=Paper=
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|id=Vol-1238/paper8
|storemode=property
|title=DDART: An awareness system to favor reflection during project-based learning
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1238/paper8.pdf
|volume=Vol-1238
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ectel/JiMLG14a
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==DDART: An awareness system to favor reflection during project-based learning==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1238/paper8.pdf
DDART: an Awareness System to Favor Reflection
during Project-Based Learning
Min Ji1, 2, Christine Michel1, 2, Elise Lavoué1, 2, Sébastien George3
1
Université de Lyon, CNRS
2
INSA-Lyon, LIRIS, UMR5205, F-69621, France
{min.ji; christine.michel; elise.lavoue}@liris.cnrs.fr
3
LUNAM Université, Université du Maine, EA 4023, LIUM, 72085 Le Mans, France
sebastien.george@univ-lemans.fr
1 Introduction
Our research aims to improve learners’ reflection and self-regulation in Project-Based
Learning (PBL). Actually, we observe that the implementation of PBL in engineering
schools, universities or professional training do not benefit from all its capacities,
because it is often action (according to the Kolb’s learning cycle) which is favored to
the detriment of reflection and personal experience [1]. Our approach considers Self-
Regulated Learning (SRL) as a major component of PBL to bring learners to self-
reflect on their experience and to apply metacognitive skills.
We focus our work on the design and the development of a dashboard based on
both reporting and activity traces [2]. The activity traces are automatically produced
by the users’ actions and recorded directly by the LMS during the learning activities.
The reporting traces are information reported by the learners themselves. Most dash-
boards use only automatic activity traces to produce indicators. We state that the ag-
gregation of these two types of traces allow producing more meaningful indicators for
the learners [3].
Most existing dashboards are designed for the tutors to monitor the learners but
they are rarely designed for the learners to support awareness during their activities.
Furthermore, the indicators are mostly predefined and the users can rarely build their
own indicators [3]. In this paper, we present the DDART system, which is composed
of two specific tools: a reporting tool that aims at enhancing learners’ reflection dur-
ing project-based learning and a tool to help learners to produce their own indicators
for enhancing awareness during their project. These two tools are integrated into a
same system (DDART) to enhance learners’ self-regulation thanks to personalized
indicators presented on a dashboard.
2 A reporting tool and a dynamic dashboard
We developed a Dynamic Dashboard Based on Activity and Reporting Traces
(DDART). We chose to implement this dashboard as a plug-in of the Moodle plat-
form. In our context, project members use the Moodle tools (wiki, forum, chat...) to
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DDART: awareness system to favor reflection during project-based learning - ARTEL14
carry out the project. They are also asked to use a reporting tool to describe and keep
traces of the project events.
The reports are composed of semi-structured sentences so that this text information
can be collected and analyzed automatically [2]. Two types of reports are possible:
the goal report and the activity report. The former is written at the beginning of the
project to assist learners to plan their project and to set the goals they want to achieve.
The later can be filled in during the project. By completing the semi-structured sen-
tences, learners can describe the ways they carry out the project, their states of mind,
their judgments (who do what, when, where, with whom and how), their level of ac-
quisition of knowledge and skills. The semi-structured sentences are more flexible
than structured sentences and keep the possibility to collect organized and computable
data. By applying this reporting tool, learners can self-reflect on how they carried out
activities and learn how to organize their ideas and how to write effective reports.
We designed a specific interface to help learners to build their own indicators (see
Fig. 1). This interface is composed of three main parts: (1) the “parameters” part (see
Fig. 1.a), on the left side, contains the list of all the parameters which are available for
creating an indicator, (2) the “calculation” part (see Fig. 1.b and c), in the center, al-
lows learners to place the parameters and view the indicator results and (3) the “visu-
alization modes” part (see Fig. 1.d), on the right side. This user-friendly interface
allows learners to create the indicators by dragging and dropping the parameters and
the visualization mode. The calculation function is WYSIWYG: the results can be
calculated in real-time so that learners can easily adjust the parameters. At last, the
presentation of indicators on a dashboard provides awareness to the learners about the
way they carry out the project and also about the building of knowledge and skills.
Fig. 1. The interface to assist learners to create personalized indicators
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DDART: awareness system to favor reflection during project-based learning - ARTEL14
The semi-structured sentences of the reporting tool (reporting traces) and the traces
of use of Moodle (activity traces) are respectively recorded in an XML database
(BaseX) and in a relational database (MySQL). These two kinds of traces are de-
scribed according to the same five common entities: Learner, Tool, Activity, Time
and Place. They are merged according to a common time basis and are stored into a
transformed traces base. The transformed traces are used to produce indicators stored
in a dedicated database [2]. An indicator is defined by 5 parameters:
• X entity and Y entity: these parameters can be chosen by the learners
among the instances of the five entities extracted from the transformed
traces (Learner, Tool, Activity, Time, Place). These entities are used to
specify the events the learners want to observe.
• Value: this parameter sets the type of aggregation proposed to produce the
data presented into the indicator. Four possibilities are proposed: frequen-
cy, time interval, time spent, content.
• Calculation function: the learners can refine the analysis of values by de-
fining other mathematic formula based on sum, difference, comparison
and average.
• Visualization: DDART offers eleven visualization modes for learners (pie
chart, bar chart, line chart, gauge chart, social network, scatter chart, area
chart, table, tree map, combo chart and Gantt).
3 Conclusion
In this paper, we have presented the basis of the DDART system. This system can
help learners to collect, analyze and visualize their reporting and activity traces in the
form of meaningful indicators. By allowing learners to create their own indicators, we
aim at making them learn how to regulate their learning activities. The traces collect-
ed in the reporting tool allow the construction of advanced indicators that can help
learners to build metacognitive skills. For example, the indicators can support the
analysis of behavior by comparing the learners’ feeling about their activities (subjec-
tive) with the realization mode of the activities (objectively recorded by the system).
References
1. Thomas, J., Mengel, T.: Preparing project managers to deal with complexity – Advanced
project management education. International Journal of Project Management. 26, 304-
315 (2008).
2. Ji M., Michel C., Lavoué E., George S. Combining Activity Traces and Reporting Traces
to Support Self-Regulation Processes. 13th IEEE International Conference on Advanced
Learning Technologies (ICALT 2013), Beijing, China, 15-18 July 2013, p. 432-436.
3. Ji M., Michel C., Lavoué E., George S. DDART, a Dynamic Dashboard for Collection,
Analysis and Visualization of Activity and Reporting Traces. 9th European Conference
on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2014), Graz, Austria, 16-19 September
2014, to be published.
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