Learning Beans for Programming and Beyond

Fintan Culwin Centre for Interactive Systems Engineering (CISE)

London South Bank University

London SE1 0AA

fintan@lsbu.ac.uk

I won’t use that programming RLO because . . .

It uses the ‘wrong’ language.

It uses the ‘wrong’ layout.

If you give students the opportunity to see a solution, they will just look at it and not work it out for themselves.

It provides no facility for students who are stuck.

It is too easy for my students.

It is too difficult for my students.

I did not write it and I do not trust you to maintain it.

It uses the ‘wrong’ language (human or computer). design from the outset for multiple languages.

It uses the ‘wrong’ layout. design from the outset for different conventions.

It is too easy for my students.It is too difficult for my students. design from the outset for progressive disclosure.

If you give students . . . It provides no facility . . . design from the outset for different pedagogies.

I did not write it and I do not trust you to maintain it. lodge the product and the source in stable repositories.

A (reusable?) (interactive?) (generic?) Learning (teaching?)

Object is (usually/mostly??) wedded to a particular programming and

pedagogic philosophy.

A Learning Bean is promiscuous with respect to many programming and

pedagogic philosophies.

. . a java bean is used within a visual development tool that will allow a programmer to install the bean into a software system. The tool is used at build-time to configure the bean in-situ for its run-time requirements.

. . a learning bean is used within a visual development tool that will be used by an instructional designer to install the bean into a learning environment. The tool is used at build-time to configure the bean in-situ for its run-time requirements.

Reusability is not a monolithic concept!

deployability, that is the number of places where an object can be shown to have been accessed from.

component reuse, that is the number of times a LO is used as a component part of another LO.

individual reuse, that is the number of times an individual learner returns to (a variant of) a LO.

learning bean design principles 1)     Objects should be designed and built for in-situ configuration.2)     Objects which allow a learner to express themselves are more likely to be individually reused.3)     Objects which support progressive disclosure are more likely to be individually reused.4)     Objects which are free of pedagogic and other philosophical assumptions are more likely to be deployed.5)     Objects which support i18n are more likely to be deployed.6)     Smaller objects are more likely to be reused as components than larger ones.7)     Objects which support meaningful interaction are more likely to be individually reused.8)     Objects which produce different content and/or challenge every time they are encountered are more likely to be individually reused.9)     Objects which have an objective marking capability are more likely to be deployed and individually reused.10)   Objects which have configuration utilities are more likely to be deployed.11)   Objects which triangulate knowledge are more likely to be deployed and individually reused.12)   Objects which are free of licensing restrictions are more likely to be deployed and more likely to be reused as components.13) Objects which do not use proprietary environments are more likely to be deployed.

(see Culwin 2004)

Proof of concept Loop Learning Bean 1Different Languages, Loops and Layouts

Proof of concept Loop Learning Bean 2Different Capabilities

Proof of concept Loop Learning Bean 3Different Pedagogies

In-situ configuration utility

Different Pedagogies -StateChart

Independent of it being a loop bean

I did not write it and I do not trust you to maintain it.

(after Boyle 2003)

Evaluation

Development versions presented to tutors at JICC 9 and ASCILITE 04.Used with foundation students at LSBU & shown to final year students.

Very favourable reactions throughout.

“I personally would use this product.”

Anonymous ICS HEA reviewer June 2004.

Current Status

The Loop Learning bean is in release version 1.0 and is available at: http:// cise.lsbu.ac.uk/pooples

It will be lodged with JORUM in due course.

Its capability is being extended to accommodate time based challenges and summative assessment capability.

Three other beans are in production:

a primitive variable manipulation bean (I.e ++, --, +, -, *, /, += etc.)an if/ else/ else if bean a decimal <-> binary <-> hex values bean

If anyone has a brainwave of the form: ‘This topic from a non-computing area would make a great bean!”, please speak to me!