Modelling Tools for Education

This post is about the possibility of creating free online modelling tools for use in education. This would allow people to learn about a subject by modelling it. The semantic web makes it possible to provide tools and applications to allow modelling and collaboration at low cost. This could also aid engineers and scientists in communication with the public.

Many people who are experts in their field have insufficient time to learn programming, but still want to model the problems they need to tackle in their main occupation or learning. They try to achieve this aim on an ad hoc basis by piecing together information they hold in documents, sketches, spreadsheets, and that's available in systems provided for them by their IT supplier. Holding information in assorted documents is not conductive to efficient sharing and reuse of information. Dependence on information systems that are supplied and customised only by an IT department removes control from the domain expert.

The problems that have developed as a result of the above situations are -

• The skill set of engineers in the UK does not match what is required by industry. Industry wants engineers who can solve problems as a team but most modelling tools are complex, they are all different from each other, and so need specific training. These tools don't share information easily or encourage enough collaboration.

• Because of the problem above, universities are torn between teaching the theoretical underpinning of engineering, and the practical skills of modelling problems. If easy to use collaborative modelling tools become available, universities can teach theory and allow students to apply it in case studies, thereby incorporating both research and practice in their projects.

• Researchers become isolated from lecturers and vice versa as there are insufficient cheap and easy to use collaboration tools that can be used for both research and teaching. There is a need for new modelling tools for teaching that researchers can develop, and lecturers can then also be involved in an interesting research project.

• There are too few tools available for early stage modelling of engineering problems such as a new product design, when there is insufficient information for tools such as CAD (Computer Aided Design) and Finite Element Analysis.

• There is a large tools gap between those an engineer or student might use for simpler problems (such as spreadsheets) and the high end expensive tools such as CAD. This leaves no path for students and engineers to improve their modelling skills systematically and cheaply.

• The public do not understand science and engineering sufficiently, partly because there are too few modelling tools that can readily be accessed to act as a communication aid to the public using interactive technologies.

A solution to these problems is to supply people with the open source tools they need to become end user modellers. This can be part of an overall aim to enable and encourage end user programming and so release the capabilities possessed by domain experts in modelling their problems. This can enable a much faster iterative process of model development, visualisation and rework to enable better product design. To enable this it is important to provide a modelling environment that will cost nothing to use and that will have examples, explanations and instructions together with a high level user interface to maximise ease of use, and minimise the need for programming skills. Then this would be ready for widespread use in teaching and for student projects, the first step is to prototype the modelling technologies.

Such a project should begin by creating web based models for problem solving in partnership with industry. This learning materials should be made available for widespread use. At present there are not enough educational materials provided by universities (other than the Open University) as open access rather than in internal university E-Learning environments. The modelling project could begin with a single university or a small group and particular subjects and broaden by promoting the use of the modelling system in other universities, colleges and companies through national educational and business associations. To achieve these aims lecturers and students should be involved in the creation of the modelling system and use of this system (depending on the course and the skills of those involved in it). A useful aim would be to use the modelling system to promote engineering, and engineering solutions to problems (environmental problems for example) to a sceptical public who see the profession as poorly paid and dirty, 'House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology report science and society' [1], and remote from the public [2]. This dissemination could include schools libraries, and media.

These aims are influenced by the theory of constructionism explained in [3], this involves understanding problems by modelling them.

References

[1] Select Committee on Science and Technology Third Report Ch 2:Public Attitudes and Values-Attitudes to engineering 2.39.

[2] Canavan B, Magill J, Love D, 2002, A Study of the Factors Affecting Perception of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) in Young People, International Conference on Engineering Education, August 18-21, 2002, Manchester, U.K.

[3] Resnick, M., 1996, Distributed Constructionism, Proceedings of the International Conference on the Learning Sciences Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, Northwestern University - http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/Distrib-Construc.html.

I have a home page at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/ that explains my PhD research related to this subject and has examples.

I also have a Modelling page at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/Modelling.htm

Constructionism, Logo, and Seymour Papert

Seymour Papert - Logo

In the mid 1960s Seymour Papert, a mathematician who had been working with Piaget in Geneva, came to the United States where he co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory with Marvin Minsky. Papert worked with the team from Bolt, Beranek and Newman, led by Wallace Feurzeig that created the first version of Logo in 1967.

The Logo Foundation

'Logo is the name for a philosophy of education and a continually evolving family of programming languages that aid in its realization.' Harold Abelson - Apple Logo, 1982. This philosophy is based on Constructivism (a learning theory). The Logo Programming Language, a dialect of Lisp, was designed as a tool for learning. Its features - modularity, extensibility, interactivity, and flexibility follow from this goal. It is used to develop simulations, and to create multimedia presentations. Logo is designed to have a "low threshold and no ceiling": It is accessible to novices, including young children, and also supports complex explorations and sophisticated projects by experienced users. The most popular Logo environments have involved the Turtle, originally a robotic creature that sat on the floor and could be directed to move around by typing commands at the computer. Soon the Turtle migrated to the computer graphics screen where it is used to draw shapes, designs, and pictures.

Further Information

Alan Kay and Seymour Papert envisioned in the 1960's the computer's role as a tool for the mind an 'idea processor'. They have worked at bringing computers into this role for adults and children through Croquet, and several of Croquet's predecessors like the Logo language and environment by Papert, and Squeak, the open source Smalltalk language and environment, by Kay. Squeak and Croquet have developed from the early work in Smalltalk and provided a tool for end user programming, collaboration, visualisation, and simulation.

Constructionism

The work of Seymour Papert demonstrates the approach of Constructionism (Papert and Harel, 1991) (Resnick, 1996). The Constructionism idea is based on the constructivist theories of Piaget. To this theory constructionism "adds the idea that people construct new knowledge with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in constructing personally-meaningful products" (Resnick, 1996). Resnick goes on to say "This vision puts construction (not information) at the center of the analysis. It views computer networks not as a channel for information distribution, but primarily as a new medium for construction, providing new ways for students to learn through construction activities by embedding the activities within a community." Resnick explains the theory known as Distributed Constructionism. This involves a community gaining an understanding of a problem by interacting with a knowledge building community, the problem to be modelled, and tools to model the problem, and build a solution. An example that Resnick cites is the work of Kimberly (1995) where participants became part of the simulation they constructed in order to understand economic models. The idea of constructionism is related to end user programming, and ontology modelling, and building. Resnick explains his use of interactive web based knowledge building communities to use and test the theory.

References

Distributed Constructionism - http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/Distrib-Construc.html - Mitchel Resnick, Proceedings of the International Conference on the Learning Sciences Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, Northwestern University (accepted: March 1996; published: July 1996)

Hamburg University - http://www.erzwiss.uni-hamburg.de/Sonstiges/Logo/logofaqx.htm - LOGO Frequently asked Questions (FAQ).

MIT Logo Foundation, What is Logo? - http://el.media.mit.edu/Logo-foundation/logo/index.html - What is Logo.

Mitchel Resnick - http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/.

Planet Papert - http://www.stager.org/planetpapert.html - Articles by and About Seymour Papert - Gary S. Stager.

Seymour Papert - http://www.papert.org/ - Works by Papert.

Situating Constructionism - http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html - The following essay is the first chapter in Seymour Papert and Idit Harel's book Constructionism (Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991).

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_language - Logo programming language.

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert - Seymour Papert.

I have a web page on end user computing history at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/PeterHale/EndUserHistory.htm

More information on end user programming can be found at http://www.ieuc.org/home.html

@Bristol Imax and Wildwalk to shut

I would be interested in any comments about the future of @Bristol and all its attractions.

In Bristol Evening Post 7th February Bristol North West MP Doug Naysmith is quoted as saying "ministers had previously ignored his warnings that science centres require direct funding" and he wrote to ask ministers "why museums receive funding but science centres do not".

I have been to both @Bristol and the London Science Museum and both to very good work in engaging people of all ages in science and engineering via interactive learning. I don't see there's any clear distinction between a museum and a science centre. Both need to preserve past knowledge and educate people to be involved in future developments. I think all such places should have guaranteed funding each year to allow them to continue, this is essential if this country wants to remain a world player in science and technology. Such investment would be repayed by an enthusiastic new batch of scientists and engineers inspired by their experiences at science centres.

Our government talks about tackling the shortage of people in this country interested in science and technology, and the need for schools, colleges, and universities to promote enthusiasm in their students. The attractions such as @Bristol that are an important resource for education must therefore be properly financed. It isn't sufficient to expect the market to provide such attractions because left to itself the market provides a lot of entertainment facilities that have little or no educational content.

I would be glad of any feedback, comments and opinions on this topic, or any further information and sites that I can add as links.

Links

Save Wildwalk - http://savewildwalk.org.uk/

Save @t Bristol - http://bristol.epetitions.net/

IMAX AND WILDWALK TO SHUT - http://www.thisisbristol.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144936&command=displayContent&sourceNode=144919&contentPK=16572964&moduleName=InternalSearch&formname=sidebarsearch -
This is Bristol in association with the Evening Post 6th February 2007.

MPS UNITED IN AIM TO HELP SAVE CENTRE - http://www.thisisbristol.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144936&command=displayContent&sourceNode=144919&contentPK=16577367&moduleName=InternalSearch&formname=sidebarsearch -
This is Bristol in association with the Evening Post 7th February 2007.

WILD, FUTURE IDEAS - http://www.thisisbristol.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144936&command=displayContent&sourceNode=144919&contentPK=16605701&moduleName=InternalSearch&formname=sidebarsearch - This is Bristol in association with the Evening Post 10th February 2007.

ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTES TO THE MASTER OF WILD FILM - http://www.thisisbristol.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144936&command=displayContent&sourceNode=144919&contentPK=16611837&moduleName=InternalSearch&formname=sidebarsearch -
This is Bristol in association with the Evening Post 10th February 2007.

@Bristol - http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/

Wildscreen - http://www.wildscreen.org

Discovering Bristol Science City - http://www.southwestrda.org.uk/news/release.asp?ReleaseID=1839 - 2nd February 2007.

Innovation Initiatives -
http://www.southwestrda.org.uk/what-we-do/innovation/innovationinitiative/inspire-sw-projects.shtm#eef - Inspire SW - Projects.

Web 2.0 and Microsoft's response, and Educational Web 2.0 tools

Web 2.0 and Microsofts' response

This is an interesting article about how Microsoft might respond to the availability of web 2.0 software such as word processors and spreadsheets over the web.

How Will Microsoft Respond To Online Office Threat - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_office_online_threat.php - West Suffolk College E-Learning News.

These are interesting links I've found from this course on the subject of e-learning using web 2.0 technologies.


Information from Netskills Course

Web 2.0 Information

DownloadSquad - http://www.downloadsquad.com/category/social-software

Pipes and Filters for the Internet - http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/pipes_and_filte.html - Tim O'Reilly on February 07, 2007.

Web 2.0 Tutorials

This is a free internet and web course - TONIC - The Free to Use Internet Course - http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/products/online/index.html

This is an interesting video presentation about web 2.0 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&eurl= - Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us.

E-learning blogs

Bath E-learning team - http://www.bath.ac.uk/dacs/cdntl/pMachine/morriblog.php

EdTechUK - http://fraser.typepad.com/edtechuk/

Suffolk e-learning services - http://suffolkelearning.blogspot.com

West Suffolk College - http://wscelearning.blogspot.com/


Wiki Sites and tools

Netskills - http://netskills.wetpaint.com/
Infoteach - http://www.infoteach.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Communities

Elgg - http://elgg.net/ - Who's interested in e-learning
Digg - http://digg.com/view/technology - Technology

JISC

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/- The mission of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is to provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of Information and Communications Technology to support education and research.

Structured Languages

Busy users will not be interested in a system that is difficult to use, but the system must still give reasonable results. So it is necessary to make it as easy as possible for a user to enter the information the software needs. Structured languages can be the solution to this problem because they can be understood by a user, and the language is constructed using mathematical rules. Therefore the structured language presents a mathematical representation to the computer and a natural language or diagrammatic representation to the user. (Borthick et al. 2001) explain however, that ambiguity in natural language can make it difficult to translate natural language into SQL.

It is possible to create an extra layer to enable users to specify commands in structured language. This approach of adding extra layers is the way visual programming works. Users provide the information the program needs at the visual interface layer and program code is created automatically. The layers provide the bridge between abstract ideas and computer code. If this approach is taken to its logical conclusion, we could allow the user to specify what the computer should do. Then each layer would communicate this to the layer below until the computer performs the action required. A simple example of this approach is the use of spreadsheets. A user can specify a calculation in mathematical terms using a formula. The spreadsheet then calculates the result of the formula. The user can change the formula if it is incorrect without any need to write code or re-compile. This accounts for the popularity of spreadsheets. However, spreadsheets do not provide the centralised and structured data-store required for a distributed system. Such systems can be made much more powerful if the information is codified into a relational database structure. Then On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) can be used for more sophisticated data collection and analysis. Lau et al. (2001) explain how OLAP displays a multi-dimensional view of aggregated data, and presents a Rule-Based Analytical Processing (RBOLAP) model which can be used for decision support. The use of RBOLAP techniques is demonstrated using a case study on a mould and die information network.

Sutton (2001) and Huber (2001) illustrate how codifying knowledge into a knowledge based system for decision support is likely to be very difficult. Most people 'just do' a task and therefore never write down instructions for others. This highlights the difficulty of getting information into a knowledge base when it may be either only in individuals' minds, or completely unstructured.

Information is scattered within organisations and often not held in such a structured way as to be easily accessed by employees or software. This problem was examined by Lau et al (2005) using the example of McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing), that demonstrated how difficult it is to gather unstructured knowledge. Therefore, it is important that research is undertaken into methods of capturing, structuring, distributing, analysing, and visualising information.

I have a web page relevant to this post at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/ModellingSemanticWeb.htm.

References

Borthick, A. F., Bowen, P. L., Donald, R. J., Micauel, H. K. T., 2001. The effects of information request ambiguity and construct incongruence on query development. Decision Support Systems Vol 32 pp 3-25.

Huber, G. P., 2001, Transfer of knowledge in knowledge management systems: unexplored issues and suggested studies. European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 10 pp 80-88.

Lau, H. C. W., Bing, J., Lee, W. B., Kau, K. H., 2001. Development of an intelligent data-mining system for a dispersed manufacturing network. Expert Systems Vol 18(4).

Lau, H. C. W., Ning, A., Pun, K. F., Chin, K. S., Ip, W. H., 2005. A knowledge-based system to support procurement decision. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(1), pp 87-100.

Sutton, D. C., 2001, What is knowledge and can it be managed?. European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 10 pp 72-79.

Programming by Example - Visual Interfaces

In the mid 1970s Smith introduced the technique of Programming by Example with a program called Pygmalion, Smith elaborated on this in Watch What I Do: Programming by Demonstration (Chapter 1). This demonstrated the need to describe algorithms through concrete examples rather than abstractly. 'Example-based Programming: a pertinent visual approach for learning to program' (Guibert et al, 2004) explain and expands on Smiths work with an example demonstrating how numbers fail to reveal the concept behind them. The example is a numerical representation of a triangle. This representation is 'fregean' because it does not show the concept of a triangle. Next to this is a diagram of the triangle that does show the concept. Next to this is a diagram of the triangle that does show the concept, this is referred to as 'analogical' representation because it includes the context of the information. Including the context of the information allows a person to discover meanings or relationships in the information which would not always be obvious. (Hanna, 2005) and (Elliott, 2006)provide an interface for direct manipulation of shapes in this analogical way by creating an interactive triangle manipulation example using the Haskell functional programming language.

Semantic web languages allow for the context of the information to be represented in documents and so make it possible to represent information in an analogical way, as well as allowing two way interaction, leading to an improvement in information discovery.

The development of visual user interfaces has been a major step forward. The use of pictorial metaphors such as folders to represent a collection of files has greatly aided human computer interaction. Pictorial metaphors give visual feedback so the user knows what the software system is doing. This technique can be used more dynamically in simulations. Simulations represent the real world problem and provide constant feedback to the user on how the system is progressing. In this sense, all software should be regarded as a simulation. Pictorial metaphors are static, while a users' mental model is made up of mental images connected together by a set of rules. The user runs a mental model like a simulation. Static user interfaces rely on a user to string together images into a mental model which correctly represents what the system is doing. A user may generate a mental model in response to user interface metaphors which is inconsistent with the system model.

Simulation can help to ensure that the designers' model, system model and users' model are all the same. This subject is explored in [Crapo et al. 2000 and 2002] and is the basis of the visualisation techniques used to enable the user to create and understand models that are subsequently translated into software representations. This is also explained in chapter one of Watch What I Do: Programming by Demonstration [Cypher, 1993], explains how the Pygmalion language attempts to bridge the gap between the programmer's mental model of a subject and what the computer can accept. The author of this system David Smith went on to develop office oriented icons as part of the Xerox's "Star" computer project.

My research based on these ideas is available at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/Visualisation.htm

and my examples at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/InteractiveSVGExamples.htm

References

Smith, D. C., 1977. A Computer Program to Model and Stimulate Creative Thought. Basel: Birkhauser.

Smith, D. C., 1993. Pygmalion: An Executable Electronic Blackboard. In: A. Cypher, ed. Watch What I Do: Programming by Demonstration. MIT Press, Chapter 1 http://www.acypher.com/wwid/Chapters/01Pygmalion.html - ISBN:0262032139.

Guibert, N., Girard, P., Guittet, L., 2004. Example-based Programming: a pertinent visual approach for learning to program. Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces. pp 358-361 - ISBN:1-58113-867-9.

Hanna, K., 2005. A document-centered environment for Haskell. 17th International Workshop on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages IFL 2005 Dublin, Ireland - September 19-21 2005.

Elliott C., - Functional Programming by Interacting with Tangible Values - http://conal.net/papers/Eros/ - Conal Elliott - April 8, 2006.

Crapo, A. W., Waisel, L. B., Wallace, W. A., Willemain, T. R., 2002. Visualization and Modelling for Intelligent Systems. In: C. T. Leondes, ed. Intelligent Systems: Technology and Applications, Volume I Implementation Techniques, 2002 pp 53-85.

Crapo, A. W., Waisel, L. B., Wallace, W. A., Willemain, T. R., 2000. Visualization and the process of modeling: a cognitive-theoretic view. Conference on Knowledge Discovery in Data - Proceedings of the sixth ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining pp 218-226.

Cypher, A., 1993. Watch What I Do Programming by Demonstration. MIT Press, Chapter 1 http://www.acypher.com/wwid/Chapters/01Pygmalion.html - ISBN:0262032139.