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Design, development, and validation of a learning object for CS1

Published: 27 June 2005 Publication History

Abstract

A learning object is a structured, standalone media resource that encapsulates high quality information to facilitate learning and pedagogy. In this paper, we describe our approach to design, develop, and validate learning objects for CS1. In particular, we focus on one learning object that teaches students about classes and objects. SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) standards and ACM/IEEE-CS Computing Curriculum 2001 form the basis of our design. Each learning object is self-contained and by design, the length of the content section is kept short to retain student interest. The learning object has a glossary providing definitions to key terms and a help menu. Each learning object covers a core Computer Science topic addressed by four components: (1) A brief tutorial or explanation including definitions, rules, and principles, (2) A set of real-world examples illustrates key concepts and includes worked examples and problems, models, and sample code, (3) A set of practice exercises provides important active experiences to the student, with constructive feedback to student responses, (4) A set of problems graded by the computer provides a final assessment. Our instructional design also incorporates theories of multimedia learning, providing guidance on the effective combination of text, graphics audio, and Flash animation. We also report on a pilot evaluation where students rated the learning object highly in terms of its design, usefulness, and appropriateness. We present student achievement results, comparing achievement of students participating in traditional face-to-face laboratory activities versus students using the Web-based learning object. A between-group post-test only research design showed no significant achievement difference between the two groups. Results confirm our belief that the use of modular, Web-based learning objects can be used successfully for independent learning and are a viable option for distance delivery of course components. Encouraged by these results, our project and research is continuing Fall 2004, with the development of additional learning objects and instrumentation mechanisms tracking real-time dynamic activity-based data.The "Practice Exercises" section of our "Simple Class" learning object, for example, has four exercise modules: (1) class identification, where students are asked to identify whether an item is an appropriate candidate as a class (Abraham Lincoln vs. President, for example), (2) data members and methods, where students interact with an animation (with sound) to identify the appropriate data members for a dog class, (3) dissect a class definition, where students are given code with highlighted segments and are asked to label each segment into either "class", "method name", "data member", or "method body", and (4) building a class, where students are given a heterogeneous set of data members and methods, and must pick the appropriate ones to build a class; if the selection is correct, the Java-based class will be expanded accordingly with specific Java code. For each exercise, we provide extensive real-time feedback for each response. Figure 1 shows a screen shot of one of the exercises on data members and methods.

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  • (2019)Towards the use of Hyperknowledge in Educational Domain through Mutimedia Trails2019 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM)10.1109/ISM46123.2019.00072(323-3233)Online publication date: Dec-2019
  • (2016)A learning ontology with metadata and user profiles for enhancing accessibility of resources2016 IEEE Conference on e-Learning, e-Management and e-Services (IC3e)10.1109/IC3e.2016.8009045(85-90)Online publication date: Oct-2016
  • (2014)CacuriáProceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web10.1145/2664551.2664567(59-66)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2014
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  1. Design, development, and validation of a learning object for CS1

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    Published In

    cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
    ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 37, Issue 3
    September 2005
    418 pages
    ISSN:0097-8418
    DOI:10.1145/1151954
    Issue’s Table of Contents
    • cover image ACM Conferences
      ITiCSE '05: Proceedings of the 10th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
      June 2005
      440 pages
      ISBN:1595930248
      DOI:10.1145/1067445
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 27 June 2005
    Published in SIGCSE Volume 37, Issue 3

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    Author Tags

    1. SCORM
    2. experimental research
    3. learning objects
    4. multimedia
    5. qualitative evaluation
    6. web-based techniques

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    Cited By

    View all
    • (2019)Towards the use of Hyperknowledge in Educational Domain through Mutimedia Trails2019 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM)10.1109/ISM46123.2019.00072(323-3233)Online publication date: Dec-2019
    • (2016)A learning ontology with metadata and user profiles for enhancing accessibility of resources2016 IEEE Conference on e-Learning, e-Management and e-Services (IC3e)10.1109/IC3e.2016.8009045(85-90)Online publication date: Oct-2016
    • (2014)CacuriáProceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web10.1145/2664551.2664567(59-66)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2014
    • (2011)Evaluating the use of learning objects in CS1Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/1953163.1953183(57-62)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2011
    • (2014)CacuriáProceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web10.1145/2664551.2664567(59-66)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2014
    • (2011)Revising computer science learning objects from learner interaction dataProceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/1953163.1953181(45-50)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2011
    • (2010)Analyzing test itemsProceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/1734263.1734411(436-440)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2010
    • (2010)M-learning objects2010 International Conference on Electronics and Information Engineering10.1109/ICEIE.2010.5559908(V1-113-V1-117)Online publication date: Aug-2010

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