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Department of Information Science and Telecommunications

Information Science

Teaching And LEarning Research Lab

The goal of the Information Science TALER Lab is design, development, and evaluation of tools that can support students in learning and professors in teaching Information Science coures.

PROJECTS

WebEx

Goals

Experienced and novice programmers often use program examples they have created or learned in the past to solve new programming tasks. Experienced teachers of programming-related courses know and use the power of example in their teaching. WebEx (short for Web Examples) is a Web-based tool for exploring programming examples that enables teachers to use example-based programming approach with heterogeneous classes. WebEx maximizes learning opportunity for every student, gives every student a second chance in understanding key programming examples, and encourages every student to explore example programs.

Demo

To see the most recent version of WebEx system you have to log in through the KnowledgeTree portal. For examples of an older version of WebEx, please, try any of the dissections links on the page with course materials for IS0015 course.

Support

University of Pittsburgh Innovation in Education Award for 2001-2002. See the full story in Teaching Times.

Publications

Brusilovsky, P.: WebEx: Learning from examples in a programming course. In: Fowler, W. and Hasebrook, J. (eds.) Proc. of WebNet'2001, World Conference of the WWW and Internet, Orlando, FL, AACE (2001) 124-129.

 

KnowledgeTree

Goals

KnowledgeTree is a learning portal for our learning support architecture. The architecture provides adaptive access to diverse learning resources distributed over multiple resource servers. A learning portal in this architecture provides a dynamic access to the course material and related resources. Multiple learning portals are possible in this architecture - from completely static to completely adaptive. KnowledgeTree is a relatively adaptive portal that provide access to learning resources within a hierarchy of course objectives provided by a course teacher.

Currently, KnowledgeTree provides access to several course activities associated with lectures: lecture slides, examples, quizzes and dissections. Dissections developed and served using WebEx system provide you with an interface to explore comments that a teacher has attached to the lines of the program examples. It is the second chance for you to understand the example if you missed the class or can't grasp the example during class presentation. Quizzes are provided for self-assessment. They check your understanding of basic constructs of the language. A failure to predict the target value is good indication that further reading or work is required. Each quiz can be taken many times (each time you will see different numbers in the same questions. However, only first attempt is recorded. From the surface point of view, the interface provided by KnowledgTree looks quite like the static "Course Materials" page. However, it is not static. It can retrieve educational materials from various servers, watch what you are doing and adapt to your level of knowledge.

Demo

Login here to start working with learning resources via KnowledgeTree Portal. You have to register and choose a login name and a password when you use the system for the first time. Do not use your UNIX or other secure login/password. We suggest to use your e-mail address as a loging or to make a user name from the first letter of your first name and your family name. So, Steve Jones will be sjones or SJones. Please, do not forget your password!

For an older version of KnowledgeTreePortal login here. Note that the older version may not be always available. Old and new versions of KnowledgeTree are using the same student model server - so if you already have your user name in the older version, you can simply use it in the newer version too.

 

KnowledgeSea

Goals

KnowledgeSea is a tool that helps you locate relevant parts for reading in various Web-based textbooks on C language. There is a good number of C resources on the Web (see External links in CourseWeb), but it is not easy to locate just a few pages that you need to read for a particular lecture. KnowledgeSea allocates lectures and reading pages on a 2-dimensional map where similar pages are located together. You just need to "look around" the location of a particular lecture one the map for most relevant pages. Please, consult the instruction on using KnowledgeSea for more information. You can access KnowledgeSea from the KnowledgeTree system.

 

PEOPLE

Faculty

Peter Brusilovsky (PI)

Visiting Researchers

Riccardo Rizzo

Graduate Students

Olena Scherbinina

Sharad Pathak

Hemanta Nijhavan

Former Graduate Students

Annapurna Darapuram

Hoah-Der Su