Péricles de Lima Sobreira - T2/ediT2: a flexible and easy-to-use model/system for editing and operationalizing learning scenarios

The general issue considered in this research is the development of an adaptable and easy-to-use representation of learning scenarios in the form of a table (considered as an artefact of easy manipulation by teachers) associated with a computational model as a tree (as a way to integrate advanced services). In this way, teachers with basic technological skills and without methodological training can edit and operationalize learning scenarios from flexible and friendly graphical interfaces. Although this thesis has its focus on CSCL scripts, the table-tree-based approach (named T2) presents a more general interest. In a first moment, we implemented from this model a learning scenario editor (named ediT2) using notions from CSCL scripts. In a second moment, we considered generalization issues through the extension of the initial implementation, in order to allow teachers to edit their own notions and respective attributes.

We investigated from different studies and experiments how teachers used our proposal considering as objectives/evaluation criteria the following features : (1) pedagogical expressiveness (can table-based editors represent a wide range of learning scenarios ?) ; (2) usability (do teachers find the editor easy to use and intuitive ?) ; (3) computational expressiveness (does the approach allow implementation of advanced services ?), and ; (4) computational flexibility (is the editor easy to adapt to local needs ?).