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cK¢ wikibook.
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You will find in this book a synthesis of a set of projects which share the common objective of building a framework to facilitate and enhance the ways we could take into account our knowledge of learners in the design learning environments. It is possible that the most original aspect of this project is to root its construction in both educational and computational research, in a balance way, by building a bridge between both communities and related theoretical approaches.
The project was initiated by the Grenoble "Models and Technology for Human Learning" (MeTAH) research group in the early 90s. It has extended to an international community which is now involved in the collective venture of writing this wikibook.
To understand learners understanding is one of the basic requirements for an efficient and reliable design of learning situations and learning environments. It is, as we are now convinced, as critical as understanding well the knowledge to be taught or learned. Research on the learners understanding or learners knowledge represents a large part of the scientific programme in educational sciences and educational technology, however there is clear evidence that there is little convergence between both -- or, if it exists, the convergence is very local. Indeed paying attention to the learner is not new, but the "student-centered learning environment" movement has brought to the fore the necessity for explicit, tractable and reliable ways of taking into account the learner which is seen as a complex and active constructor of knowledge.
In educational technology, especially in Artificial Intelligence and Education (AI&Ed.), this has taken the form of a large number of projects on student modeling. However the notion of "model of the learner" do have very different meanings and take different forms often dependent on the theoretical and computational framework. There is a large diversity of approaches in education as well which depends on the emphasis some dimensions (e.g. cognitive processes, language, social interaction, context, etc.), or the relation to more general theoretical framework (eg. classical constructivism, collaborative learning, ACT, activity theory, etc.). This brief description evokes the diversity within each research sector, education and technology, and suggests the diversity of the relationships between these domains. Is it possible to simplify this situation and facilitate some convergence and integration? Our belief is that the answer should be positive, even if proposing solutions will be a challenge even, and it is our case, if we are targetting not a unique approach but a system of frameworks which could cooperate. We are not the only ones to take up such a challenge, John Self proposal for a science of learning system design to which he gave a name: computational mathetic -- goes in the same direction. Our proposal for a computational didactics in the mid-90s seems to have the same ambition, although the point from which we started was rather different. In our case the idea originated in the theory of didactical situations and the theory of conceptual fields, and did not aim at proposiing a new theory but at shaping and implementing a tool (a modeling framework) which work as a bridge between different approaches; especially a bridge between educational and computation sciences.
We have chosen the word “conception” as a starting point. This word has been used for years in educational research, but most often as a common sense notion rather than explicitly defined. Let say that it functions as a tool, as a common reference when one wants to speak about learners ways of knowing. But its definition remains implicit and it is not taken as an object of study as such. The most popular use of this word is actually in the expression "misconception" which refers primarily to the fact that learners ways of knowing are often alien to the commonly accepted and socially shared knowledge of reference. It is our claim that there is a need for a better grounded definition of conceptions, and for tools allowing to analyse their differences and commonalities. And it is from this point that we may design and build a tool facilitate our work, either as reseachers in education or technology, when facing the diversity of the approaches, framework and models currently used to take the learner into account.
To design the model cK¢ we have revisited the definition of "conception", "knowing" and "concept" in what we could call a pragmatic way, on these definition we have built the modeling tool and specified its relations with some theories, especially the Theory of didactical situations and the Anderson ACT theory. The application to the design of learning situations and technology enhanced learning environment is then illustrated in several domains (e.g. mathematics, surgery, physics, biology).
This wikibook welcomes all contributions as it is traditionnaly possible in a wiki. However, because of its specific content these contributions have to pass through a review process before being released. This process is managed by the editorial board in a transparent way, with documented interactions with the contributors. Each page is under the responsability of an editor, it has an identified first authors and all contributors will be listed.
If you use any material coming from this wikibook or quote any of its content, please refer to it by giving the URL of the site and the title of the page. It may be often possible to come back to the classically published document and refer to them, although even in this case it would be fair to mention the use of the cK¢ wikibookas a resource.
