I have a built a web page that consolidates the work done at MCCCD on iCampus so far. It also contains links to iCampus resources found on other sites. The blog is a great communication tool but is not as effective as a resource. Hopefully this web site will fill that need.
The final day was a short one. Many of the conference attendees were heading back home. It was a short schedule and I attended two presentations. One presentation reviewed the experience of the University or Virginia'sMBA program setting up and on-line executive MBA program. Although the problem was launched with dedicated planning and research it was not as ground breaking as many of the other presentations I attended. Whereas many of us have already started with on-line learning, the U of V experience was much more about how one would launch given what has been already learned by others. A more mature and less revolutionary implementation then what would have been experienced five years ago. They did the presentation with one attendee from Adobe using their Adobe Breeze product. The Breeze product had a few bumps and hiccups but those in the audience spoke very positively of it.
Assessment of Technology Mediated Learning?
I attended a spirited discussion on the lack and/or weakness of assessment data in regards to technology and learning. The central theme was the proposition of Dr. David Singer (MIT - Brain and Cognitive Sciences) that assessment data was non-existent. The panel admitted that it was weak and likely to be ignored by most projects (somewhat like system/user documentation) there was research being done. The MIT staff shared what they have done with the MIT experience and although they had areas of learning that had limited assessment, assessment was done. I suspect this presentation will be revisited next year as many schools are looking for evidence of success or to isolate areas of improvement. I suspect everyone believes technology mediated learning (I love this term. Someone used this in a presentation and I though it was a good way to describe what is happening.) but many would like the evidence to show administration to secure the funds necessary to build the infrastructure and content to do the most effective job.
Conclusions:
If I had to narrow down on the buzz of the conference I would list the following products/presentations:
The Future of Tech Learning ·Neo-Millenniallearning systems(Dr. Chris Dede - Harvard) understanding the new student is critical to creating active learning environments. These students are what we have been calling knowledge workers. ·Immersion simulation and graphics intensive content will become more prevalent ·Ubiquitous computing The cell phone PDA appears to be the winner ·Data storage will increase exponentially as active learning is implemented (simulations and graphics) on systems.
Surprises ·The popularity of open source products (Sakai, UPortal, Open CMS) on most campuses ·Private companies actually focus on supporting open source university computing ·How many Apple laptop computers and Cell phone/PDAs attendee brought with them. (I am very jealous)
Interesting Vendor Product ·TechSmith(Camtasia/ Snagit) is comes out with a site that will allow users/universities store/manage Camtasia/video content. These files are very large and need a management plan.
Things to Watch ·Assessment is not going away ·Open Source (watch out BlackBoard and WebCT to name a couple)
The conference was excellent. If you only consider iCampus, it was worth it for me. I would strongly recommend this for faculty on the bleeding edge and a definite for university infrastructure support professionals who support computer services for students and faculty.
Bye from Boston....
I would love any questions and comments from my Campus Tech Conference blog entries.
Blog Note: On day three, my Laptop decided to take a couple days off and it is now in Dell-Land being repaired. Because of this, I was not able to post my same day journal as was done for days one and two. I find it better to blog while everything is still fresh in my mind but given the technical problems, I had to wait until I returned to Phoenix.
"Immersion" Learning Active Learning via Virtual Reality
Day three started off with a presentation on immersion learning environments. The title and description seemed intriguing and I am not sure what I was expecting but it was a pleasant surprise. The moderator and presenters were excellent. The audience also came prepared for a lively discussion. Immersion was explained primarily by the faculty at Purdue Universitybut the definitions varied. This is clearly an evolving topic. As a technology, it relies heavily on graphics, simulation and the mass storage of data. They discussed wall (1 plane), cave (2d) and cube (3d), virtual realities (GCC has experimented with wall simulation) that represent state of the art in active learning. The student is placed in a world that simulates the topic taught via sound and headset graphics.
The technology is becoming more prevalent in University instruction but based on startup estimates (10K to start with just a wall) it still seems a ways away from reaching critical mass for most instruction. This is an area to watch.
One of the interesting side discussions in this session was the talk of a product called Condor. This product can be installed across a campus network and when an application needs additional machine cycles (which is true with heavy CPU bound simulation software) the software would go out and borrow cycles from unused PCs using Condor. Like a bank that loans money in a pinch, Condor allows inactive PCs to give up they CPU time to an application running on another PC. Almost sounds to good to be true. I did a quick Google of Condor and found the following web page (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/doc/WiscIdea.html)
Much of the research done on immersion learning was made available via NSF (National Science Foundation) funding. Their web site is a great place to find out more.
Open Source Lessons Shared
I attended an interesting conference concerning UC-Merced's goal
of creating an open source university computing environment (academic and administrative). Open source is typically free software with source code included distributed through a community of users who all agree to participate in making the applications better by sharing improvements and knowledge.
UC-Merced (UCM) is a school which opened with 800 students last year. It is slated to have many thousands of students in the very near future. UCM's CIO and Computer Architect reflected on their experiences and products used in computing environment. UCM uses Apache, Sakai, UPortal, OpenCMS, MYSQL, Linux, TomCat, Postgres and PHP to name just a few of their open source products. I was impressed by the depth of their planning and concern for quality. I think the long and short of their presentation was to not under estimate the support costs associated with training staff to be able to contribute and collaborate with the open source communities. You save money on the cost of the product but you take on a larger role in support. You need to hire quality people and have in place outside open source expert integrators and consultants to assist. These consultants need to understand the open source products used at universities. Fortunately, this type of open source service support organization does now exist. Several attended the vendor demonstrations on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Consortium Approach to Portals Joining a Portal Club?
This presentation seemed to be interesting since my own college is looking at a college web portal (as I expect other campuses are also doing). Is there an out of the box solution, is there something open source and ready to use, has anyone made this easier? The answer is I am not sure. CampusEAI is a group that supports this effort but I am not completely sure from the presentation how it all works. It appears to be a combination of Oracle and open source university tools. Like the previous presentation on UC-Merced, there are now organizations to help with the setup and support of open source solutions to college web portals. Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Montana have used CampusEAI to deliver. It presentation was interesting but this is one topic I need to spend some more time with.
Highlight of Day
I got a chance to spend some more time with Dr. Phil Long from MIT concerning iCampus. He listened to my wish list and also gave me a contact in Australia to help us ramp up our iCampus activities. I feel like the information shared by MIT on iCampus was worth the trip alone.
On to day four..... Many of the conferences are exciting and inspiring but the Boston heat and humidity is getting a little tough. I am a little more tired after today with tomorrow mornings session signaling the end of the conference.
If yesterday was about MIT and iCampus today was about the maturity of blogging and podcasting and prediction about the future (more later).
The State of Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts...
I was clear from the speakers at two different presentations that blogs, podcasts,wikis, vodcasts (video podcasts)and portable devices where approaching a new point in there lifecycle. They have moved beyond the initial acceptance phase (remember when you first used the word blog and had to explain what it meant) and now are main stream. Research evidence has proven their effectiveness and with the popularity of social networking software products like MySpace and FaceBook, blogging the capture and publishing of digital content is very mainstream. On presenter cited that 5 of 7 students already had experience with blogs. The tools used to produce these alternatives have also become more standardized with many schools talking about the integration of blogging with content management tools like BlackBoard and Sakai. It is clear these pedagogies are prominent on most campuses and will only see increased use.
What I found interesting was the reports of faculty on some of the next generation issues associated with blogging and podcasting. Many campuses are considering blogging guidelines to help student in protecting their privacy and also warning students that what is blogged is not longer private but very public with no date of expiration. As one presenter pointed out, with blogs suddenly your opinion matters. Many campus officials were concerned that the content on some Blogs (via social networking) sites would come back to haunt students as prospective employers did name searches only to find web pages with not so flattering pictures or text content. Some colleges were providing blog servers which were public only to the university and shielded from outside search engines.
At some institutions blog rules also took in consideration blogging behavior which demonstrated bullying and harassment. This was considered equally as offensive as that same behavior done in person.
Many blogs were now including video content with one college making extensive use of Camtasia for the instruction of physics. A dominant theme of several of the presentations was how various universities have implemented video.
One interesting presentation by MIT ( Dr. Katie Vale) told of how blogging was helping them with some of the problems MIT has historically experienced with getting freshman integrated into the MIT community. Another college used blogs from the admissions department to help answer concerns of student applicants. The blogging and podcasting has extended beyond the classroom to promote the interests of the campus community.
Note: I was impressed with the number on computer subjects that had been taking advantage of new technologies. As a CIS instructor, many people expect my discipline to embrace technology as part of instruction;I was impressed by the number of technology pioneers who can from non-computer subject areas.
On the podcast front many colleges were dealing with delivery options and the impact of iTunes Ufrom Apple. More and more faculty were using podcasts so that student could pace their learning. Students who were having problems could slow the delivery of content via the podcast and advanced students could speed it up. Podcasting was not a replacement for class time but helped when a student needed remediation (forgotten pre-requisite math skills in a stats class).
Wake Forest University ( Dr. Jay Dominick, CIO moderator) discussed their work with developing a PDA/Cell phone device that is used by faculty and students for
learning. Wake Forest was one of the first schools to have all students get a laptop as a freshman. They now are in the second generation of PDA/Cell phones and have developed software that can be used for learning and also keep students abreast of what is happening in the campus community. The initiative is called mobileU.
The Future ... not quite yet
Today we had and excellent presentation from Dr. Chis Dede of Havard University (Graduate School of Education). He outlined his work regarding the future of technology and education. I am going to hold off on presenting this until the end of the conference. I want to include it with the views of other presenters but I will give you one hint. For Dr. Dede, the future of technology and education will take the form of Multi-User Virtual Environment Experiential Simulators much like what is seen in on-line multi player video games. I found a web reference that reviewed some of Dr Dedes work and specifically a project he reviewed at the conference called River City.
Sorry for the long blog post. Given the quality of the presentations at the Campus Technology event, it could have been much much longer. I only hope I have accurately reviewed and represented what was a lot of excellent presentations and a very active discussion.
Day one of the conference focused on MIT (a conference sponsor) but I was specifically focused on iCampus. One of my main reasons for attending this conference was to get a better background on the history and future of iCampus. I have been working with xTutor this past year but I am hoping to expand my work with some of the other more popular iCampus tools. Dr. Phil Long (Sr. Strategist for Academic Computing Enterprise, MIT) kicked the conference off with the introduction of Dr. Vijay Kumar (Director, MIT Teaching and Learning Laboratory) who reviewed the history of iCampus. He explained that the program was the result of internal discussion within MIT on how to continue with its tradition of supporting research and interaction. MIT wanted its technology to support active learning and engage the student and create learning spaces that supported collaboration and engagement. MIT partnered with Microsoft Research to solicit technology projects that supported active learning from both students and faculty, The project that stated in 1999 is schedule to complete the end of this year. Dr. Kumar also talked of the Open Courseware (OCW) Initiative, which is the critical underpinning of iCampus and the bright future of an ever expanding OCW world. DSpace, OKI (Open Knowledge Initiative) and other MIT projects were also reviewed.
The State of iCampus
Dr. Long talked of the future of iCampus and reviewed each iCampus Tool for is history and its uses in the classroom. The Maricopa Community College District was noted in his PowerPoint presentation as an institution currently using iCampus tools. Dr. Long explained that history had proven that the farther away the institution the more active and successful they were. The University of Queenslandin Australia being one of the most successful iCampus sites. He explained that the success of iCampus now was in the hands of its community. This is good news for Maricopa who has really just started with iCampus and can benefit from the investigation already done by others and also become an active contributor by sharing materials they will create. The shape and mechanisms for establishing this community were not discussed but contact was made with MCCCD this past week to solicit our experiences and suggestions.
Dr. Long identified some of the more mature iCampus Tools which have seen success in the academic community. Space is tool short in this blog to review them all but I have listed them and attached links to their web pages
Teal - Technology enable active learning to engage the student in and online environment that merges lectures, experiments and simulations. iLabs - Run a lab experiment remotely via an online lab xMas- Cross media annotation system allows you to build xml links to portions video and audio for viewing and comment without violating digital copyright, iMoat- A web enabled tool to assist in the grading of written assignments xTutor - a environment that allows for customized problem sets to create interactive self paced learning that brings the instructor evaluation into the session. Spoken Language Transcription - take digital recordings, convert them via software into text and then use a search engine to search on the text but play the digital content back to the student.
All of these tools have the potential of enhancing learning at the Maricopa Community College District
There were other presenters from MIT with very interesting research and presentations. I have chosen to focus on iCampus in the blog but all of the presentations made by members of MIT will hopefully soon be available for viewing on the Net.
The Afternoon and a visit to the MIT Stata Center (Learning Spaces)
The afternoon was highlighted with a tour of the MIT Stata Center. Designed by architect Frank O. Gehry, the building is both visually spectacular and a lesson in what can happen to a physical space when maximized for the use of research and learning activities (learning spaces). The Center is the home of the CSAIL ( Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory ) where computer science is the focus. I can not do the Center's design justice but I can point you to a web site ( MIT Stata Center ). I also took some digital pictures which I can share via Flickr .
I am all set to head off to the 2006 Boston Campus Technologies Conference (http://www.campustechnology.com/conferences/summer2006/ ) at the end of the Month (July 31 August 3). Along with many presentations about campus technology, I will be able to tour MIT and see some of the initiatives they have underway. With MIT being the home of
iCampus, I hope to meet with others who are using iCampus and better understand its future.
What I have done so far and what I still need to do .....
I have been working with XTutor off and on over the past semester. It has at times been frustrating (lack of documentation and the problems associated with very new product) but also very exciting (it can do some remarkable things. Especially in the area of self paced learning).
For the next step, a lot depends on community. The MCCD community and the XTutor community are the communities I refer to. My recommendation is to continue working with XTutor but only with the support of both communities. With the newness of the product, comes a lot of effort (XTutor does have a steep learning curve). Effort that I am sure is being duplicated by many individuals and schools.
I will be suggesting to iCampus that for this technology to take off, it will need the help of ..... what else.... technology and sharing from its users. I will be suggesting that iCampus coordinate the setting up of a CMS (content management system) such as Drupal (http://drupal.org/) to bring users and developers together via blogs and wikis to share experiences, problems and successes.
I would also suggest that they make a BlackBoard or Moodle e-Learning site available so that e-learning modules can be developed that show how to use the product from a users and developers perspective. If not MIT and iCampus maybe Maricopa or one of the other colleges using iCampus might be able to create on-line learning content (it does not have to be just MIT).
Finally, a web site (possibly the same cms site) needs to be created to share XTutor XDoc problem sets that have been developed. Reusable objects that one developer/school could share with other schools. Without the community coordination, the product becomes too labor insensate with each user repeating the same mistakes as everyone else. XTutor has much promise but only if the workload and learning is shared.
What I am doing now ......
I have started development of a simple XTutor editor (written as a PYTHON script for portability) that will allow the developer to create and maintain xdoc and PYTHON text files with a code snippet utility that provide an ability to extract (search and filter) XTutor problem sets from a site shared SQLite database.
Stay Tuned ...
I will be blogging from Boston and sharing what I see at the conference....
One of the most exciting differences between XTutor and some of the other content management systems is that XTutor allows you to author your own customized problem set tags. XTutor includes all of the standard tags (i.e. multiple choice, true / false and fill in the blank questions) plus the ability to create your own. Custom problems sets are the area where XTutor shines in a crowded list of alternatives. XTutor allowsyou to create custom problem sets by providing the content developer to place PYTHON scripts behind the form tags to do the special problem set processing connected to the XTag. For example, I teach programming languages. One exercise that is done by all programming students is to learn operator precedence. What this means to the new programmer is that not all arithmetic operators are equal. If an expression had an addition symbol and times symbol, the computer will process the multiplication operator before the addition operator not matter where it is located. To illustrate:
3 + 2 * 6 = 15 not 36
I created a web page (Figure 4) that allows the student to test any expression of their choice and also verify that they understand what the correct answer should be. You can see this in action at: http://gnix.gc.maricopa.edu:9080/xtutor/testExpress.xdoc
Figure 4 - A correct answer to the Expression program set XTag
In Figure 4, we have a correctly formatted expression with the correct answer. If the student entered the same expression but this time put the wrong answer next to the equals sign, they would see a different icon and a message concerning their answer (Figure 5)
Figure 5- An incorrect answer to a problem set (note: icon and message)
The beauty in this approach is that as the instructor I did not have to hard code the expression and ask the student to submit just the answer. Instead, the student can put any expression they would like to test and the problem set will let them know if they have also submitted the correct answer. The problem set could be extended further by providing help or hints on incorrect answers. XTutor XTags are designed to be reusable. The advantage of reusability is that I can take this problem set and share with other instructors or also use this in other web pages that would also need to evaluate expressions
How can XTutor Benefit You?
If you are creating a self paced web site that needs the student to respond to status check or checklist problem sets to confirm they understand the material presented, XTutor is a very viable alternative. Tests and quizzes can also be easily added to XTutor XDOCS. The other benefit is the ability to create your own problem sets. From here, you are only limited by your creativity (and maybe your expertise in PYTHON and XML). Creating XTags is not a trivial exercise and it has a very steep learning curve but so do other tools. BlackBoard building blocks are also hard to write but they also can benefit the learning environment greatly. I think you should look at XTutor problem sets in much the same way.
I can only imagine how a custom XTutor XTag might:
Ask a question where the student must complete a math expression from a word problem that also determines if the equation and answer was done correctly. Again, not just the answer but also the equation is evaluated in the web page.
Have a foreign language student enter a Spanish vocabulary term taken from a story and have it verify their translation of the word or give them a list of hints based on their input.
A Biology student who much click on a picture of a human heart to identify important veins and arteries.
Borrowing on David Lettermans Top Ten List, I have come up with my Top Eight (I tried to come up with two more but it was a little bit of a stretch on the last two) for using XTutor.
Drum roll.........The Eight Reasons why you would want to use XTutor.
Number 8 Because I have done some of the leg work necessary to get started, you can take advantage of some of the experience I have gained. With any new technology, there are some bumps in the road. The documentation could be easierto follow and more complete but if you read this Blog and watch my Camtasia video lessons; you should be able to get started on your own.
Number 7 - Its small with few moving parts. You can use your own PC to develop XDOCS to create content and add XTutor problem sets. You can very easily add status check questions to your web content that will ask your student to answer questions that verify their comprehension of the topic. You can do this on your own on your own PC or Linux machine (sorry Mac folks..)
Number 6 - It is an Open Source Solution which means all of the components of the XTutor development and server environment are open source. Open source means that the programs source code, design goals and documentation are freely available on the Internetfor anyone to contribute to (add program code or content to make the product better). XTutor includes no proprietary solutions that require a lot of money or problems with vendors not supporting each other. The XTutor environment is support by these open source products:
a.XML A data description standard and relative of HTML. b.PYTHON An open source interpreted Object Orientated Programming language that can be downloaded at www.python.org. c.SQLite a single file relational open source database available for download at www.sqlite .org.
Number 5 - Its Free! Yup, given that it uses open source products and the fact that XTutor can be acquired freely by requesting from iCampus (MIT), it is easy for anyone to try and experiment with XTutor. Take it for a test drive so to speak,without software purchases and without IT support (unless you decide to use in a production environment in which case you would want to talk to your local IT support representative.)
Number 4 - XTutor allows you to create custom problem sets. This is not an easy feature to explain and it does require a programmers knowledge of object orientated programming, relational databases, PYTHON and XML to use (yes, it isdaunting) but it can create new problem set items for your content. One problem set that I was able to build allowed me to set how many times a student could process their answer before a hint would appear. I could reuse my problem set and when I reused the problem set on another XDOC, I could set the number of tries and the hint that would be provided. Problem set XTags are reusable. As a District library of problem set XTags are created, we could share problem sets across the different campuses.
Number Three - You can convert existing HTML web pages without a lot of effort. XTutor comes with a set of XTags to support multiple choice, fill in the blank and true false questions that you can easily insert into existing HTML documents. The documentation has examples on how to get started. XTutor does not have to be hard to use if you take advantage of existing problem set XTags.
Number Two - You can add status check type questions to on line content. Web pages can sometimes be unidirectional. You can see content but you can not interact with it. With XTutor, you can add status or check point questions to ensure the student understands what they are reading.
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON...... - It works!I have taken one of my lessons on Pseudo Code and converted it from just an HTML web page to a self paced XTutor web page that asks the student checkpoint questions and saves their responses for my examination after they are finished.
I have set up an example to be started with a guest username (no password is needed) that you can use to test. Since XTutor can be programmedto remember responses in a database (that is what is happening on my page), you will see the answers of the last person logged in as guest. Just type over the responses. A green check mark means you got the question right and a red x meansyou have the wrong answer.
My XTutor experiences can be read in the Ocotillo Emerging Technologies Blog http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/emerging/). This can be be set up as a RSS feed. The Blog contains narrative along with links to important web sites that contain examples and instruction using XTutor.
For those of you following my blog, there is a little change in direction this week. I have two projects I have been working on in hopes of giving those visual learners a break from the blog.
The first exhibit is a Camtasia demo I created to show how to create an Xdoc for use with XTutor. This session follows me on my PC (with narration) as I explain some of the ins and outs of XTutor and the steps necessary for creating and rendering an XDoc. You can see this Camtasia presentation at http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~gmarrer/xtutor/xtutorxdoc.html.
My second project was to take a web page presentation I have used for my programming classes and convert it to XTutor. The big addition to the content was a set of status check questions at the end of each web page. You can follow a link to access the psuedocode1.xdoc on the GNIX XTutor server at GCC. Click here to access these XTutor pages. You will need to use a username to access these pages. When you access the page you will get a certificate warning.
This is something you can ignore. Click OK to continue. The test username is: guest with no password. There are links at the bottom of the pages to display the XDoc files. If anyone has any questions you can comment to this page or send me an email. at gary.marrer@gcmail.maricopa.edu
Another week and a little closer…. I spent most of the past week working on a better understanding of how the XTutor PYTHON based server uses SQLite to keep track of current session and previous session data. Current session data is important because the database holds program state. State allows the program to retain values within the PYTHON tag handlers after each server visit. Without state, a web page loses data saved in program handler variables when ever it goes to the XTutor server (i.e. on every submit button click). Without an understanding of how state works with the XTutor server and SQLite, you can not create new XTutor problem set tags and tag handlers.
For assessment purposes, the SQLite database can keep track of previous visits to the XTutor server and also the responses (correct and incorrect) to questions and problem sets. These visits can be stored in the SQLite database and retrieved for student reporting/grading after the fact.
SQLite strengths are that it is open source and a single file implementation. This makes is much less complicated then service based database engines such as would be found with Oracle, MySQL or MS SQL Server. It is somewhat like MS-Access in that all of the database structure and data is saved within the file. Simply put, Open the database file and you can access/change data. This makes it a very useful way of storing data needed by a web server like XTutor. I have found a SQLite tool that allows you to issue SQL commands against the database and I have been able to write a PYTHON program and also use Visual Basic.Net (http://adodotnetsqlite.sourceforge.net/) to access SQLite databases. I have been able to access the XTutor database with the SQLite tool (http://www.sqlite.org) and PYTHON (http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~gmarrer/SQLiteTest.py) but Visual Basic.Net and its ADO Ole Data Providers insists that the database has been encrypted and therefore not accessible. As with open source code and contributed software, the documentation for how to get around this with VB.Net remains a mystery. SQLite does support encryption but I can not see anywhere in the XTutor documentation or the sample PYTHON files any clue as how I might solve this problem with VB.Net. This is not a show stopper but would be important in creating user tools to interrogate the database for student assessment. I may have to talk to the folks at MIT on this one.
New Stuff on the custom XTutor Tag front:
I have built a custom XTutor problem set tag. This tag allows the user three tries at a question. If it does not get answered correctly the question is locked and can only be unlocked with a password from the teacher. Not terribly impressive but since the standard tags cover the most common question types (true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank) it was different and needed to be created from scratch so it was an instructive exercise. I have big plans for a custom tag to validate pseudo code for my entry level programming students.
Again…. Don't be alarmed:
The focus of this blog post is the extensibility of XTutor and should be considered a advanced topic. Using XTutor with its template tags is much less complicated and XTutor pages are easily built with just a average experience with HTML.
I have a few milestones to update. For starters, after a few bumps in the road, we have an XTutor production server running on a Linux server (gnix.gc.maricopa.edu:9080/xtutor)at GCC. This will allow me to demonstrate the XTutor content I develop in my investigation of XTutor.In addition to that, much progress has been made on understanding the XTutor tool. Given these advances, I see my understanding of XTutor moving into three tracks or directions. I will summarize each.
Track One - Track One is where I have spent the most time so far and includes developing XTutor content using the xmlTags which are delivered with the base product. These xmlTags represent the most common controls needed to process student problem sets (support for multiple choice, true/false, fill in questions) inside your html web pages. A problem set would be a part of a page which tests student understanding and provides feedback on how the student is progressing. An example of this can be seen in a "work in process" XTutor page I am working on: You can see this by accessing this URL: http://gnix.gc.maricopa.edu:9080/xtutor/pseudocode1.xdoc. If you are asked to provide a username / password, use guest as the username with no password. You should read all of the documentation at http://gnix.gc.maricopa.edu:9080/xtutor/. The tag handlers section is complicated and is not needed to use the product, only to extend it (see Track Three).
I have learned that developing XTutor content in this most basic format,where you are using XTutor templates, is probably the best starting point. You build xml documents called xdocs that combine the xhtml and xmlTags into content that is displayed by the PYTHON based XTutor server. The expertise level needed to use the templates provided by XTutor is comparable to developing content with html.
The best way to develop your pages is to start with a local server. This is very common way to develop web based content (i.e. similar to using apache for developing php scripts or a local IIS server for developing Microsoft ASP.Net applications). For example, many html developers use a local Apache server to develop their web pages and when development and page is complete, the project is moved to the production server. XTutor is no different and you can use either a Windows or Linux server as a development XTutor server. XTutor provides both. For me, I use the Windows version for development and testing and the Linux version on http: //gnix.gc.maricopa.edu:9080/ for production. Track Two- This track has been very problematic this week and it involves the
operational aspects of XTutor. I include the starting and running the XTutor server and the XTutor database as part of this track. The XTutor Windows install was very straight forward. The Linux piece has more pieces and may have an error in the install directions. I am also more familiar with Windows so the Linux was probably more difficult for me than fora person who was more familiar with Linux. The good news is that it looks like once you are done with the XTutor server install and can view one of the sample scripts, you are good to go.
On the database side, I am still researching the capabilities. Some database support is built in but more can be added if you develop custom handlers (Track Three). Essentially, the database keeps track of answers, student interactionsalong operational data (users, time, correct answers, etc.). I will be asking the authors at MIT for more examples of how to best use this stored data. There are some custom reports built into the administration tool but there is also an ability to customize the system with database queries. A tool that does not come with XTutor but will access and let you run SQL queries on the XTutor database is SQLite and can be downloaded at: http://www.sqlite.org/download.html. If you know SQL and a little about relational databases, this tool is similar to oSQL and other line mode SQL tools used to maintain and report database data.
Track Three - This is the most challenging and the most exciting. XTutor is extensible in that you can build problem sets which are customized and do programming on student input behind the scenes (similar to what is done with BlackBoard building blocks). I would look at the Palindrome example on the GCC Server so see an example of this. XTutor allows you to overload class methods to perform XTutor PYTHON routines. This has the steepest learning curve. You need to be familiar with object orientated programming, PYTHON and xml. This is not necessary to use the product but only to develop new features. This might be compared to using BlackBoard versus developing add-ons for BlackBoard. Many people use BlackBoard quite successfully without customization but only a few people would ever write custom BlackBoard add-ons. There may be a situation where a few might writing custom tag handlers and share them with others (i.e. Perhaps some might develop an xmlTags for student journaling. Something not currently in XTutor). Maybe a few people around the District would develop new features and share them with others who would have never tried to take on this advanced topic (i.e. again, similar to BlackBoard).
A long blog entry.... I may have violated all the rules and etiquette for blogging but a lot has happenedsince the last update. As always, if anyone is interested in getting started with XTutor let me know. I will also be sharing my work in the Ocotillo Retreat in May.
I have reached a milestone with XTutor. I have been able to build my first XTutor page. After a few bumps in the road regarding curly quotes and XHTML (yes, this one took me 20 minutes before I saw my error), I was able to merge an HTML page I had written for a programming class on pseudo code into a XTutor page. My pseudo code page was pretty typical of the kinds of web pages we all design to help students with topics that need a little more instruction than a textbook can provide. I wanted to add questions to my XTutor page to give my students the ability to check their understanding of the subject and also capture their progress for assessment and feedback.
As I have mentioned in my earlier blogs, XTutor requires a greater amount of technical expertise than what might be typically expected of a person developing in a product like BlackBoard. I also suspect this is temporary as tools will be certainly developed to make the authoring on XTutor easier. I was able to make my editing of XTutor easier by customizing a popular text editor called TextPad. After an email to one of the XTutor developers, I took their advise and used the XML XDOC templates that are shipped with the XTutor download and simply plugged them into the page I was creating. The page format used by XTutor is not HTML but instead a XML document. In a XTutor document, you have a combination of XHTML tags (very similar to HTML) and XML templates that represent the problem set you wish to implement (i.e. true/false, multiple choice, fill in, etc.). With TextPad, you can add a tool interface. In my case, I added an interface to my XTutor server so I was able to display the XTutor page I was working on. I also added a syntax filter to TextPad that did syntax coloring for XHTML to make the XHTML tags a different color and easier to spot. WIth TextPad, the editing is text only. You will not have the wysiwyg interface of FrontPage or DreamWeaver. You need to understand a little about HTML, XHTML, XML and XTutor XDocs. For programmers, you might see that I have set up TextPad to be my IDE (integrated Development Environment). IDE's make programmers more productive so my hope was to make me more XTutor productive.
You can start developing in XTutor with just a few downloaded programs and a couple of administration steps. The XTutor site http://xtutor.org:8080/ has the downloads and instructions. To develop your own pages, you need a running PYTHON XTutor server (which is one of the downloads) which will allow you to render your XTutor pages in a web browser (IE, FireFox, etc.).
Having said all this, I am working on a couple of things. First, with the help of Alan Levine, I hope to have a test XTutor server available to allow my blogs to connect to a XTutor server and demonstrate my pages. I also understand that the language of my blog is technical. It may be a little early for anyone else to want to also develop in XTutor but I want to extend the offer of using a discussion board or wiki to get into the technical details for those who would like to get started (gary.marrer@gcmail.maricopa.edu).
Coming soon..... In my next blog, I hope to be able to show my XTutor pages along with an analysis of
the database used for assessment. Until then.....
As mentioned in an earlier blog post, I have been working with iCampus tools in general and specifically, XTutor. XTutor is an iCampus tools which was developed specifically for self learners. The XTutor tool provides content and feedback via the network (Internet or Intranet) without direct faculty involvement. The student moves through a series of web pages that present text, graphics and audio. It would probably work best as a self paced course offering found at many of the MCCCD colleges (i.e. OE/SP courses at GCC).
To learn how to use XTutor and familiarize myself with its features, I signed up to take the MIT iCampus Intro to CS (Computer Science) class taught with XTutor (http://icampus.mit.edu/xtutor/). I am early in the class but I am impressed with what I have seen so far. At its best, XTutor seems more interactive than what is delivered in a typical online course management system (such as BlackBoard) and provides better feedback on assignments than what would be available in a textbook alone.
XTutor includes a menu interface (like a table of contents) to direct the student to a lecture (PowerPoint like with audio or transcripts) and to exercises that evaluate student progress. The student can start the instruction and more or less let it run them through the material (like a PowerPoint slide session) or stop and start different sections of the class by navigating to a chapter via the menu interface. I would say that the experience seems more integrated as it takes you from learning item to exercise to learning item much like a PowerPoint presentation. I think it would work very well in a format where the student was a more independent "self-learner."
The course I am taking is using an earlier release of XTutor which used a programming language called Scheme. The version was not necessarily designed for widespread use. Developing Scheme XTutor content is not as easy as with some of the other content management tools typically used by faculty. A new and more course developer friendly release has been written and can be downloaded from the iCampus/XTutor web site. This version was designed to be more developer friendly and uses both the Python programming language and XML document files to deliver content. I suspect faculty using XTutor should expect to have a considerable technical expertise.
My exposure so far as been limited. I need to work more on the Intro to CS course to see the full power of XTutor and I have also asked the developers of XTutor if there has been any work to develop end user tools to build the XML documents necessary for the new version of XTutor. My initial impression is that this tool is early in its development and with that, the content designer needs a significant technical background (i.e. and understanding of XML ) . I am interested in finding out if the developers at MIT think this is a fair analysis.
If anyone in the District is interested in getting started with XTutor, I would be more than happy to share my experiences so far. You can reach me at gary.marrer@gcmail.maricopa.edu.
I have been given an exciting task. I have been asked to work with iCampus tools created by the good people at MIT (yes, Mass. Institute of Technology) with the hope of using iCampus tools at my campus (GCC). At the same time, I will be taking my experiences and share them with rest of the District with the goal of adding more on-line learning tools to your colleges inventory. A piped piper of iCampus so to speak....
My name is Gary Marrer and I am a CIS instructor at GCC. I have been active in many technology projects at both a campus and district level. I have been active within Ocotillo for the last three years (GCC Chair. and Campus Rep.). I am also one of those persons who like to work on leading edge technologies. Since I teach programming classes, I have a natural love for technology and have always tried to merge technology and learning within my classes. I guess this explains why I am here.
I will be posting in my BLOG (iCampus) my experiences with iCampus and I hope to hear from others at MCCCD who are doing the same. I am not the best at keeping my BLOGs up to date but I am going to post at least one entry per week. Now you know one of my New Years resolutions.
I am still learning about iCampus but I am interested in XTutor and IMOAT for use in CIS classes. I am also looking for another CIS faculty member from a different Campus to partner with on a CIS159 VB I xTutor project. Follow my journey with iCampus in this BLOG. Happy New Year... a couple of days early.
