This paper proposes a new educational system, based primarily
on distance learning at all levels of learning. The major learning
medium for all students will be highly interactive multimedia
computer based learning material that will
allow us to educate everyone in the world to the mastery level.
Contact with humans will also be possible. The material will be
designed for use anywhere, at any time.
We recognize that all individuals are unique; no two are alike.
The learning experiences will be optimized to the needs of each
student, exploring carefully the problems that each student has
and offering individually tailored assistance with these problems.
Other students and tutors will also be involved in the learning
process.
The learning units will encourage love of learning.
Students should enjoy learning, and so want to do it all their lives.
OUTLINE
The paper begins with a discussion on the learning problems of students
now. Then it discusses desirable goals for education.
The main body develops the concept of highly interactive multimedia learning
software, and a distance learning system based on such software. This
could be at all levels, from birth to death.
The paper concludes with a return to the initial problems, and a
discussion of how problems may be resolved by the system proposed.
FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM
The emphasis as mentioned is on lifelong learning,
from early childhood to old age, not just schools, universities,
and training programs within companies. Such learning is essential for
the new century. All students will master the material they study.
The student's interaction with the learning material on the computer will
be through the student's natural language. The programs will resemble a
conversation between a student and a human tutor. This is what is meant
by highly interactive, or conversational, learning units. Programs will
ask questions in the students native language, and respond to free-form
student input. Multiple choice and pointing will not be used, as they do
not allow for individualization of education.
An important aspect is that the computer will frequently store
information about the computer, about problems and about how far the
individual student has progressed. These records will be used
frequently within the programs. Thus when a student returns to the
computer, the computer knows about that student, and knows where to
begin the new session.
Voice input will probably be the mode for this interaction. The new
voice input systems from several companies are both effective and
inexpensive, and can be speaker independent in the highly interactive
learning environment. Keyboards will not be needed.
All materials can be directed toward
encouraging everyone to live happily with other people, increasing
problem solving, intuition building, and encouraging creativity.
PRODUCTION OF HIGHLY INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA LEARNING UNITS
Most existing systems for generating learning software do not give major
priority to highly interactive units. So when we first pursued this
goal twenty years ago at the University of California, Irvine, we began
to develop a system for this activity. The major emphasis is on
analyzing free-form natural language input. We did not, and still do
not, use tactics from artificial intelligence, although they may
eventually prove useful for this purpose. About ten years ago friends
University of Geneva joined us in this development, Bernard Levrat and
Bertrand Ibraham, so we refer to this system as the
Irvine-Geneva system.
We consider that there are four stages in the development process, all
about equal in costs. The first, not discussed further, is project
management. The project is complex, and so demands careful management if
it is to stay on time and within estimated costs.
The second stage is the most important activity, pedagogical design.
All the details of the units must be designed at this time.
Two stages are used, but not discussed here.
The key people in the design process are
very good teachers in the area involved, working in
small groups, usually about four. They identify student problems likely at
each point of the interaction with the student, decide how to identify
these problems within the program, and decide what help is necessary
for the individual student to clear up these learning problems.
The teachers formulate the questions to be asked to the students, and
make all the decisions about analyzing student input at this point.
These teachers, working in groups, pool their
experiences with students to make these decisions. These decisions occur
frequently in the design. Thus we combine learning and assessment as
one continuous process, and the assessment is used to
determine what learning material is presented next.
In the early days the design document, the script, was on paper. More
recently Bertrand Ibrahim created an online script editor, allowing
entry of the script, and allowing anything to be changed at later
stages.
The third stage is implementation. Much of the code can be written
by the script editor, but some human coding may be required. Media
mentioned in the design is created by specialists in the area involved.
We do not expect teachers to be excellent graphic artists, for example.
Beta testing is done to find problems in the program.
The last stage is evaluation, both formative and summative. This is
important in improving the learning units. Typical students use the
material, often showing problems with the initial design. These are
corrected. Several stages are used. Much of the data is stored online,
on a moment to moment basis as the students participating in the
evaluation use the programs.
COSTS
Although development cost will be high, but, as is the case with the UK
Open University, very large numbers of students will use the interactive
learning materials. So the cost per student will be much less than for
current systems. In the Open University the costs are about 1/3 of the
costs in traditional universities.
The learning units will be eventually available in many languages.
This will further increase the size of the market, and so further reduce
the cost for each student.
