Reusable Instructional Visualization Modules

Abstract

Rapid advancement in computer, communication, and presentation technology produces new forms of media and communications which can be used to increase the quality of educational documents visualizing complex technical problems. To help students learn difficult concepts, interactive learning software needs specific capabilities for simulation, visualization, and real-time data collection, as well as tools for analyzing, modeling, and annotating data. Such interactive, dynamic representations are meanwhile the core content of educational learning modules. These representations have to be combined flexibly with many kinds of contexts: diverse classroom presentations, tutorials, experimentation notebooks, and standardized assessments (req. #2). In order to achieve that goal, the standardization of so-called Learning Objects has become an important issue.