observation tools that the platform proposes to them
for monitoring the learning situations. Discussions
focused on the needs of organizing observation
(autonomy, choice of indicators, etc.), the way of
restitution of the results (moment, format, etc.) the
needs for broadcasting these results and the
possibility of reusing the same organization from a
pedagogical scenario execution (session) to another.
The interview has followed a roadmap to treat all
the points related to our hypothesis placing the
instructional designer at the center of the observation
activity. The interviews were, also, an opportunity to
test a first version of our questionnaire on the study
of needs and practices in observation.
First Analysis of Interviews
The analysis of the interviews made with
instructional designers of Multimedia Department of
the Technology Institute of Laval allowed us to
highlight three different categories of results:
a) Position Relatively to the Existing Devices
Regarding the existing tools, teachers we
interviewed indicated that the platform UMTice of
the University of Maine already provides tools to
observe learning situations: the Moodle activity
reports, histories, reports of participation or statistics
on the purposes. These tools allow them mainly to
identify the resources consulted, the users of a forum
and the consultation rate per student of educational
resources available online. Teachers said they used
this information to get an idea of learners who show
a real interest for resources to prepare activities that
require the information contained in these resources.
Due to poverty of visualization and indicators
perception tools, some teachers tried to use an
external tool to the platform UMTice, called Gismo
(Mazza and Milani, 2004). Instructional designers
find easier the analysis, understanding and use of
graphics and color codes of Gismo. The teachers
using Gismo do not say to be completely satisfied
with this tool because they find the number of
indicators viewed very small and these indicators
focus on the visualization of relational behavior
between learners (initiated discussions, participants,
exchanged messages, etc.) and not on activities or
productions made in solving exercises, for example.
Some instructional designers proceed in a different
way to consider indicators provided by UMTice.
They export them to an Excel file and then analyze
them. It appears that this additional activity is time
consuming and therefore, after a while of using this
method, they stopped to use it.
b) Desired Improvements
The improvements wanted by instructional designers
interviewed are many and it is important to mention
some of them. There is an unanimous wish to have
more structured forms of indicators restitution, such
as tables, graphs, and especially time lines and color
codes. Teachers interviewed are convinced that the
visualization of an indicator in different ways,
through different visualization structures increase
their understanding of the information carried by the
indicator. Teachers expressed the need to identify
the most active members through forums and who
participate the most in collaborative learning. Some
teachers have expressed their wish to go to a finer
grain in the visualization of consultations of the
resource base. They want, for example, to know the
indexes of pages consulted, consultation time,
current activity during the consultation, etc.
Teachers have also expressed their desire to have an
evolution in the time of the indicator values to verify
that the interventions made on pedagogical scenarios
have improved the learning activity.
c) Appreciation of the Proposed Solution
The analysis of the outcome of the interview also
shows that instructional designers are favorable to
the idea of having a tool that provides a rich choice
of indicators to be displayed, depending on the
activity carried out, and return them at the desired
time and in a more accessible and understandable
format without using an additional activity. It is
important also to note that the teachers interviewed
found interesting the possibility to use in their
observation activity, an editor to define
configurations of observation, to capitalize, share
and reuse them. It should be noted, too, that the need
for indicators in real time is not really expressed,
insofar as they are not faced with such a situation in
their use of the platform, but they find the idea
interesting. Instructional designers showed a real
interest in our proposal to provide them with a
graphical editor of observation strategies whose use
could be available to all teachers, whatever their
level in computer science.
3.2 Outcomes from Theoretical Studies
Many research works dealt with some observation
aspects. Some of them are focusing on the display of
the observation results to the right recipients. They
generally provide a set of visualization tools allowing
a better understanding and interpretation of the
results. The visualization of indicators can be
achieved by means of different views, supporting the
isolation of interesting phenomena, and allowing an
intuitive vision of what happened (Dyke and al.,
2009).
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