22
This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library] On: 20 November 2014, At: 09:54 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Innovations in Education & Training International Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riie19 Designing Interactive Learning Systems Philip Barker a a Interactive Systems Research Group , Teesside Polytechnic , UK Published online: 09 Jul 2006. To cite this article: Philip Barker (1990) Designing Interactive Learning Systems, Innovations in Education & Training International, 27:2, 125-145, DOI: 10.1080/1355800900270202 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1355800900270202 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

Designing Interactive Learning Systems

  • Upload
    philip

  • View
    221

  • Download
    1

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library]On: 20 November 2014, At: 09:54Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Innovations in Education & TrainingInternationalPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riie19

Designing Interactive Learning SystemsPhilip Barker aa Interactive Systems Research Group , Teesside Polytechnic , UKPublished online: 09 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Philip Barker (1990) Designing Interactive Learning Systems, Innovations inEducation & Training International, 27:2, 125-145, DOI: 10.1080/1355800900270202

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1355800900270202

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

ETTI 27, 2 125

Designing Interactive Learning SystemsPhilip Barker, Interactive Systems Research Group, Teesside Polytechnic, UK

SUMMARY

Experience with interactive learning systems has become an important aspect of both formaland informal curriculum activity. This paper starts by discussing the underlying mechanismsupon which these systems are based. A description is then given of some general design modelsand guidelines for their production, before the paper goes on to look at some of the currentlyavailable production tools and fabrication technologies. Finally, some case studies arepresented and potential future directions of development are outlined.

INTRODUCTION

The term 'interactive learning system' (ILS) isone which is employed quite extensively in theliterature of education. It can be used to cover awide range of learning situations in which varioustypes of knowledge or information exchange takeplace between communicating partners that areinvolved in some form of dialogue process (Barker,1989a). Such a process usually involves the co-ordinated and synchronized exchange of infor-mation using agreed conventions and procedures.As well as being multi-centred (involving manypartners), dialogues may also be multi-media(involving several different communicationchannels) and multi-modal (involving a variety ofphysical, perceptual and conceptual modalities).

In order to provide a conceptual framework thatwill facilitate an understanding of the nature ofinteractive learning, the fundamental principleunderlying this process needs to be discussed.The basics mechanism that is responsible for thecharacteristic behaviour of an ILS is illustratedschematically in Figure 1. This depicts how twosystems (a learner population and a learning/teaching facility) interact with each other.Essentially, this interaction involves the twosystems in mutually influencing each other's 'statespace', thereby causing various state transitions tooccur (Barker, 1989a). The state space of a system

is the set of states that is deemed to be important inexplaining the behaviour that a system exhibits. Insome ways an ILS may be thought of as being bothsymmetrical and synchronous. Thus, perturbationsproduced by the learner population createreactions within the learning facility. Some ofthese reactions will be directed back to the learnerpopulation in the form of feedback. The feedbackproduced by the learning facility may also act as atype of perturbation that enables the learnerpopulation to modify or adapt the nature of anyother subsequent perturbations that it mightgenerate. The oscillatory (send-receive) nature ofthe dialogue process illustrated in Figure 1 isfundamental to the basic operation of virtually allinteractive learning systems.

As a consequence of the general dialogue processthat has been outlined above, a variety of differentsystem changes may occur. For example, thelearning facility may build various models of thelearner population and then use those models togenerate learning pathways and methodologies.Similarly, in the case of the learner populationcognitive, perceptual and physical developmentmay take place as a direct result of the interaction.Naturally, as we shall discuss later, the design ofan ILS should optimize these developmentalprocesses. Another prerequisite for the ILS isthat its teaching facility should be dynamicallyresponsive to the needs of its learner population.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 3: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

126 ETTI27, 2

Figure 1. The basic nature of interactive learning

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 4: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 127

Therefore, like this population, the teachingfacility should exhibit adaptive behaviour.

Two general types of ILS currently exist: human-centred and technology-based. Human-centredsystems depend primarily upon the various typesof 1:1, 1:N and M:N interactions that take placewithin groupings of human beings who have been'brought together' in order to facilitate somelearning process. The dynamic interactionsinvolved in this type of system may be derivedfrom a variety of different kinds of tutor/tutee,presenter/audience or learner group situation. Incontrast, a technology-based system dependsupon the interactions that take place betweenmembers of the learner population and the variouslearning technologies used to initiate and sustainthe required pedagogic processes that the system isintended to support. The interactions involved inthis type of system depend upon the correct andappropriate use of workbooks, audiotape, video,computer-based resources, broadcast TV, radioand various other sorts of equipment. Systems thatintegrate the use of many different instructionaltechnologies are often referred to as multi-medialearning systems (Barker, 1989b).

This paper, however, is only concerned withtechnology-based learning. Moreover, it dealsspecifically with interactive learning systemsthat embed (or are dependent on) some sort ofcomputer facility. In those situations wherecomputers are used to implement systems of thistype, the learner population might be:

— just a single user — as is the case in manyindividualized computer-assisted learning(CAL) systems (Barker and Yeates, 1985;Barker, 1989b);

— a localized network of users within a terminallaboratory; or

— a geographically distributed 'virtual classroom'of students — as would be the situation incomputer conferencing, electronic mail andother forms of computer-mediated communi-cation (Mason and Kaye, 1989).

This paper is primarily concerned with the first ofthese three categories of pedagogic environment— that is, multi-media interactive learning systemsthat support various forms of individualized study(Tucker, 1989; Barker, 1989b; Laurillard, 1987).

Computer-based systems to support this mode oflearning vary quite considerably both in their intent

and in their sophistication. There is, therefore, avery broad spectrum of possibilities. Previously,depending on the types of facility that they offerand the nature of the pedagogy that is involved, wehave used a three-class taxonomy for interactivelearning systems: exploratory, informatory andinstructional (Barker, 1989b). Of course, anyspecific interactive learning environment couldexhibit some (or all) of the properties of any ofthese three classes depending upon the pedagogicobjectives that are to be realized.

Another classificatory phrase that is often usedwithin the CAL literature to describe certaintypes of interactive learning system, is 'learningsupport environment' (LSE). An LSE provides aset of tools and an environment that will facilitatethe exploration of some field of knowledge(Hammond and Allinson, 1988). The intent of (andmechanisms underlying) an LSE are essentiallysimilar to those involved in an exploratory inter-active learning system. Therefore, as far as thispaper is concerned the terms LSE and ILS will beregarded as synonomous.

In the remainder of this paper an attempt will bemade to cover four major issues relating to thedesign, fabrication and use of multi-media inter-active learning systems. First, some backgroundconsiderations will be presented. Second, anoutline will be given of some of the design toolsthat are needed in order to produce these systems.Third, the ways in which these tools are usedwill be illustrated by means of some simple casestudies. Finally, some descriptions of 'futuristic'interactive learning systems will be presented.

BACKGROUND CONSIDERATIONS

The production of an interactive learning system isessentially a systems engineering activity involvingthree basic steps: design, fabrication and test. Thedesign phase involves the application of appro-priate guidelines and models in order to produce aproduct specification that can subsequently bemanufactured. The fabrication phase involves twoimportant tasks:

— producing courseware which will bring aboutthe realization of some previously specifiedpedagogic objectives; and

— putting together a suitable hardware environ-ment that will facilitate the delivery of thiscourseware.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 5: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

128 ETTI27.2

Finally, testing is used to ensure that the systemactually fulfils its pedagogic requirements.

Ideally, if they are to achieve their pedagogicobjectives in an effective way, interactive learningsystems need to be built according to a well-definedand proven development methodology that isbased upon the use of a sound system architecture.Unfortunately, few methodologies currentlyexist. Indeed, most systems are built in quite anad-hoc fashion with little thought having beengiven to any necessary pedagogic theories ortechnical guidelines. This paper therefore attemptsto describe a basic system architecture that can beused for the formulation of a design methodology.Some design guidelines that should be embeddedwithin this methodology are also presented fordiscussion.

The efficiency and effectiveness of an interactivelearning system is likely to be influenced by avariety of technical pedagogic and cognitivefactors. Within this paper it is impossible to treatall of these issues exhaustively. Therefore, in theremainder of this section an attempt will be madeto cover only those background considerationsthat have an important bearing on the subsequentparts of this paper. The topics which are discussedare:

— the 'openness' of a domain to interactive CALtechniques;

— design models; and— end-user interfaces.

Each of these topics is briefly discussed below.

Openness

In principle, all subjects within a curriculum areamenable to the use of interactive CAL techniques.However, the ease with which the methodologycan be applied will depend upon a host of factorsrelated to individual difficulties associated with theparticular subject domains involved. For example,teaching various aspects of music, such as compo-sition and harmony, using CAL methods could noteasily be achieved prior to the existence of high-quality sound synthesizers. Similarly, the teachingof Russian and Arabic was very difficult before theavailability of computer equipment that couldsupport their alphabets. The ease with which asubject lends itself to the CAL methodology isreferred to as its 'openness'. A number of factorsneed to be taken into account when assessing the

openness of any given subject area to the use ofinteractive methods. Some of the most importantof these are:

1. the prior experience and abilities of the learnerpopulation;

2. the intellectual complexity of the subject matterthat is to be taught;

3. the motor skill requirements that are involved;4. the availability of 'development handles' within

the source material; and5. the level of automation that the learning

domain will support.

Of the factors listed above, items 1 and 2 willstrongly influence the amount of developmenteffort that will be required to produce an effectiveinteractive learning environment. Item 3, ofcourse, may require the design of special equip-ment both for exercising and monitoring motorskill activities. The level of automation refers to theextent to which the subject matter and its asso-ciated learning processes can be made independentof the need for intervention by conventionalteachers/trainers. Of course, this is not alwaysdesirable but may be necessary in many distancelearning situations. The degree to which a domaincan be automated will often depend upon thedevelopment handles that exist within, or can beapplied to, its member topics. A developmenthandle is essentially a measure or observationalstrategy that can be used to assess what is hap-pening within a given learning process. Forexample, in a problem-solving situation (or anysituation involving creativity on the part of thelearner) it is important to be able to assess thequality of a solution that a student produces inorder to guage how well he or she is progressing;this cannot be achieved unless there are appro-priate handles to facilitate this.

Once the openness of a domain has been assessedand the level of automation decided upon, thedesign of an interactive learning environment cancommence. This will usually involve taking intoaccount a variety of pedagogic and technicaldevelopment models. The use of good designmodels creates a firm foundation on which to buildinteractive learning systems as they can form thebasis for the production of educational productsthat meet specific skill requirements. Someexamples of the type of models that are involved inthe design of interactive learning systems arepresented in the following section.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 6: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 129

Design models

As in all other areas of pedagogy, good curriculumdesign is fundamental to the realization of effectiveinteractive learning systems. Curriculum designinvolves two major activities. First, identifyingmaterial that is needed in order to understand thepast, accommodate the present or handle thefuture. Second, it involves designing strategieswhich will develop both generic skills (which arebroadly applicable over many task domains) andspecific skills (which apply within a particularspecialist subject area). When these issues havebeen resolved, the basic material that has beenproduced needs to be incorporated into anappropriate learning environment.

A useful pedagogic model that shows the relation-ship between the above requirements is illustratedschematically in Figure 2. This model emphasizes:

— the need for achieving an understanding of thetarget domain; and

— the need for skill acquisition.

In addition to basic skill development, it isimportant that skill rehearsal can take place so thateither a pre-specified or innately determined levelof performance can be achieved. The acquisitionof skills is generally necessary in order to facilitatethe solving of problems within the learning domainconcerned. The provision of a problem-solving en-vironment within this domain is therefore of para-mount importance if the learner is to exercise theproblem-solving skills that he or she has acquired.

Various types of interactive learning systemcurrently exist. These range in complexity andcapability from basic 'drill and practice' facilitiesthrough to systems that are capable of undertakingsophisticated 'intelligent' tutoring activities. Abasic structural model that is capable of accom-modating this broad range of requirements ispresented in Figure 3.

This model contains a number of basic modulesthat 'bolt together' to form the overall system.The modules that are present in any given imple-mentation of the model will depend upon thepurpose and intent of the ILS. As can be seen fromFigure 3, the interactive learning facility is capableof providing three types of pedagogic support.These are derived from the three basic kinds ofinstructional unit embedded within it: the HELPmodule, the tutorial facility and the primitiveteaching system (PTS). The HELP module

provides snippets of information on any aspectof the system about which the user is not sure.The tutorial module provides more in-depth,structured material relating to the ILS and itsknowledge domain; it informs but it does notundertake explicit teaching activity. The thirdmodule, the PTS, covers the teaching processesthat the ILS is designed to undertake; it isresponsible for skill development, student assess-ment and the provision of guidance material.

An important unit within the model shown inFigure 3 is that which provides a modellingcapability. This unit is of major importance in thedevelopment of 'intelligent tutoring systems'(Clancey, 1986; Self, 1988). The modelling facilityattempts to build dynamic models of members ofthe learner population; it then uses these modelsto tailor instruction and feedback to the particularneeds of individual learners.

The knowledge corpus shown in Figure 3 is amajor feature of the ILS. The basic domainknowledge that the system is intended to use as afoundation for its pedagogic activity is embeddedhere. This knowledge corpus will usually be of amulti-media nature and contain textual, sonic andpictorial material; it can be structured in variousdifferent ways depending on the purpose it is toserve and the learning processes it is to support.

The two other important features depicted in themodel presented in Figure 3 relate to the provisionof facilities to support end-user interaction withthe ILS. Here two aspects must be considered:conceptual and physical. In the conceptual domainthe ILS will need to support appropriate learningmetaphors (Tourangeau and Sternberg, 1982;Carroll and Thomas, 1982; Carroll and Mack,1985; Hammond and Allinson, 1987); its interfaceset may also need to embed (and project) a varietyof different kinds of external myth (Rubinsteinand Hersh, 1984; Barker, 1989a). Similarly, in thephysical domain, a wide range of interfacecapabilities will need to be provided in order tofacilitate different styles and techniques ofinteraction. These issues are discussed in greaterdepth later in the paper.

The model depicted in Figure 3 is a generalized onewhich should apply to a large number of differentkinds of interactive learning facility. Of course,particular types of ILS will embed different subsetsof the units depicted in this diagram. The particularsubset chosen will depend upon what aspects of

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 7: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

130 ETTI 27,2

Figure 2. Basic pedagogic model for an ILS

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 8: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 131

Figure 3. Basic design model for a conventional ILS

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 9: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

132 ETTI 27,2

Figure 4. Development model for an electronic book

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 10: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 133

learning a given designer chooses to emphasize.For example, in our work on electronic books(Barker, 1989c; Barker and Manji, 1989) the simplesubset model depicted in Figure 4 is used as a basisfor the development of a range of different kindsof interactive learning facility. The way in whichthese books function is described in greater depthelsewhere (Manji, 1990; Piears, 1989; Murray,1989). Some simple case studies that outline ourwork in this area are presented on pp. 139-141.

As we mentioned above, and is apparent fromFigures 4 and 5, the design of efficient and effectiveend-user interfaces to interactive learning systemsis of vital importance. Therefore, considerableeffort must be put into this activity. Because of theimportance of this topic it is further discussed inthe following section.

Interfaces

The interface to an interactive learning systemmust perform three basic functions. First, it mustproject the semantics of the learning domainacross to the end-user population. Second, it mustprovide an adaptive dialogue facility that enablesthe user population to communicate (and control)the underlying computational processes that aretaking place within the learning system. Third, itmust provide facilities to enable the learner tovisualize what is happening within the learningdomain with which he or she is interacting.

The interfaces that are used in interactive learningsystems show substantial variability both withrespect to hardware and software capability.They range in complexity from simple conceptkeyboards (Brown, 1989) and their overlays(Barker, 1989a), through to complex tactile inputdevices such as 'wired' gloves (Foley, 1987; Tello,1988) and manikins (Hon, 1982). Interactionperipherals that fall into this latter type areexamples of three-dimensional (3-D) human-computer interfaces. Such interfaces allow highdegrees of realism to be achieved in those learningsituations where this is necessary (such as, flightsimulators, medical simulations, and so on). Twoexamples of commercially available 3-D interfacesare the DataGlove and the DataSuit (Foley, 1987;Tello, 1988). Devices of this sort enable their userto manipulate (on a screen) a 'virtual' device thatis the same shape as the actual input device. TheDataGlove, for example, allows the personwearing it to manipulate 'virtual tools' and objects

in the same way that he or she would handle thereal tools and objects that are being emulated. TheDataSuit is a whole-body input device analogousin its mode of operation to the DataGlove. It canbe used to capture movements of the human body(up to 68 joints) within a movement area thatmeasures 10 by 14 feet. The software associatedwith the DataSuit drives a graphical animation of astick-figure representing the user (Tello, 1988).Three-dimensional human-computer interfaces ofthis type are probably among the most advanced ofthose that are currently available. When they areused in conjunction with suitable 3-D visualizationfacilities a wide range of special effects andillusions can be created. Further details of some ofthese, and their relevance to interactive learning,will be discussed later in this paper.

Techniques, methods and guidelines for the designof end-user interfaces to interactive systems arewell documented in the literature (Rubinstein andHersh, 1984; Shneiderman, 1987; Barker, 1989a).It is assumed that the reader's familiarity withthese is sufficient to facilitate an understanding ofthe material that will be presented in the followingsection.

DESIGN GUIDELINES

The availability of general design guidelines forproducing human-computer interfaces to con-ventional software products has already beenmentioned in the previous section. Of course, theproduction of such interfaces for instructionalsoftware is often more difficult. This difficultyarises because of the need to take into account thevarious pedagogic factors that will lead to effectiveand efficient knowledge transfer between:

— those who author the interactive software;— the knowledge corpus upon which this software

is based; and— the learner population that is likely to use the

resultant courseware.

In the discussion that follows relatively littleconsideration is given to the 'low level' designcriteria that would be appropriate to basic human-computer interface fabrication. Instead greateremphasis is placed on higher level design issuesand guidelines that are more relevant to the peda-gogic requirements of the resultant courseware.

When designing interactive learning systems a

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 11: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

134 ETTI 27,2

number of fairly basic guidelines need to be takeninto account. These fall into three basic categories:

— media utilization paradigms that describehow the knowledge storage facilities may beorganized and controlled;

— learning metaphors to facilitate knowledgeacquisition/transfer and the subsequent cogni-tive engineering activity that this initiates; and

— application-orientated myths that facilitate theprojection of the semantics of the target appli-cation environment to the end-user population(myths, like metaphors, facilitate cognitivetransfer from a source to a target domain).

Each of these classes of design guideline (para-digms, metaphors and myths) will be discussed inthe remainder of this section.

Paradigms

Five basic media utilization paradigms are requiredas a basis for the creation of interactive learningsystems (Barker, 1989b; 1989c). Each of these willnow be briefly described.

The hyper-media paradigmText is one of the most popular ways of storingknowledge and of communicating ideas. However,in normal use it is a strictly sequential or linearcommunication medium (Barker, 1989a). Whentext is organized and processed in a non-linearfashion it is referred to as hyper-text (Halasz,1988; Megarry, 1988; McAleese, 1989). The hyper-media paradigm is essentially a generalization ofthe hyper-text concept. It refers to the abilityof a designer to interlink units of multi-mediaknowledge (text, pictures and sound) together inan almost unlimited number of ways to form asophisticated knowledge network. Subsequently,by means of the linkages that are created, the usercan browse and navigate through the knowledgecorpus using a variety of different pathwaysdepending upon the purpose for which the know-ledge is to be used.

The reactive media paradigmAs we discussed earlier, interactive computersystems depend for their success upon the abilityof a human and a computer to participate in anorganized communicative dialogue. The reactivemedia paradigm is fundamental to the realizationof this requirement. It describes how a systemshould react to the presence of a communicating

partner. Thus, when a user is within theinteraction space of an item of courseware, thatuser can interact with it by means of speech,gestures, touch and/or pointing operations,thereby controlling its behaviour. Each mode ofinteraction will have an accompanying 'interactionprotocol' (Barker, 1989a).

The principle of surrogationWithin the context of courseware design a surro-gation is essentially a highly visual simulation.Surrogations are made possible through the useof high quality life-like images that have beencaptured and stored within a suitable image storageand retrieval facility (Barker, 1989b). The imagesthat are contained within this image store arestructured and organized for fast and efficient real-time retrieval. They are then played back (withina situation scenario) under conditions that aredirectly controlled by the student. Thus, throughthe use of still and moving images the student isgiven the impression that he or she is participatingin a real-life situation. A variety of different typesof surrogation are possible. The most populartypes are: surrogate walks, laboratory simulations,surrogate travel, role playing and surrogate sport.Often within such systems the visual medium iscontrolled through the use of 'reactive buttons'that are embedded within the images that arebeing displayed.

The learner-control paradigmWhen designing interactive learning systems it isimportant to remember the significance of learnercontrol within an instructional dialogue. That is,students should be made to feel that they are incontrol of what is happening during an interactivelearning session. The learner-control paradigm istherefore primarily concerned with specifying thenature of the facilities that should be providedwithin the dialogue system in order to facilitatethis requirement. Facilities must be provided toenable the student to select and control:

— what is learned;— the pace of learning;— the direction learning should take; and— the styles and strategies of learning that are to

be adopted.The implementation of learner control dependsheavily upon the provision of: adaptable end-userinterfaces, storage structures that are based on theuse of hyper-media and suitably designed multi-

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 12: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

media human-computer interaction method-ologies. Each of these aspects of learner controlare discussed in considerable detail elsewhere(Barker, 1989b).

The composite screen paradigmThe bit-mapped screen technologies used todisplay pedagogic material have improved sub-stantially over the last five years; they are nowable to provide high resolution and a large colourpalette at a relatively low cost. Through the designof appropriate display processors it is possiblefor the instructional designer to regard the overallscreen display as a composite of several otherlogical screens, each having its own particularfunctionality. This forms the basis for the com-posite screen paradigm. Using a facility of thissort, the designer can build up (gradually, ifnecessary) very sophisticated screen displays bysimply adding together the contributions madefrom each logical screen. Many commercialproducts (such as HyperCard and CD-I) employthis principle. For example, in CD-I systemsthe overall composite screen seen by the user iscomposed of four layers: a cursor plane, two full-screen image planes and a background plane(Preston, 1988). The composite screen paradigmcan be used as the basis for the design of a widerange of special graphical and visual effects—suchas value-added imagery, inlaying, wipes, fades,and so on.

MetaphorsMetaphors constitute an extremely useful class ofdesign tool. They can be used to facilitate cognitivetransfer from a familiar area of knowledge (thesource domain) across to a less familiar one(the target domain). This relationship is illus-trated schematically in Figure 5. Metaphoricalframeworks can be employed both as a designfacility and as a learning aid. Their use has beendescribed in some detail by both Hammond andAllinson (1987; 1988) and Ferm, Kindborg andKollerbaur (1987). In their work, Hammond andAllinson outline the use of a 'travel' metaphorfor use in exploring a large complex knowledgedomain. They discuss the concepts of 'rambling','orienteering' and 'touring' within the frameworkof a learner-support environment for teachingvarious aspects of an undergraduate course oncognition. Similarly, Ferm, Kindberg and

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 135

Kollerbaur have used 'comic' and 'collage' meta-phors in their design of a flexible and negotiablelearning environment. Their system is based onthe use of a multi-media lexivisual databasecontaining both textual and pictorial material. Inour work we have found the 'electronic book'metaphor to be extremely useful. Our workinvolving the use of this metaphor is described inmore detail elsewhere (Barker, 1989b; 1989c;1989d).

Myths

The concept of a myth within end-user interfacedesign has been introduced by a number of authors(Barker, 1989c; Rubinstein and Hersh, 1984).Metaphors and myths are distinguished from eachother by their degree of generality. A metaphor isa very general design concept whereas a myth isspecific to a particular application. This point canbe illustrated by an example taken from the area ofsimulation. Simulations are a very powerfullearning resource. The nearer a simulationapproaches reality the more effective it is as apedagogical tool. Simulations can be made toappear real through the design and incorporationof appropriate myths within the end-user inter-faces to the learning packages that embed thesimulations. The use of manikins, animatrons andother types of working model are good examplesof the use of myths. We have used this techniquesquite effectively in designing interfaces tosimulated electronic instrumentation (Barker andManji, 1988). In this work the 'virtual instrument'was used as the design metaphor, whereas thevarious instrument front panels provided theexternal myths to the underlying simulations. Anexample of an instrument front-panel myth ispresented in Figure 6; this will be discussed inmore detail on page 139. Other examples of theuse of myths are documented in the literature(Barker, 1989a; 1989b).

TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES

Interactive learning systems depend for theirimplementation upon the successful delivery ofcourseware using a suitably designed learningenvironment. This environment is often referredto as a 'delivery station' or a 'student workstation'.The quality of the learning experience provided by

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 13: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Figure 5. Cognitive transfer through metaphors and myths

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 14: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 137

•fc File Edit Format Controls Functions UJindoivs

Figure 6. Example of an instrument front-panel myth

such a workstation will depend upon the sophisti-cation of the courseware that is used and the way inwhich this is designed and produced.

Courseware production depends critically uponthe availability of suitable authoring tools andappropriate delivery media. Of course, its designmust also take into account the nature of thestudent workstations which will ultimately deliverthe learning resources that are produced. In thissection of the paper the important issues thatinfluence the design, production and delivery ofcourseware are briefly discussed. Based upon whatwas said above, the three topics of major concernare: authoring tools, optical media and deliverystations.

Authoring environments

A wide variety of different types of authoring toolis currently employed for the production ofcourseware for interactive learning systems(Barker, 1987; 1989d). These tools differ con-siderably in terms of the facilities that they offer,the way they are used and the run-time support

that they need. The major problem associatedwith using a number of different coursewaredevelopment tools is the lack of portability thatcan ensue. This often means that instructionalsoftware is not easily portable from one organi-zation to another (or between different divisionsof a given organization). Obviously, the problemof portability is one which needs to be addressed ifthe widespread distribution of courseware productsis to become a reality. It is hoped that the results ofthe DELTA project's PETE strand (PortableEducational Tool Environment) will help over-come some of the current difficulties that course-ware engineers experience in this area (Barker,1989e).

As was suggested earlier in this paper, the hyper-media paradigm has had a significant influence onthe way in which courseware is currently designedand developed. A number of powerful tools havetherefore become available to support the develop-ment of instructional software that utilizes thisparadigm. Typical examples of the tools that arecurrently in use include HyperCard, SuperCard,LinkWay and KnowledgePro. Information on

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 15: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

138 ETTI 27,2

these tools is presented elsewhere (Barker,1989d).

Ease of use has always been an important designcriterion underlying the development of authoringtools. For this reason many of the more recentauthoring systems now employ graphical end-userinterfaces. Such interfaces provide a menu oficons, each one of which represents a particularsystem functionality. Using a 'pick and place'dialogue, the user 'draws a picture' of the course-ware that he or she wishes to build. When thegraph is complete the system automaticallygenerates the operational code that will constitutethe lesson. Systems of this sort usually embedfacilities for creating static pictures, animation andsound effects. They also provide appropriate'drivers' for controlling the various optical storagedevices contained within the delivery station.Examples of tools that operate in this fashioninclude PROPI, Course Builder and Course ofAction (Barker, 1990).

Many organizations still use 'second generation'authoring tools (such as TenCore, TopClass andMicrotext) for their courseware development.However, as the advantages of 'third generation'tools become more apparent, there is likely to be ashift towards greater use of these. Naturally, thiswill pave the way for the even more powerful'fourth generation' authoring tools that are nowstarting to appear (Barker, 1989f).

Optical media

A detailed discussion of the different types ofoptical media that are currently in use, are beingdeveloped or are actively being researched wouldbe beyond the scope of this paper. Therefore, it issufficient here just to mention the technologiesthat are currently widely available, and thedevelopments that are likely to take place withinthe next half-decade or so.

Videodisc technology is now a well-establishedoptical medium for use in the creation of inter-active learning environments (Tucker, 1989). Thepowerful way in which it can be used will bediscussed in the second case study presented under'The Domesday system' later in this paper (seepage 139). Compact disc read-only-memory (CD-ROM) is also gaining rapid popularity as a high-capacity digital storage medium for text, soundand pictorial material (Megarry, 1988). Its use in

an interactive learning environment is described inthe third of the case studies that are described laterin the paper. Each of these media have both theirinherent advantages and limitations. Because ofthese inherent limitations, media researcherscontinue to work on ways of improving them.

One of the problems associated with the use ofoptical media has always been the lack of agreedstandards for information storage and delivery (thisis particularly so in the case of videodisc). Preston(1988) outlines the relationship between thevarious standards that are in current use and thosethat are presently being developed. The moreimportant of these are: compact disc extendedarchitecture (CD-ROM XA), compact disc inter-active (CD-I) and digital video interactive (DVI).Each of these will now be briefly described.

CD-I offers a universal standard for storing (anddelivering) multi-media resources on a compactdisc (Preston, 1988). CD-ROM XA extendsconventional CD-ROM in the direction of CD-I; itoffers a subset of the facilities of the latter. One ofthe major drawbacks of CD-I is its limited facilitiesfor full-screen full-motion video. DVI technologyis intended to overcome this limitation. Althoughrapid developments are taking place in this area(CACM, 1989), no commercial implementationsof either CD-I or DVI are yet widely available.Despite this, many organizations are now activelydesigning interactive multi-media courseware sothat when low-cost delivery stations becomeavailable there will be a range of coursewareproducts on offer.

Delivery stations

The structure and characteristics of the deliverystation that is used in any given learning situationwill depend upon two primary factors. First, thenature of the training or learning objectives thatare embedded in the courseware. Second, thecomplexity of the cognitive and motor skills thatare to be mastered. Because of the wide spectrumof activities for which they have to cater, deliverystations will show considerable variety both intheir cost and their capability. For example, inorder to support the teaching of certain types ofbasic mathematical skill, a pocket calculator orrudimentary PC is probably all that is required.Similarly, the development of writing skills mightonly require a simple word-processing system that

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 16: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 139

is equipped with various on-line dictionaries,facilities for conducting spelling checks and soft-ware for assessing the quality of the work that isproduced. On the other hand, training activitiessuch as flight simulation or ship navigation requirevery sophisticated and expensive equipment that isable to reproduce high degrees of realism withinthe simulations that they create.

For the case studies that are considered in thefollowing section, it is assumed that the studentworkstation will resemble a typical low-cost homecomputer. This will be equipped with standardperipherals such as a keyboard, a mouse, a high-resolution colour monitor, simple sound pro-duction facilities and a printer. The storageperipherals embedded within the system wouldinclude a hard disc, a floppy disc and an opticalstorage unit. Of course, the basic nature of thestudent delivery station will change quite con-siderably both as technology evolves and marketforces emerge. Indeed, the rapid developmentsthat are currently taking place in the digital opticalstorage technologies described in the previoussection, are likely to render currently availabledelivery stations obsolete within the next three tofive years.

SOME CASE STUDIES

Four case studies will now be briefly presented.Each one is intended to illustrate how one or moreof the concepts and ideas discussed in the earlierpart of this paper may be applied to the fabricationof an interactive learning system. In these examplesboth conventional and optical storage media areused for workstation fabrication.

Lab VIEWThe provision of minimal cost but realistic learningexperiences is an important design criterionfor CAL and CBT (computer-based training)courseware. Simulation, modelling and gamingare therefore extremely valuable techniques.The ability to simulate the behaviour and charac-teristics of real-world objects within an inter-active learning environment, is therefore acrucial step towards the realization of the designcriterion mentioned above. The Lab VIEW system(National Instruments, 1987) is an example of atoolkit that creates a learning environment based

on the ability of the computer to simulate thebehaviour of electronic instruments.

Lab VIEW is an acronym for Laboratory VirtualInstrument Engineering Workbench. It provides astudent with a set of software tools that enableselectronic instruments to be designed and theirbehaviour simulated using a desk-top PC. Figure 6showed an example of a front panel for a typicalinstrument. Its behaviour is controlled by thereactive buttons, switches and knobs embeddedwithin the cathode ray tube (CRT) interface thatprojects the instrument myth to the user. Asthe user changes the settings of the knobs andswitches (using a mouse as a pointing device), theinstrument output (displayed on the right-handside of the screen) changes accordingly.

Toolkits of this sort are extremely important inproviding students with design and evaluationexperiences which they might not otherwise beable to obtain. This is particularly true in situationswhere real instruments might be too costly topurchase or too fragile for general laboratory use.

The Domesday systemThe United Kingdom's Domesday system(Armstrong and Tibbetts, 1986; Gove, 1989)provides an example of a learning environmentthat is based on the use of interactive videotechnology. The workstation on which it dependsconsists of a PC to which are attached a high-quality CRT colour display, a keyboard, a pointingdevice (such as a mouse or a tracker ball) anda laser-vision optical disc player. The CRT isable to display images that are retrieved from thevideodisc and material that is generated by thecomputer.

The Domesday project itself was an attempt tocreate a multi-media electronic encyclopediacontaining information about the UK and itsinhabitants. The material that was collectedduring the project is stored on two 12-inch opticalvideodiscs. These contain textual material (such asessays and statistical data), sound recordings(of music and narrations to accompany othermaterial), static pictures (drawings and photo-graphs) and animation (in the form of video clips).In order to facilitate easy retrieval, the informationis put together and organized in a hierarchicalfashion - going from general items down to veryspecific ones.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 17: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

140 ETTI 27,2

Four of the many outstanding features of theDomesday system are:

1. its visual interface system, based uponOrdnance Survey maps and photographs;

2. its use of surrogations;3. the large volume of statistical data that it

contains; and4. its use of computational graphics to display

relationships between data values.

The visual interface system enables the user toretrieve information about various parts of the UKby simply pointing to relevant locations on a map.Surrogations are used in many ways; they providefacilities that will enable a student to explore amuseum, farmyard, factory, typical British village,etc. The statistical data is based upon the 1981 UKcensus; this data can be used to conduct basicresearch through suitably designed experiments,the results of which can then be displayed graph-ically in various different ways. Each of the toolsoutlined here provides a very powerful resource tofacilitate discovery learning and the retrieval offactual information for use in essays or reports.

Although the interactive workstation underlyingthe Domesday system was built for the Domesdayproject, it can be used to create other learningenvironments provided suitable courseware isavailable. The Ecodisc (McCormick and Bratt,1988) is one such example. This is a videodisc (andsupporting software) that uses simulation andsurrogation techniques in order to provide alearning environment in which the learner canexperience what is involved in running a naturereserve. With this system:

the user can not only walk about, look around andexplore but also listen to what people say, readabout the place, look up background informationand take actual measurements.

Obviously, interactive learning resources of thistype are capable of providing unparalleled, andotherwise unavailable, pedagogic experiences.

The Grolier Encyclopedia

The Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia (Grolier Inc,1988) is an excellent example of the way in whichdigital optical storage technology (in this case CD-ROM) can be used to produce an interactive,discovery learning environment. The system issupplied as a multi-media resource pack consistingof the following three basic items:

1. a paper-based user's manual;2. a floppy disc containing the search, display and

retrieval software; and3. a 12cm compact disc which stores all 21 volumes

of the Academic American Encyclopedia(consisting of over 9,000,000 words).

The user-manual is both comprehensive and wellwritten. Likewise, the end-user interfaces tothe computer software are easy to use and, ifnecessary, can be customized by the end-user.

All of the text upon which the encyclopedia isbased has been indexed (and linked) in such a waythat rapid full-text searching can be undertaken.The links that are present in the system enablerelated items within the text corpus to be 'linkedto' (just like hyper-text). The system can be usedin two basic modes: browse and search. In browsemode, two basic indexes are available: the titlesindex (containing 33,748 entries) and the wordindex (containing 149,094 items). When a keywordis selected from the word index the system retrievesall references within the text corpus that areindexed under that entry. For example, selecting'Thomas' from the word index locates a totalof 2,147 occurrences of the word — these arecontained within a total of 1,373 articles. Similarly,selecting 'education' from the titles index wouldcause the first page of an 85-page article on thistopic to be displayed on the screen of the CRT.The user can then browse through this treatise apage at a time.

The word search facility is the most powerful wayof retrieving information since it allows the user toexcercise 'fine control' over the nature of thematerial that is retrieved. This control is exercisedthrough the system's ability to provide AND, ORand NOT logic within searches. Furthermore, it isalso possible to specify search extents. An extent issimply a region within the text corpus within whichthe keywords of a search must appear. Returningto the examples used above, if a word search hadbeen conducted for material containing the words'Thomas' AND 'education' then a total of 36articles would be retrieved (ranging in contentfrom 'educational psychology' through 'commonlaw' to 'Utopia'). Conducting the search againwith an extra word ('Thomas' AND 'education'AND 'technology') makes it more specific and sonow it retrieves only one article - which dealswith the state university and colleges within NewJersey.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 18: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 141

As well as containing powerful search facilities,the Grolier system offers a number of othersupportive aids to its users. The two most usefulare the bookmark and notepad facilities. The firstof these provides a mechanism that enables theuser to 'memorize' the locations of particular partsof the encyclopedia that he or she might wish toconsult again. The second facility allows sectionsof 'marked' text to be copied on to the notepad forsubsequent incorporation into a word-processingsystem. Another useful facility is the ability toprint out sections of marked text on a printer thatis attached to the workstation.

The major limitation of the Grolier system is itstotal reliance on text and tables; there are nopictures whatsoever. However, this situation reallyreflects a limitation of the available technologyrather than a lack of intent. Indeed, Grolier isactively developing a multi-media version of theencyclopedia which it intends to distribute usingthe new CD-I standard mentioned earlier in thesection on optical media. Further informationon the Grolier encyclopedias is given in Barker(1989d).

Multi-media books

Because of the vastness of the information thatthey contain, the Domesday and Grolier systemsare often referred to as examples of 'electronicencyclopedias'. Analogous systems of this type,but which contain substantially less information,are frequently called 'electronic books'. Severaldifferent types of electronic book system havebeen reported in the literature. Some examplesinclude: Dynabook (Goldberg, 1979), Ebook3(Savoy, 1989) and Hyperbook (Grand, 1989).

Our own work in the area of electronic book fab-rication has centred around investigations into thepotential utility of multi-media books — ie, bookswhose pages are not only composed of text andstatic diagrams, but which also embed movingpictures and sound effects. The basic model thatwe have been using for the fabrication of thesesystems has previously been illustrated in Figure 4.This model has been used as a basis for the pro-duction of a number of multi-media electronicbooks such as SPB-1, MPB-1 and 'Guide toPhysical Fitness'. HyperCard and LinkWay havebeen the two main authoring facilities employedfor the implementation of these books.

A sample page from the 'Guide to-PhysicalFitness' book is shown in Figure 7 (Piears, 1989)'.This page is composed of some text (on the left-hand side) that explains how a 'chair-stepping'exercise is to be performed. The static picture tothe right of the text illustrates one of the positionsthat the person goes through during the exercise.The icons that are placed along the bottom of thepage (and in the top right-hand corner) can beused to control page turning, browsing and directaccess to other pages. This latter operation canalso be accomplished by hyper-text referencesembedded within the contents and index pages ofthe book. Each of the icons on the page have adifferent control functionality. The one whichresides second from the right can be used toactivate the PC's built-in speech synthesizer. Thisenables the reader to be 'talked through' theexercise. Similarly, the icon in the top right-handcorner of the page (a camera) facilitates thecontrol of animation effects. When this icon isselected (by means of a mouse-based 'point andclick' interaction) the static figure 'jumps into life'and starts to demonstrate the chair-steppingexercise.

The work described above has been based on theuse of conventional digital storage methods forholding the electronic book information. We havealso" been exploring the use of both videodisc andmulti-mode CD-ROM. Videodisc has been usedas a source of high quality images for input intoa digitizer. The digital images that are producedare subsequently then processed in various waysbefore being 'pasted' into the pages of our elec-tronic books. Running alongside the videodisc is aCD-ROM system containing both textual andsonic material. Like the pictorial informationcoming from the videodisc, the text and sound canbe 'clipped', transformed and then pasted intoappropriate page locations. The workstation uponwhich this work is being conducted is also beingused to simulate the use of the emerging CD-I andDVI technologies. Details of this work are givenelsewhere (Manji, 1990).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The computer-based learning systems that havebeen described in the previous parts of this paperare heavily dependent upon the use of bothcomputer and information processing technologies

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 19: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

142 ETTI 27,2

Chair Stepping

- put one foot on a chair (16v4

inches high).

- stand up straight on the chair.

- step down again.

Figure 7. Page structure fora simple moving picture book

for their fabrication. Developments in thesetechnologies take place at an overwhelming rate.Inherent in this progress will be new developmentsthat will significantly effect:

— the way in which interactive learning isconducted; and

— what interactive learning can be used toachieve.

In this section each of these issues is brieflydebated.

Advances in the technological performance ofhardware and software resources bring bothexpected and unexpected developments. Forexample, those who design and build workstationsto support interactive learning have now come toexpect lower cost building blocks that have morepower (in terms of processing speed and storagecapacity) and which show greater functionalitythan the resources that were previously available.Over the last decade these expectations havecertainly been fulfilled. Of the unexpected develop-ments, perhaps some of the most impressive are

those that are currently taking place in the areas of:3-D interface design (see page 133); optical media(see page 138); communications technology;and the development of hardware and softwareenvironments to facilitate visualization and thecreation of 'artificial' and 'virtual' realities.The last two of these topics are likely to havea significant impact upon the way interactivelearning systems are used and what they are able toachieve.The impact of communication technology oninteractive learning processes has been discussedby a number of authors (Mason and Kaye, 1989;Dunnett, 1989; Sligte, 1989; Godfrey et al., 1987).Developments in this area now make it possible tofacilitate both individual and group study at anylocation to which interactive material can betransmitted. Of course, special types of learnerworkstation need to be used in order to facilitatemany of the new kinds of pedagogic interactionthat can take place within distributed learningsystems of this sort. Another important conse-quence of the availability of a two-way global

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 20: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 143

communication facility is the fact that distributedauthoring of interactive learning resources alsobecomes a possibility. This is discussed in moredetail elsewhere (Barker, 1987).

As we have discussed earlier, visualization is animportant part of learning. It plays a vital role in therealization of design conceptions and the under-standing of complex scientific and engineeringphenomena. Fundamental to the realization ofthis process is the use of powerful simulation andgraphics techniques. Some of the work that iscurrently in an advanced state of development hasbeen described by Brooks (1988), Magnenat-Thalman and Thalman (1989), Smith (1986) andLanier(1989).

In his work, Smith (1986) describes the use of'alternate reality kits'. Such kits use powerful visualprogramming languages to generate animatedenvironments for the creation of interactive simu-lations. These simulations can be used to allowstudents to explore environments in which uncon-ventional laws and conventions can be made toapply. Brooks (1988), when talking about 'graspingreality with illusion', describes a number ofadvanced interactive graphics systems that can beused to create 'virtual worlds'. Research in this areadeals with the construction of real-time 3-D illusionsusing computer graphics. Like Brooks, Lanier(1989) also talks about the concept of 'virtualreality' — the creation of illusory worlds that thelearner can explore. The creation of these worldsthrough the use of a DataGlove and a DataSuit hasbeen mentioned previously on page 133. In theirwork Magnenat-Thalman and Thalman (1989)introduce the concept of 'synthetic actors' todescribe their graphical animation work involvingthe creation of programmable 'actors' that could,in principle, be used for a variety of pedagogicpurposes. Obviously, for those who design andbuild interactive learning systems, the availabilityof resources of this type offers almost unlimitedpossibilities for the creation of new and novelapproaches to learning, teaching and training.

CONCLUSION

An interactive learning system consists of threebasic components: a learner population, a deliverysystem and the pedagogic material that is to formthe basis of learning. Systems that facilitate inter-active learning must be responsive, adaptive and

dynamic with respect to both the needs of thelearner population and the mechanisms of know-ledge transfer that they employ. Because of theircomplexity, systems of this type can often beextremely difficult to design and build. In thispaper some guidelines for designing interactivecomputer-based learning systems have been pre-sented along with some case studies which haveillustrated the ways in which these guidelines areused. Undoubtedly, the future implementation ofsystems of this type will be heavily dependent onthree major factors. First, the successful utilizationof the new interactive learning technologies thatare now becoming available as a direct result ofnew developments in digital optical storage.Second, our ability to design low-cost systems thatare: easy to use, portable and, above all, ergon-omically and pedagogically acceptable. Thirdly,the design of learning resources which achieveeffective and efficient knowledge transfer andwhich are pleasurable to use.

REFERENCESArmstrong, P. and Tibbetts, M. (1986) DomesdayVideo Disc User Guide, BBC Publications, London.Barker, P. G. (1987) Author Languages for CAL,Macmillan, London.Barker, P. G. (1989a) Basic Principles of Human-Computer Interface Design, Hutchinson-Century,London.Barker, P. G. (1989b) Multi-media ComputerAssisted Learning, Kogan-Page, London.Barker, P. G. (1989c) Authoring electronic books.Paper submitted to the IFIP 5th World Conferenceon Computers in Education, Sydney.Barker, P. G. (1989d) Case studies in coursewareengineering, (in preparation).Barker, P. G. (1989e) Authoring for DELTA,Educational and Training Technology Inter-national, 26, 3, 175-85.

Barker, P. G. (1989f) An intelligent shell forhyper-media authoring. Paper submitted to ThirdInternational Conference on Computer AssistedLearning, University of Hagen, Germany.Barker, P. G. (1990) Automating the productionof courseware. In Farmer, B, Eastcott, D andLantz, B (eds) Aspects of Educational TechnologyXXIII - Making Learning Systems Work, KoganPage, London.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 21: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

144 ETTI 27, 2

Barker, P. G. and Manji, K. A. (1988) Multi-media CAL techniques for the teaching of elec-tronics, Engineering Applications of ArtificialIntelligence, 1, 4, 309-24.

Barker, P. G. and Manji, K. A. (1989) Designingelectronic books. Paper submitted to Journal ofArtificial Intelligence in Education, 1, 2, 31-42.

Barker, P. G. and Yeates, H. (1985) IntroducingComputer Assisted Learning, Prentice-Hall,London.

Brooks, F. P. (1988) Grasping reality throughillusion — interactive graphics serving science,1-11. In CHI '88, Proceedings of the ACMConference on Human Factors in ComputingSystems, Washington, DC, 15-19 May.

Brown, I. C. (1989) The concept keyboard as adevice for interactivity, 63-72. In Tucker (1989).

CACM (1989) Interactive Technologies, SpecialIssue of Communications of the ACM, 32, 7,794-881.

Carroll, J. M. and Mack, R. L. (1985) Metaphor,Computing Systems and Active Learning, Inter-national Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 22,39-57.

Carroll, J. M. and Thomas, J. C. (1982) Metaphorand the cognitive representation of computingsystems, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man andCybernetics, 12, 107-116.

Clancey, W. J. (1986) Qualitative student models,Annual Reviews in Computer Science, 1, 381-450.

Dunnett, C. (1989) Communications technologyin distance education: economics, equity andchange. In Tucker (1989) 205-19.

Ferm, R., Kindborg, M. and Kollerbaur, A.(1987) A flexible negotiable interactive learningenvironment. In Diaper, D. and Winder, R. (eds)People and Computers III, proceedings of theThird Conference of the British Computer SocietyHuman-Computer Interaction Specialist Group,University of Exeter, 7-11 September, 103-13,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Foley, J. D. (1987) Interfaces for advancedcomputing, Scientific American, 257, 4, 83-90.

Godfrey, D., Gong, S., Hart, R., Koorland, N.and Smit, S. (1987) Project 'Clear Skies': teachingcomputer science by computer based training andelectronic messaging in China, Computer Journal,30, 5, 469-474.

Goldberg, A. (1979) Educational uses of a Dyna-Book, Computers and Education, 3, 4, 247-66.

Gove, P. S. (1989) Domesday 1986-1988. InTucker (1989) 142-6.

Grand, A. (1989) Hyperbook Reader, Longman/Logotron, Cambridge, UK.

Grolier Inc (1988) The New Grolier ElectronicEncyclopedia - User's Guide, Grolier ElectronicPublishing Inc, Sherman Turnpike, Danbury, CT.

Halasz, F. G. (1988) Reflections on NoteCards:seven issues for the next generation of hyper-media systems, Communications of the ACM, 31,7, 836-852.

Hammond, N. V. and Allinson, L. J. (1987) Thetravel metaphor as design principle and training aidfor navigation around complex systems. In Diaper,D. and Winder, R. (eds) People and ComputersIII, Proceedings of the British Computer Society'sHuman-Computer Interaction Specialist Group,75-90, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Hammond, N. V. and Allinson, L. J. (1988)Travels around a learning support environment:rambling, orienteering or touring? In CHI '88,Proceedings of the ACM Conference on HumanFactors in Computing Systems, Washington, DC,15-19 May, 269-73.

Hon, D. (1982) Interactive training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, BYTE: The SmallSystems Journal, 7, 6, 108-38.

Lanier, J. (1989) Virtual reality- an interview withJaron Lanier, Whole Earth Review, 108-119.

Laurillard, D. (1987) Interactive Media: WorkingMethods and Practical Applications, EllisHorwood, Chichester.

McAleese, R. (1989) Hypertext: Theory intoPractice, Blackwell Scientific Publications,Oxford.

McCormick, S. and Bratt, P. (1988) Some issuesrelated to the design and development of aninteractive video disc, Computers and Education,12,1, 257-60.

Magnenat-Thalman, N. and Thalman, D. (1989)Synthetic actors, Computer Bulletin, Series IV, 1,1, 12-14.

Manji, K. A. (1990) Pictorial communicationwith computers. PhD thesis, Interactive SystemsResearch Group, School of Information Engin-eering, Teesside Polytechnic.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014

Page 22: Designing Interactive Learning Systems

Designing Interactive Learning Systems 145

Megarry, J. (1988) Hyper-text and compactdiscs: the challenge of multi-media learning.British Journal of Educational Technology, 19,3, 172-83.

Murray, D. (1989) Electronic books in LinkWay.Working paper, Interactive Systems ResearchGroup, School of Information Engineering,Teesside Polytechnic, UK.

National Instruments (1987) LabVIEW User'sGuide. National Instruments, Austin, Texas,USA.

Piears, J. (1989) Multi-media books in HyperCard.BSc Dissertation, Interactive Systems ResearchGroup, School of Information Engineering,Teesside Polytechnic, UK.

Preston, J. M. (1988) Compact Disc-Interactive: ADesigner's Overview. Kluwer Technical Books,Deventer — Antwerpen, The Netherlands.

Rubinstein, R. and Hersh, H. M. (1984) TheHuman Factor: Designing Computer Systems forPeople. Digital Press, Burlington, MA.

Savoy, J. (1989) The electronic book Ebook3.International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 30,505-523.

Self, J. A. (1988) Artificial Intelligence and HumanLearning — Intelligent Computer-aided Instruction.Chapman and Hall, London.

Shneiderman, B. (1987) Designing the UserInterface: Strategies for Effective Human-ComputerInteraction. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.

Sligte, H. (1989) Propelling interaction throughtelematics — electronic fieldtrips, 163-172. InTucker (1989).

Smith, R. B. (1986) The Alternate Reality Kit: ananimated environment for creating interactivesimulations, 99-106. In Proceedings of the 1986IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

Tello, E. R. (1988). Between Man and Machine.BYTE: The Small Systems Journal, 13, 9, 288-93.

Tourangeau, R. and Sternberg, R. (1982) Under-standing and appreciating metaphors. Cognition,11, 203-44.

Tucker, R. N. (1989) (ed.) Interactive media: thehuman issues. Proceedings of the InternationalConference Interactivity '88, The Hague,Netherlands, 5-7 October, 1988, Kogan Page,London.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Philip Barker is Reader in Applied Computingand Information Technology within the Schoolof Computing and Mathematics at TeessidePolytechnic. His major research interests lie in theareas of Human-Computer Interaction and thedesign of Interactive Learning Systems. He haspublished several books and is the author of manypapers.

Address for correspondence: Interactive SystemsResearch Group, School of InformationEngineering, Teesside Polytechnic, Middles-borough, County Cleveland, UK.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

09:

54 2

0 N

ovem

ber

2014