Texts

Figure 5."Subtitle" font Format

Figure 6."Title" font format

Fonts are used to display text for reading. That means you have to consider which font style is going to work best on your screen. It has to be the right type of font and the right size. They should fit into the overall theme and design of your course. Consistency in appearance and behavior facilitate access and reduce Confusion. Figure (6) shows the main title in the counters lesson I used a clear bold font can help the student distinguish Titles. Figure (5) shows that subtitles use special font as well, but it is also different that the main Title.

Figure 7 ""

Figure 8 ."Definition" Scientific Material Font Format

If you course is talking about history or its a traditional serious course. Comic Sans wont be suitable for that. Andalus is the best choice for that type of lesson. Comic Sans is best used for magazines and non formal materials Figure (8) shows that using Times New Roman font to write the definition of counters. Arial, Times New Roman, San Serif work best for scientific materials as mentioned in font conference rules. In figure (7) the used font is Comic Sans to write a scientific material, it clearly shows that Times New Roman has better for such purposes.
3.3.2. Colors

Applying contrast works the best for color rules. It makes things clearer and more attractive. The first rule for using graphics in your elearning course is to make sure that theyre not just decorative. They should contribute to the content on the screen. This includes the learning experience as well as the look and feel of the course. It is not all about the learning content. Theres also the aesthetic consideration that is part of visual communication. Show

Figure 9. Applying Contrast

Figure 10. Applying Contrast

Figure 11 . Motivative Question

them the big picture and let them see everything in context. Be careful from a confusing use of contrast. You could be distracting the learners or getting them to focus on the wrong things. There are all sorts of ways to add contrast to your screens. You can change the size or the shape of elements. You can play around with colors or placement of objects. Figures (9) and (10) show how the contrast is used within the designing steps and figure (11) shows its use for text.
3.3.3. Images & Graphics

Multimedia presentations is a cause which makes learners to be encouraged to engage in active learning by mentally representing the material in words and in pictures and by mentally making connections between the pictorial and verbal representations in contrast, presenting words alone may encourage learners especially those with less experience or expertiseto

Figure 12.Mind Map

engage in sallow learning, such as not connecting the words with other knowledge.[6]

3.4. Step Three: A Short Visualized Review

There is no Principle that is more important or more effective than recitation for transferring Material from the short-term Memory to the Long term Memory .[3] Recitation can take several forms -- thinking about it, writing it out, or saying it out loud. I created a Diagram that Organize and order the Main topics of the Lesson, it has a small message alert the Student to repeat the Ideas loudly this help the Student to review what he has studied. Figure (12) is a mind map that summaries all basic Ideas for Counters Lesson.

3.5. Step Four: Practice

Figure 13.WinLogiLab

With the course work assignment the practice examples tell you what you should be able to answer by the end of the course. They help you to set your learning goals for the course. [8]

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Figure 17

Figure 17

Figure 17

Figure 17.Notes

Revision in step three is the last step before the Student be able to answer any Question related to Counters. His next step is to start solving related problems. I used WinlogiLab Program for this step. Figure (13) shows the main menu for the WinLogiLAb program and figures 14 through 17 show snapshots of its notes window. WinLogiLab is a program that provides Problems for various topics from Digital Logic Course. In my Experiment I was just interested in Counters Module, The Student chose WinCounter, WinLogiLab provides Examples solved in details with effective notes that are considered as a successful Technique for any Teaching System. Notes taken during lectures, tutorials and seminars, or from the reading of any literature are considered a valuable source of reference .[4] When notes are taken, purpose for which notes are being made should be considered; reference, preparation, aiding recall, organizing knowledge. This is how notes can be effective. [4]

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3.6. Step Five: Test yourself

WinLogiLab has served greatly for Practice purposes But it lacks the real testing because it always gives hints, So its recommended to finish studying by Checking the Student Understanding. I decided to make the students solve a Digital Logic Quiz.

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4. Experiments and Results

The Smart Teacher approach was tested by comparing a short exams results for two groups of students; one after following the steps and the other only depending on the course lectures. Although the students levels affect these results, they are still good indicators for the quality of the proposed approach. The general results for the group which followed the steps were better than the other group. This doesnt mean that some of the students have got full marks even without following the steps. But their number is less. For the exams questions see Appendix A.

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5. Conclusions and future work

E-learning is one of the hottest fields of research these days. This is because it is able to accelerate the educational process which is one of the basic foundations of any nation. Although this is true, it is important to improve e-learning to increase its quality and efficiency. Smart e-learning systems aim at providing the information to the student in a well-designed order and presentation. This includes making gradual steps while presenting any new topic to ensure that the student is able to digest all important points smoothly. One of the effective methodologies is to use well-designed media to explain topics. This may include videos, animations, images and others. It is important to consider graphical issues such as the font types and sizes, colors, contrast and other items. If the steps of How to Study were followed neatly with the consideration of all other parameters such as graphics, the student would be able to have clearer understanding about the topic with a strong probability of storing the main points in the long-term memory.

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Appendix A: Short Exam for Digital Counters Lesson

Q1 : Design a counter that counts in the sequence 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 3, ...

Q2: How many flipflops do you need to design a Counter that counts From 0 15. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 1 2 3 4 5 D - Flipflop D Flipflops D Flipflops D Flipflops D Flipflops

Q3 : The following state Diagram is a State Diagram for a counter that

count as: 1) 2) 3) 4) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 7 - . 0123456701- 01426380142- 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 -

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Q4 : The count that will produce a positive timing pulse at 'X' in the circuit shown beside is :

A) 1 only B) 4 only C) Both 1 and 4 D) 7

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References: [1] Charles M. Reigeluth, Instructional-design Theories and Models: A new paradigm of instructional theory, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 1999. [2] Clark Aldrich, 2005, Learning by Doing, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA. [3] Heather Fry, Steve Ketteridge, Stephanie Marshall, A handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: enhancing academic practice, Taylor & Francis, 2009. [4] Conrad Lashley and Warwick Best, 12 steps to study success, Cengage Learning EMEA, 2003. [5] Lorraine Curry, Easy Homeschooling Companion: Exhortation, Encouragement & More Easy Ideas, God's Gardener, 2004. [6] Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E.Mayer, E-learning and the Science of Instructions, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA, 2008. [7] Michael W. Allen, Designing Successful e-learning, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA, 2007. [8] Tom Burns and Sandra Sinfield, Essential Study Skills: The Complete Guide to Success at University, SAGE Publications Ltd, 2008. [9] http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/5-common-visual-designmistakes/ [10] http://www.leerbeleving.nl/wbts/1/history_of_elearning.html [11] http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/E-Learning [12] http://www.e-learningguru.com/gloss.htm [13] http://www.qedoc.com/wcim.php?o=quiz [14] Training magazines analysis of employer-sponsored training in the United States, 2006 Industry Report, Bersin & Associates, December 2006.

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[15] Charles Hacker, WinLogiLab, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. [16] Harold hence, Evaluating Web-Based Instructional Design, 2001. [17] Diana Andone, Chris Boyne, Jon Dron & Lyn Pemberton, What is it to be a digital student in a British university?, 2005 IEEE. [18] The official website: is http://www.efrontlearning.net/ [19] Dekoes website is: http://www.dokeos.com/ [20]http://www.elearningapplicationbuilder.com/en/softwares/elabelearning-application-builder/index.php

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