Lecture Notes in Computer Science- P64 pps

To meet students’ needs for autono-mous and constructive learning, it’s urgent that besides appropriate resources and contexts, teachers have a relevant learning environment attached to

F Li et al (Eds.): ICWL 2008, LNCS 5145, pp 304–313, 2008

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008

Community

Xiaoli Zheng1 and Feng Wang2

1

Department of Educational Technology, School of Physics & Electronic Information

tilly222@163.com QQ:344431940 Tel: +86-0577-86515710 Wenzhou University Region Higher Education in Chashan, District Ouhai, Wenzhou, CN,325035

2

Department of System Infrastructure, School of Computer Science & Engineering

wang_fengwf@163.com

Abstract With the further reform of education in our country, new teaching

models spring out centered on learning To meet students’ needs for autono-mous and constructive learning, it’s urgent that besides appropriate resources and contexts, teachers have a relevant learning environment attached to new teaching models to aid teaching in class and realize students’ autonomous learn-ing This paper, take project-based learning for example, mainly starts with definitions of PBL and project-based virtual learning community (abbrev PBVLC), and expounds components of PBVLC In the light of constructive perspective for learning environment components and web-based cooperative learning, this paper systematically scaffolds the model of PBVLC and develops

it with technologies of ASP and Access

Keywords: Project-based Learning (PBL); Virtual Learning Community (VLC);

Project-based Virtual Learning Community (PBVLC)

1 Introduction

As knowledge innovation is our society’s kernel feature, which needs a large quantity of creative talents, it is crucial for our country and people to cultivate creative talents to develop knowledge economy and improve competitiveness in the world Secondly, in the times of IT represented by macromedia and network technologies, progress in com-pute science, especially births of macromedia and network technologies, makes changes

in the models of various domains’ operation and development, and changes in life style

&learning style With the aid of IT, people can more quickly, more accurately acquire and feedback more information Depending on information delivery, science and tech-nology, politics, economy and education, etc develop faster Therefore, it’s necessary

for people to exploit IT to acquire and process information According to the features of modern society, reflecting on today’s education in our country, we find out that current education is not suitable for modern society’s development, and we must reform our education, in which introducing a series of new teaching models is an important innova-tion, which are quest-based learning, problem-based learning, resource-based learning, project-based learning and so on This paper expounds project-based learning (PBL) See from teaching practices, PBL in traditional class has gradually showed limitations in

IT as followed:

• a small learning community

• limited resources

• bad feedback and evaluation

Those limitations would be overcome in cyberspace Herein, it’s necessary to study project-based virtual learning community (abbrev PBVLC)

At abroad, studies on PBL are definitions of PBL, underpinning theories of PBL, ef-fectiveness of PBL and problems in implementing PBL According the research review

of PBL, the learning style of PBL tends to be applied to the programs (Alberge Univer-sity, 1980s) , not to one chapter Moreover, PBL is implemented against the true con-texts of real life, not against the virtual concon-texts This paper intends to design , develop and apply PBVLC

2 Definitions of PBL and Project-Based Virtual Learning

Community

According to definitions of PBL provided by experts at home and abroad, in general, PBL (project-based learning) is an innovative exploring learning model to solve a series of relevant problems in some time It focuses on the central concepts and prin-ciples of a discipline, intends to motivate students to construct their own knowledge and culminates in realistic in products and abilities Students take part in real-life projects to launch exploring learning PBVLC (project-based virtual learning commu-nity) is a learning community on the line which forms a mutual teaching and learning process during studying a project

3 Components of Project-Based Virtual Learning Community

According to the learning-oriented instructional system design(ISD) model, PBL starts with a driving project, provides a task and designs learning contexts, materials, strategies, cognitive tools, aids, task management, learning management and supervi-sion etc centered on the task which is decided by learning targets, learners, and con-tents In the light of PBL in class and other learning models, PBVLC should include instructional components as the following (see Fig.1.), which construct an open and close system

Fig 1 Components of PBVLC

4 A Model of Project-Based Virtual Learning

PBVLC is centered on learning activities with the aid of teaching, which has mainly designed teaching and learning activities as followed: (see Fig.2.)

The model of PBVLC starts with student’s registration before he or she logs in it at the first time Students are advised to input their own basic information into the

Fig 2 The Model of PBVLC

database of student’s portfolios After that students have to accept characteristic tests including learning styles, information literacy, researching abilities and so on, and then output a database of student profiles After registration, students can log in the system to learn Firstly, each student will select a project from the database of project profiles and the database of group profiles will get an item of information about pro-ject selection Students can seek for partners with the same interest on the line When the project is selected by a preset number of students, they select head of their own group by voting After that, learning partners of the project begin to prepare for re-search, included with signing out a project contract with their teachers, confirming their own tasks and writing the report for the selected project After preparation, stu-dents begin to study During studying, stustu-dents need to be helped by online learning materials, experts and teachers offered by Aid Database Meanwhile, in the course of researching, interactivities between students and teachers are to be fostered Some information of interactivities will be collected by the module of learning supervision and be stored in the database of supervision In the block of teachers, the number of student’s login is showed by the module of person management Teachers feedback the information of supervision database to the students by means of interactivity to supervise a student’s learning During the course of research, the group of a project will punctually upload their own works to the database of works observing the items

of the project contract Through the module of culminates presentation students pre-sented their own works Teachers will qualitatively evaluate student’s performance of some time and feedback assessment to them Finally, in the end of research, each project group will upload his works, each member of a group need to evaluate other member’s PBL process, and teachers are required to evaluate the works of each group and each student’s PBL process, the total grade is summed up by the computer Such assessment is summative The database of student’s performance consists of two parts: PBL process and the final works Furthermore, students can find out their own achievements by the module of achievement inquiry Works honored with the top best can be published on the line to share with others

5 Development of Project-Based Virtual Learning Community

The whole PBVLC, which uses ASP and ACCESS as developing tools, adopts B/S mode In this paper, take learner’s modules for example, the module of preceding analyses exploits online investigation on learner’s characteristics, the one of interac-tivities is realized by means of BBS, chat-room and sending/getting message and the one of project selection, which is made up of project layout & selection, group consti-tution and project agreement etc., is completed by means of online databases This system attaches important technologies to group constitution, research process, multi-meta assessment and achievement inquiry Of them,

5.1 How to Restrict the Number of a Group’s Members

Firstly, teachers lay out data about research orientations in this phase Secondly, learners spontaneously organize a group by means of BBS and others in the light of

learner’s characteristics In general, a group consists of 4-6 members Finally, teach-ers consult project topics with groups by means of BBS, chat-room and send-ing/getting message with regards to group’s willings and lay out project topics with limited members (The limitation is preset by teachers.) How to judge a group’s members more than the limitation given is difficult and important in technology

To overcome the difficulty, in designing database tables, the system presets the fields

of member limitation called PNum and the number of members registered called RNum When a member select the project, the system firstly judge whether RNum is larger than PNum If so, the system will show cautions, or else, RNum automatically adds 1 The codes as followed:

<% …Judging whether the number of members is larger than the Limitation……

if rsProject("RNum")=rsProject("PNum") then

response.Write("the number of the group has been larger than the limitation ,please reselect.") response.End()

else

rsProject("PNum")= rsProject("PNum")+1

rsProject.update

…%>

The flowchart of which followed by:

Fig 3 Judging whether the number of members is larger than the Limitation

5.2 Important Techniques in the Module of Research

When learners has selected a project and constituted a group, they will enter the mod-ule of research (see figure 2), where learners will make good use of the situation given by PBVLC to cooperatively study This module consists of drills, lectures, discussions, chats, records on a group’s activities, interviews, investigations, reflec-tions and aids There are two difficulties in this module

5.2.1 Techniques of Drills, Lectures, Interviews, Investigation

Drills and lectures are dynamic data of a project given by the system of PBVLC However, interviews and investigations are main divisions of the research module All