The PALO Language : A Cognitive Approach of Educational Modelling Languages CEN/ISSS EML PT Meeting Miguel Rodríguez Artacho EML PT Technical Editor Torino October 2, 2001 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Dept. Languages and Computer Systems

Contents Definition and Use of an EML Components of Instructional Systems in the PALO Language Description levels Examples Authoring Process with PALO Experiences

What is an ELM An EML is a declarative description of: Educational content Components Activities Scheduling Organized in courses or Units of Study

Inmmediate benefits of an EML A technological independence from the final delivery format: CD-ROM, PDF, E-BOOK, Interactive WEB SITE... Higher level of abstraction in the authoring process. Maintainability & Reusability.

How: The description of an Instructional system Structure Domain knowledge Activities & tools Model of use Instructional Model Generic EML’s XML file Technology independent description

Why do we need this? Interoperability +Interchangeability +Maintainability +Reusability = STANDARDS

Structure Defines the organization of the learning material, resources and activities. Ex. “Course”, “Module”, “Part”, “Subpart”,... Depending on the delivery format, this can describe the “table of contents” (printed delivery format), the navigational model (HTML delivery format), etc.

Domain Knowledge The content matter of the learning scenario, Course or Unit of Study Different approaches (REUSABILITY and GRANULARITY) Local Resources (labelled with metadata) Ex. IMS Content Packaging Distributed resources (id.) Ex. ARIADNE KPS Knowledge representation based on an ontology Cognitive approach used in PALO Language

Activities and tools Describe the work with the learning material and the interaction of the communities in the Instructional System Classification of activities depend on the pedagogical approach of the learning scenario Collaborative / Individual Interactivity Management of tools

Individual/Cooperative paradigm Description of the of comunities, and roles of the participants in a given activity Explicit description of the communities involved in an activity Based in the description of Activity Theory (Nardi, 96)

Instructional Model Some features of the EML could allow the creation of learning scenarios with a given pedagogical or instructional model Pedagogical model is implicit in the DTD (Instructional templates) Explicit elements of the EML (tags) can define scenarios based in a given instructional theories (constructivist elements in PALO)

EML vs. PALO EMLPALO Learning Model Individual/Co operative Individual StructureUnit of StudyCourses Domain Model Knowledge Object Domain Ontologies Theories of instruction Explicit Embedded Instructional Templates

Authoring Process Concepto Ejercita Problema Es Solución Solución <cea nombre=“cea.dtd” con Linux" dir="ricli9900" <bdobjetos tipo <bdobjetos tipo <metainformacion tipo="dc" cod="rfc2731"> UNED... Selection of a DTD According to the Pedagogical model Design of the Domain Model Creation of the PALO description Instance of the Domain Model

Labels in PALO DESIGN LEVEL LABELSATTRIBUTES Management Level Gestión (management) Bdobjetos (objectsdb) Bdtareas (taskdb) Metainformación (Metadata) Tipo (type) Lugar (host) Sgbd (dbms) Scheduling Level Fecha (date) Structure Level directorio (directory) apartado (part) modulo (module) subapartado (subpart) tema (part) subtema (subpart) Sección (secction) Nombre (name) Etiqueta (label) Traza (trace) Task Level Tarea (task) Calificador (calificator) Nombre (name) tipo (type) Puntuable (assesable) peso (weight) traza (trace) Content Level Talcual (as-is) Lista (list) Elemento (element) Relación (relation) Glosario (glossary) tipo (type) sujeto (antecedent) dominio (domain) faq Nombre (name) Categoría (category)

Cognitive Design Process Creation of a generic domain to describe content matter = ONTOLOGY Creation of one or more instances for a particular domain matter Conceptualisation Phase Instantiation Phase

Prob004 Prob003 Prob002 Concept Involve Problem Is Solution Solution An example: Models and Meta-Models Prob001 Involve Con 031 Sol 023 Is Solution Model Instance

PALO production cycle PALO Template (DTD) Domain Knowledge Base PALO File (SGML) PARSER

Editing Process PALO Compiler Domain Model PALO Document Student Scenario Tutor Scenario

Information models Management Use Work (Dymanic) Domain Knowledge Model (Static)

History Started in 1997 in the framework of a CICYT project (Spanish Ministery of Education) Development  PALO v  PALO v2.0 Actually  PALO v3.7 New releases include new tags or new instructional templates (DTD’s)

Actual uses of PALO Open Courses 4 annual courses (Wap technology, Linux Administration, Internet Technologies, web DB-backed sites) More than 650 students Regular matters Support to regular students with Didactic Guide Programming practise environment Evaluation environment

Future developments Migration from SGML to XML New parser tools in java “New” ideas: Resource and tool (Not implicit in the TASK definition) Cooperative activities  Definition of communities and roles that perform an activity Concept of “active Document”  leaves the door open for Adaptability Framework: DiViLAB project Software freely available with GPL Content Definition language for Tec-Infor platform (

Some references... PALO Web site: DiViLAB Project: UNED Dept. Languages and Computer Systems: Thanks!