Published on the Web from the ED-TELECOM'96
- World Conference on Educational Telecommunications proceedings (pp.
302-307.) with permission of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Elmar Schwarz,
Peter
Brusilovsky, and
Gerhard
Weber
Department
of Psychology
University
of Trier
Trier, FRG
E-mail: {
schwarz
|
plb
|
weber
}@cogpsy.uni-trier.de
Abstract: New WWW technologies allow for integrating distance
education power of WWW with interactivity and intelligence. Integrating on-line
presentation of learning materials with the interactivity of problem solving
environments and the intelligence of intelligent tutoring systems results in a
new quality of learning materials that we call I3-textbooks. In this
paper, we describe the development of
ELM-ART,
an I3-textbook for learning programming that can be accessed via
Internet and that is based on the on-site learning environment
ELM-PE.
Distance learning with Internet opens new ways of learning
for many people. Now, educational programs and learning materials installed and
supported in one place can be used by thousands of students from all over the
world. World Wide Web (WWW) and WWW browsers provide a good example of powerful
modern Internet facilities. Using WWW, a novice user can comfortably browse the
Internet finding required pieces of information in different locations
worldwide. From the very early days of WWW, there were many trials to use WWW
facilities for distance learning. Being a good general tool for Internet
navigation, however, WWW and current WWW browsers are not specially designed
for distance education. Thus, most existing educational WWW applications use
only simple solutions and are much weaker and more restricted than existing
'on-site' educational systems and tools. A number of powerful technologies
which proved to be very effective in 'on-site' education are still not
implemented within the WWW framework.
Two advanced educational technologies are of special interest to us:
interactive hypermedia textbooks and intelligent tutoring systems. A prominent
goal of the project we are working at is to integrate 'distance education'
power of WWW with interactivity and intelligence offered by these advanced
technologies.
In the pre-computer society, a school or a
university textbook used to be the primary learning support medium both in the
classroom and at home. It is not surprising that several generations of
researchers on computer use in education considered a textbook as a model for
developing computer-based learning support tools. What is surprising is that a
very big part of developed 'electronic textbooks' are no more than 'electronic
copies' of printed textbooks: they offer the learner nothing more than access
to the textbook content. Technically, current electronic textbooks (ET) are
much better than their grandparents: first ETs used expensive mainframes and
represented only text. CRT displays added graphics, personal computers made
them cheap and available, multimedia technology added the possibility to
present sound, video, and animation, and, now, Internet and World Wide Web
bring the possibility of distance access. From the conceptual point of view,
however, most ETs that are currently available on the WWW offer the student not
much more than good printed textbooks that are available nowadays.
Advanced research on computer use in education showed that computers can be a
much better learning support medium. To see the difference let us limit
ourselves to programming language textbooks. Traditional printed textbooks give
hierarchically structured presentations of programming language concepts and
constructs. In addition to the presentation of concepts, good textbooks use a
lot of examples--from simple expressions to complete programs--and
exercises--from simple tests to programming problems. Simple electronic
textbooks just serve the same information on-line, sometimes with use of simple
hypertext technology. Two important features, interactivity and intelligence,
can be added in more advanced systems.
Interactivity turns an electronic textbook from a passive into an active
learning medium. Examples of adding interactivity are demonstrated by several
'interactive textbooks' [Boyle et al. 1994], [Fowler & Fowler 1993],
[Meyerowitz 1995]. In addition to regular hypertext-based learning materials,
some of these systems provide access to a programming environment with a
program editor, an interpreter or compiler, and even a graphic program design
tool. In such systems, all examples and problems are active teaching
operations. The student can not only look at the example but also use the above
tools to investigate it: to execute it, to change something, to execute it
again, and so forth. The same tools can replace paper and pencil for developing
and testing problem solutions interactively.
Another example of adding interactivity to textbooks is demonstrated by program
testing and grading systems (e.g., Ceiligh [Benfordet al. 1994]). Ceiligh not
only provides on-line access to the text of lectures and programming problems,
but also can process student programs (i.e., problem solutions) and provide the
student with important feedback. In particular, Ceiligh can test the
correctness of a student's problem solution, measure its quality with several
metrics, and report the results to the student. Such interactive feedback gets
the students much more involved in the learning process. Interestingly,
students often try to improve even correct solutions trying to get a better
mark.
Further improvement can be achieved by adding intelligence into ET what means
to make them perform some duties usually performed by the human teacher in the
classroom. It is important to reduce the load of the teacher in the classroom
and also in situations where a teacher is not available (which is mostly the
case in WWW-based education). These aspects are investigated in the domain of
Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). Existing ITS for teaching programming can
support the student in the process of problem solving, provide intelligent
analysis of problem solution, and construct for each student an individual
learning path, including individual selection of topics to learn, examples, and
problems. Originally, ITS were considered as an opposite to ET technology.
However, most current advanced ITS for programming (which are developed for the
use in the real classroom) always integrate classic ITS features with
programming environments, on-line course materials, and other features of
interactive textbooks. For example, the ACT Programming Tutor [Anderson et al.
1995] provides problem-solving support, problem sequencing, and on-line course
material. GRACE [McKendree et al. 1992] provides problem-solving support,
on-line course material, and a program design tool. ITEM/IP [Brusilovsky 1993]
provides intelligent course sequencing, adaptive on-line course material,
solution checking, and an educational programming environment. ELM-PE [Weber
& Möllenberg 1995] provides solution checking, intelligent program
analysis, an educational programming environment, and intelligent selection of
examples.
New generation ET should integrate on-line representation of learning material
with interactivity of problem solving environments and intelligence of ITS.
Such ET which we call I3-textbooks (where I3 means
integrated + interactive + intelligent) really can provide
a new quality over classic printed textbooks. A challenging research goal is to
make I3-textbooks available on WWW. Among several other groups [Lin
et al. 1996], [Nakabayashi, et al. 1995], [Nkambou & Gauthier 1996] we have
started to work in this direction. In the following sections, we will give an
example of how our ideas of I3-textbooks can be implemented in the
domain of learning programming. We describe our research work on the
development and implementation of ELM-ART, a WWW version of ELM-PE, that is
currently one of the most advanced intelligent learning environments for
programming.
The knowledge-based programming
environment ELM-PE was designed to support novices who learn the programming
language LISP. It has several features that are especially useful when learning
to solve problems in a new, complex domain. These features comprise a
syntax-driven structure editor that helps beginners to code
syntactically correct LISP expressions, example-based programming with
examples chosen by the user or individually provided by the system on demand,
explanation of run-time errors, stepwise visualization of the
evaluation of LISP expressions and the cognitive diagnosis of LISP code
based on the 'Episodic Learner Model' (ELM). All these features are described
in more detail in [Weber & Möllenberg 1995] and in [Weber in
press].
Though ELM-PE has been shown to be a very powerful tool for tutoring novices in
LISP, there still exist problems. The goal of ELM-PE is to provide an
environment under which the user can apply previously acquired knowledge in
single programming tasks. But there is no opportunity for the user to repeat or
to deepen knowledge. The user has to refer to a common printed textbook that
suffers from disadvantages stated in the introduction. This results in the need
of integrating a textbook into the environment. Adding this feature to ELM-PE
resulted in the development of the I3-textbook ELM-ART, an adaptive,
world-wide available tutoring system.
The
first step to an I3-textbook is to integrate an ITS and an
electronic textbook into one single environment. ELM-ART contains a
hierarchically structured ET that may be compared with common textbooks.
Navigation is supported by links to neighbored pages and to a table of the
contents of any desired node within this hierarchy. Additionally, a simple
search interface helps to find special contents or topics. In addition to these
old well-known techniques, ELM-ART provides adaptive navigation support to
protect users from getting lost in the hyperspace. Among several known adaptive
navigation support technologies [Beaumont & Brusilovsky 1995], ELM-ART
mainly applies adaptive annotation of links. The system adds a dynamic
annotation to any link presented to the user which tells the user what kind of
page (e.g., text, example, or problem) will appear using a link and whether a
link may be useful for the user [ Fig. 1].
Figure
1: Part of the Table of Contents showing the hierarchical structure of the
texbook. According to adaptive annotations the link to the page "Arithmetische
Funktionen" is suggested to be taken next, whilst the link "Eigene Funktionen"
is not recommended.
An example
in a textbook does not help very much if the user does not pay enough attention
to it. That's why we want to provide an easy way for students to play with
examples by integrating an enhanced evaluator into ELM-ART. This access is
currently provided by transforming the text of any example into a link [ Fig.
2]. When the user activates this link, the system loads the evaluator page,
executes the example, and responds with the result or an error message [ Fig.
3]. Employing the evaluator, the user can play with the given examples by
modifying some pieces of code or by looking to step by step evaluation leading
to a deeper understanding of the internal code evaluation strategy in LISP [
Fig. 3]. Any occurring run-time error is explained by ELM-ART in more detail
and more suited to novices than common LISP interpreters do. These explanations
are sometimes augmented by hints that help correcting the error. The evaluator,
supported by the above interface, has enough capabilities to serve as a simple
but fully featured Lisp interpreter. Moreover, with its enhancements, the
integrated evaluator of ELM-ART outperforms common LISP interpreters with
respect to educational purposes.
Figure
2: Part of a page from the textbook concerning the problem "ZWEITES." Using
the links, the examples are put into an interactive evaluator page where they
can be modified and reexecuted.Whenever the user is asked to solve
a programming task, he or she can check a solution by calling a testing tool
that tests the code dynamically with some critical I/O-pairs. In case of an
erroneous solution, the user is faced with some counterexamples. They may give
a hint what type of error has occurred and where in the code it could be found.
These examples may be tested interactively by the student in the evaluator at
any time to see how the incorrect results are computed. This simple facility
implemented in ELM-ART has been proved to be very powerful in several tutorial
systems (e.g., [Barr et al. 1976], [Weber & Möllenberg 1995]).
Figure
3: Evaluation of the first example of [Fig. 2] based on the erroneous
solution in [Fig. 4] using the stepper facility. Swapping FIRST and
REST resulted in erroneously calling REST with the atom
BROT.
According to our general
approach, our I3-textbook includes an intelligent environment that
supports problem solving. For this reason, all programming problems are
described in the textbook. Any page describing a programming problem supports
the user in different ways. In addition to testing and evaluating code as
described above, the user is supported by intelligent program analysis.
If testing of a developed solution reports that it is still erroneous and the
user is unable to find the error himself, he or she can invoke an intelligent
program analyzer. As a result, the user receives messages that describe step by
step which part of the code is erroneous and how to fix it [ Fig. 4].
Therefore, the user is supported interactively at any time in solving the
problem by testing and analyzing the solution as well as by an interface to the
evaluator to execute some piece of code.
Figure 4: Response of the intelligent diagnosis for an erroneous
solution for the problem ZWEITES. The error was caused by the swapping
FIRST and REST. This is reported in the upper box
"Meldungen."
This feature of ELM-ART ensures that the user will find
a correct solution to any problem. This is important because users often tend
to assume non-optimal or even buggy solutions to be correct. Doing so, the user
will acquire incorrect conceptual knowledge. When the same piece of knowledge
is required again for problem solving, the user may completely fail as a result
of the acquired misunderstanding. The system even provides feedback, whether
the solution is optimal, and, if not, it suggests improvements.
Yielding in the
goal of integrating as many features as possible, integrated textbooks make use
of large textual databases for the actual textbook and of extensive knowledge
bases about the subject for tutoring and example analyzing. For adaptation to
individual users, knowledge about the user (e.g., the learner history) is
required as well. I3-textbooks also employ several tools that
require computational expensive algorithms handling the intelligent
capabilities of the system. That is why fully featured intelligent textbooks
are suitable only for expensive high-end computers. A reduction or limitation
of any of these resources and features would not only result in a loss of
comfort but also would lower the intelligence of the system. Since the user
spends a lot of time in reading and thinking, the time between single user
requests is rather high compared with computation periods caused by these
request. Therefore, employing one high-end computer per student is an enormous
waste of computational power and of physical resources. The only way to avoid
either a loss of quality or a waste of money is distributing the system
following the well-known client-server paradigm.
If we want to provide world-wide availability of I3-textbooks, the
WWW is definitely the best choice to do that. This world-wide information
service is supported by several front-end clients on nearly all common computer
systems. Since these WWW-browsers can be run with small amount of memory,
disc-space, and computational power, this kind of interface provides cheap
world-wide access.
ELM-ART is implemented based on CL-HTTP described in [Mallery
1994]. This tool provides a fully featured HTTP-server completely implemented
in Common LISP and has shown to be an optimal platform for our purposes.
CL-HTTP offers a Common Gateway Interface to handle incoming URLs from all over
the world via the Internet. Any valid URL is associated to a response function
implemented in LISP that is called by the server on an incoming request. The
received URL and enclosed form values that may contain an arbitrary amount of
incoming data are submitted as function parameters. Therefore, the response
function can answer the request by using Common LISP standard I/O-functions to
generate an HTML page as an adaptive response. Since a LISP function is called
to handle the request, any desired information can be included to this page
very effectively and, of course, any arbitrary interactive or intelligent tool
can be integrated this way. Because the communication between client and server
is so flexible, the system can be highly interactive and adaptive meeting
exactly the requirements of I3-textbooks.
The possibilities rising from a
programmable WWW-server are enormous and not at all exhausted by ELM-ART. By
explaining some special features integrated into our implementation we want to
give an impression of the facilities that concern advanced adaptive text
display, higher interactivity with complex data, integration of external tools,
and enhanced feedback (URL of ELM-ART:
http://www.psychologie.uni-trier.de:8000/elmart
).
Adapting
Pages. This is facility is the basic part of our I3-textbooks.
We avoid static pages as in older textbooks and make them adaptive by computing
the page on the fly when the user requests it. For this purpose, our actual
textbook is represented in a database that can be accessed via page identifiers
to receive an outline page. These outline pages contain--besides the textual
information--adaptive formatting options to enable the system to build an
HTML-page based on the user's interaction and learning history. When the page
is created it will be sent to the user who will not notice at all that the page
was just generated for his or her individual purposes [ Fig. 1].
Interactive
Evaluator. To integrate the evaluator, we provide a form-based interface by
which the user can submit own LISP code for evaluation. This is done by
inserting HTML fill-out-forms in the page to be filled with LISP code by the
user. By clicking a submit button, a HTTP-request attached with the
form-contents is sent to the server. The associated LISP function calls the
evaluator while its output is redirected to the remote client. At the bottom of
the evaluator output, a new fillout form is inserted so that the user gets the
feeling of a real LISP interpreter (listener) [ Fig. 3]. Current HTML-standards
and available network throughputs unfortunately do not allow a proper
implementation of a real stepper facility. So, we decided just to show
complete, scrollable traces of the execution that can be received by clicking a
special submit button.
Intelligent
Solution Diagnosis. The implementation of an interface to the diagnostic
part of the I3-textbook is even more difficult. While the input of
the solution can be handled similar to the evaluator interface, the output of
the diagnosis is more difficult to handle because it contains helpful
information and hints up to the complete solution that should be presented step
by step to animate the user to work out as much as possible on his or her own.
We solved this problem by enclosing the diagnostic feedback into a scrollable
window so that only one message is visible at one moment. The user can look at
all messages step by step and can simultaneously improve the solution according
to the pieces of information just read from the feedback window [ Fig. 4].
The system ELM-ART described in this paper
provides an example of a new kind of an electronic textbook. As many others
textbooks available today on the WWW, ELM-ART provides remote access to a
hypermedia-structured learning material which includes explanations, tests,
examples, and problems. Specific features of our system include the possibility
to play with examples, to solve the problems, and to get intelligent support
which usually can be provided only by a human teacher. ELM-ART integrates the
features of an electronic textbook, a learning environment, and an intelligent
tutoring system. It is a real I3-textbook (i.e.,
integrated + interactive + intelligent textbook). We consider adding
interactivity and intelligence to WWW educational applications to be an
important direction of research.
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Part of this work is supported by a Grant from "Alexander von Humboldt"
Foundation to the second author and by a Grant from "Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz
fuer Innovation" to the third author.