learning objects
One of the main reasons for the success of the WWW was and still is, that it is very easy to provide information in form of HTML pages, videos and – especially interesting for learning applications – Java applets. Furthermore, additional information already available on the web can be integrated into the own pages, with just adding a simple link. Unfortunately the easiness and because of this the exponential growing of obtainable information is meanwhile also the reason for the so called ”information overload” in the Web these days. The search engine ”AltaVista”, for example, offers currently more than 8000 entries for the topic ”Image Compression”. The search for additional material becomes quite laboriously for a teacher who wants to retrieve supplementary texts, videos or animations. The problem is that it is still not possible to describe the content of HTML pages, videos or applets in an adequate way. With metadata users can describe much more accurately what kind of information they actually want to find. Recently, standards are about to be developed in order to describe the Web resources in detail.
Descriptions
of metadata and how can they enhance learning systems can be found on the
page about Multibook’s knowledge
base.
One of the aims of the Multibook project is the combination of the Multibook data model with the upcoming standards. The Dublin Core scheme is an example for a general description of documents. A metadata standard especially tailored to suit learning resources is currently developed by the IEEE Working Group 1484.12.
By using
meta information Multibook will be able to offer the learners lessons not
only consisting of Multibook resources but also of external information.
The
Multibook knowledge base
Teaching
by using animations
The
user profile
Adaptivity
The
architecture of the Multibook system