Georgios Gyftodimos

Interactive Problem Solving Support in the Adaptive Educational Hypermedia System MATHEMA

This paper describes the interactive problem solving support offered by our adaptive educational hypermedia system called MATHEMA. The general goal of the MATHEMA is the support of senior high school students or the beginners of higher education, through an interactive and constructivist environment, in learning physics (electromagnetism) individually and/or collaboratively, and to overcome their possible misconceptions and learning difficulties. Initially, a review of related work about the implemented AEHS/ITS and the didactic design principles of the MATHEMA are presented. Through the interactive problem solving, the system supports the students in solving electromagnetism problems, individually and/or collaboratively, by following an activity that is based on the experimentation with simulations, explorations, guided discovery, and collaboration didactic approaches. An experimental study with senior high school students showed that they improve their performances when following this activity. A questionnaire that we gave to the students to express their opinion about our system helped us to improve the quality of the courses.

ATOMS: A Methodology for Component Object Oriented Software Development Applied in the Educational Context

This paper introduces “atoms”, “molecules” and “radicals” as fundamental notions in component object-oriented programming. Since atoms can communicate only when linked, their behavioural characteristics are discussed. Links may exist between atoms in different sites. An implementation of this approach concerning educational software development is given and its emerging benefits are presented.

VIBDaST: a virtual interactive book as a data structures teaching aid

Internet based teaching is well established under various contexts. WWW based virtual interactive books are used for this purpose. Using WWW browsers students can study such books locally or remotely. Enhanced by JavaTM applets, such books provide an interactive as well as a traditional approach to learning. Examples and exercises implemented as applets cater for both observation and exploration. Such a book, addressing the topic of data structures, is being developed as a teaching aid for a first year Computer Science students. Theory is presented in a hyperlinked textual form thus realising cross references, while examples and exercises are visualised as interactive JavaTM applets.

MATHEMA: A Constructivist Enviroment for Electromagnetism Learning

In this paper we describe the Web-based adaptive educational hypermedia system called MATHEMA. In general, the MATHEMA is a learning system that dynamically generates courses in electromagnetism according to students’ learning goal, knowledge level, performance, learning style, abstract or concrete dimension of learning style, preference for visual and/or verbal feedback, preference for the kind of navigation, and preference of using or not the navigation guidance. The MATHEMA supports the following adaptive and intelligent techniques: curriculum sequencing, adaptive presentation, adaptive navigation support, interactive problem solving support, and adaptive group formation and peer help. Also, the MATHEMA supports meta-adaptation in the navigation of learners.

A comparison of design patterns and roles in the context of behavioural evolution

Component-based software development focuses on building software systems by integrating existing software components. Central to component-based software development are the notions of reusability, extensibility and adaptability. Components as well as their composition must be easily reused and extended to meet new requirements. Variation-oriented programming is concerned with the incorporation of context-dependent variations in existing object-oriented systems. Based on the principle of separation of concerns, variation-oriented programming addresses - amongst other issues - behavioural evolution and behaviour composition, at runtime. We identify the limitations imposed by the use of design patterns when used for behavioural evolution, in terms of behaviour composition, while at the same time satisfying reusability and extensibility. Then we proceed to present the Atoma framework as an architecture and a means for achieving behaviour composition, as this is guided by the incorporation of context-dependent behavioural variations based on the concept of roles. Roles are considered, in this light, as pluggable behavioural adjustments of an existing object-oriented system.

The role of the Internet both as an ancient agora and a French café for the humanities

The role of the Internet in today’s information world can be considered as one of an agora, a French pre-revolution cafe, or simply an unlimited source of information available to everyone on request. The beneficiaries of this information availability are many. Academic issues as well as everyday discussions may make use of the world wide web to promote debates, raise issues of interest, put forward concepts and ideas, and generally contribute to the proliferation of knowledge even at the most remote location on the globe either as a blue ribbon medium or as a moderated discussion forum. This increasing information availability, on the one hand, and demand, on the other, pose a very important question: what should computer scientists do to make this worldwide spread of information not only available, but also and most importantly, useful to its recipients?