Developing Modular and Adaptable Courseware Using TeachML

This paper presents the use of an XML grammar for two complementary projects--CHAMELEON (Cooperative Hypermedia Adaptive MultimEdia Learning Objects) and EIT (Enabling Informal Teamwork). Areas of applications are modular courseware documents and the collaborative authoring process of didactical units. A number of requirements for a suitable document format are identified. After comparing existing solutions, TeachML, an XML based document format for adaptable courseware documents and reusable didactical units, is introduced. The paper describes how courseware documents can be adapted to the learner's previous knowledge, aims, and infrastructure. Then the process of creating different output documents from a TeachML source is explained. Considerations about the development process of learning material within a professional publishing environment are outlined, leading to the necessity of a virtual repository for storing courseware documents and media assets. (Contains 17 references.) (AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Developing Modular and Adaptable Courseware Using TeachML 00 Cq (-1 .c) c, Dipl.-Inform. Frank Wehner, Dipl.-Inform. Alexander Lorz Dresden University of Technology (21 Heinz-Nixdorf-Endowed Chair for Multimedia Technology [-T4 01062 Dresden, Germany frank.wehner, alexander.lorz } @inf tu-dresden.de Abstract: In this paper we present the use of an XML grammar for two complementing projects CHAMELEON and EIT. Areas of application are modular courseware documents and the collaborative authoring process of didactical units. A number of requirements for a suitable document format will be identified. After comparing existing solutions we introduce TeachML, our XML based document format for adaptable courseware documents and reusable didactical units. We describe how courseware documents can be adapted to the learner' s previous knowledge, aims and infrastructure. Then the process of creating different output documents from a TeachML source will be explained. We continue with considerations about the development process of learning material within a professional publishing environment, leading to the necessity of a virtual repository for storing courseware documents and media assets. In this paper we present the use of an XML grammar for two complementing projects CHAMELEON and EIT. Areas of application are modular courseware documents and the collaborative authoring process of didactical units. A number of requirements for a suitable document format will be identified. After comparing existing solutions we introduce TeachML, our XML based document format for adaptable courseware documents and reusable didactical units. We describe how courseware documents can be adapted to the learner' s previous knowledge, aims and infrastructure. Then the process of creating different output documents from a TeachML source will be explained. We continue with considerations about the development process of learning material within a professional publishing environment, leading to the necessity of a virtual repository for storing courseware documents and media assets.