Framework for the Development of Educational Software

The use of computer networks and information technology are becoming an important part of the everyday work in almost all professions, especially in scientific areas, and facing new education concepts, many universities and education organizations decided to plan new strategies concerning computer based technologies. As a result of these developments Computer Aided Education (CAE) methods came out. These methods have been used and developed for more than fifteen years in many universities and organizations. The goal of CAE is to develop the learning capacity of students and to increase the teaching productivity and effectiveness of instructors with the help of advanced computer based technology. It is in this context that the work proposes a framework for the development of educational software. This framework is in development and will have CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) features, because it will be supported by X-TEC model (TechnoDidactical Extension for Instruction/Learning Based on the Computer). With the specifications of this model we can create and reuse the learning objects in order to reach a one specific audience. The architecture is composed by three tiers: User interface, rules and persistence. In the first tier we have three components: graphic editor, RAD editor and code generation. The graphic editor makes possible the edition of the diagrams of model X-TEC, which are stored in a data repository. The RAD editor allows creating educational software (e.g. tutorials, drills) through pre-defined templates. The code generation component will be responsible for the automatic creation of educative software for the web environment, since, the generated code is HTML language. The software is based in the specifications of the domain of the problem, internal specifications of the X-TEC model and in a set of templates. The system encourages the style of incremental development, iteractive and based on a prototype, so that in each/every phase models are built or enriched. Key-Words: X-TEC model, Instructional Strategies, Software Architecture, Data Repository, Code Generation, Windev Software.