AN ADAPTABLE E-LEARNING SYSTEM FOR PUPILS WITH SPECIFIC LEARNING DIFFICULTIES Petia Kademova-Katzarova, Rumen Andreev, Valentina Terzieva Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ABSTRACT a special way of perceiving and processing information. These children do not receive teaching The education of pupils with learning difficulties is adequate to their abilities, the education system very complicated due to great variety of their specific rejects them, and society loses specialists with cognitive abilities and psychological factors. It valuable qualities simply because the school failed to requires the use of personalized learning facilities that discover and develop these qualities on time. Typical can help achievement of their learning goals. For that examples are children with dyslexia (dyscalculia, reason we design an adaptable system for dysgraphia), with ADHS and ADS, even with autism. development of tools on the basis of suitable pedagogical methods and learning resources. The 2. PUPILS WITH LEARNING DIFFICULTIES system provides facilities for adaptation of learning units to the learning profile of each pupil. The Dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia are disorders in the substantial elements of this adaptation technique are development of school skills, which are classified in carried out by activities of the resource-developer. the medical registers, though they are not diseases. The paper presents an approach to a description of The perceiving of environment signals and their these activities supported by the adaptable system. processing in the brain shows a specificity that can The adaptation bases on reusable learning units that lead to some distortion of the information and to can be modified in correspondence with the learner’s confusion. For example, in contrast to other people profile, learning context or scenario. the dyslexics think mostly in pictures [6]. Every thought, every idea and every emotion they “see” as a Index Terms – Learning difficulties, Cognitive three-dimensional image in their minds. abilities, Learning style, Adaptation, Personalisation, Consequently, they have problems with two- Reusable learning units dimensional symbols and signs which have to be ordered or directed in a certain way to be deciphered 1. INTRODUCTION correctly. Letters with the same graphical representation but different orientation are There are many electronic educational systems but for confounded (N and Z, b and d). Words without a the purposes of school education almost nothing has picture image as prepositions or adverbs hamper been done in this regard. Rarely as it may be, e- them. Therefore, the so-called “cultural techniques” learning can be found in secondary schools. However [3] – reading, writing, mathematical expressions are teachers don’t utilise modern ICT in primary school. difficult to handle. Long ago children in kindergartens have been playing on computers, but this interesting “thing” is not set to 3. AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SPECIAL work in educational process. The reason probably is EDUCATION the difficulty of creating appropriate educational products for young children, because their teaching According to state requirements such children should requires not only a mechanical "dumping" of useful be integrated together with the others, but they need information and knowledge. The learning process is individual curricula, extra special trained teachers, much more complex and includes structured etc. The aim is to achieve individualization in the presentation of the learning material in appropriate teaching process, using pupil’s strong skills and form and appearance consistent with age and personal qualities, and through appropriate exercises background. to support and develop the weak ones. From another point of view, the education in That is why these pupils with specific learning primary school comes across other important problem (cognitive) difficulties need special education. It – certain characteristics of the individuals might could be achieved by development of e-learning hamper them to acquire basic skills such as reading, system [1] that has to ensure collaboration among all writing, arithmetic. Many children still lag behind in the professionals involved in teaching, generation and this early stage of their education not because they are adaptation of learning facilities. stupid or lazy (common labels), but because they have Psychological Pedagogical Technological Early screening and identification of Individual curricula, personal Tool for generation of computerized children with learning difficulties teaching assistant psychological tests Close collaboration among all Detection of cognitive abilities and professionals concerned with the ICT-based tools allowing collaboration psychological characteristics problem Authoring tool enabling adaptation of Suggestions for appropriate learning resources and building pedagogical methods and formats: personalized learning paths according teaching methods arousing interest Defining of psychological profile to learner’s preferences; and catching attention; inducing an and learning style Incorporation of various instruments emotional connection to the for illustration (audio, video, learning matter; illustrative simulation, 3D-modeling, etc.) representation of learning units contributing efficiency to education Relaxed and adaptable learning ICT-based adaptable user-friendly Recommendations for learning environment enabling to bestow environment (intuitive, language environment (comfortable, without various encouraging bonuses independent, allowing tuning and stress and frustration) (music, videos, games, etc.) contextualization) Table 1 Technological tools meeting psychological and pedagogical requirements for education of pupils with learning difficulties Table 1 gives an overview of the psychological, • Way of thinking – in terms (“sequential”) / in pedagogical and technological requirements for the pictures (“quasi parallel”). education of pupils with specific learning difficulties. Some significant psychological features that have influence on the learning process are self-assessment, 4. CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF AN imagination, patience, excitability and emotionality. ADAPTABLE E-LEARNING SYSTEM All these characteristics could be easily assessed by computerized psychological tests. They should be in The development of personalized e-learning facilities the form of amusing games or entertaining tasks in requires design of adaptable e-learning system that order to prevent stress and frustration, so that children supports production and delivery of learning could do their best. The results and indicators are the resources. We suggest a conceptual model of such basis for the psychological profile of the pupil. This adaptable e-learning system shown on Figure 1. profile determines the teaching style, methods and The basic elements in this model are the learner’s tools which serve to arrange and to accomplish the profile, the pedagogical aspects, the resulting education process in the most appropriate way. pedagogical format and the appropriate learning units. 4.2. The pedagogical room 4.1. The learner’s profile The pedagogical room consists of pedagogical The learner’s profile represents cognitive abilities and methods and pedagogical tools that are in psychological characteristics. It defines a learning correspondence with the learning style. The most style and appropriate pedagogical methods and tools. commonly used pedagogical methods are: The determination of the cognitive abilities depends • Informational – the teaching is performed using on the following important characteristics, which are “instructions”. Key elements of this method are derived during psychological testing: the messages and the symbols. • Memorizing (short term and long term memory), • Phenomenological – the knowledge is build up • Attention, as an event. It is accepted and absorbed through • Concentration, senses and emotions [7]. • Absorption capacity, • Collaborative – this method is connected with • Observing ability, the socio-cultural environment. Thus knowledge • Working capacity, and skills are formed in a family, in a class, • Orientation, Coordination, Balance, communities, societies, ethnic groups, etc. The • Motor functions (fine motor skills), knowledge and the skills are “passed over”, the • Communication skills, experience is shared. Games are typical example • Handling abstract terms and symbols, of this educational approach. declares Subject Domain Learning Goals selects Psychological Test Pedagogical Room Cognitive Abilities: detects Pedagogical strong / weak defines Learning Styles Methods Learner’s Profile Pedagogical Tools determine builds Pedagogical Format implemented New-Composed Units Contextualization used Local Specifics supplied supplied adjusts Ready for Use supplied Fine Tuning Existing Units Unit Reuseable Learning Units Figure 1 Conceptual model of an adaptable e-learning system Children with dyslexia are predisposed to learn and the pedagogical methods and tools are chosen. As mostly by the phenomenological method as they can above mentioned, those are the factors for building observe the action and get a real idea of the the pedagogical format. The latter serves as a frame phenomenon. At the same time they can form an for composing learning units. The activities regarding emotional connection with the subject matter, which constructing of pedagogical formats and learning helps focusing attention and supports the memorizing. units are supported by the ICT-based authoring tool. Considering the methodological recommendations 4.3. The pedagogical format and employing the authoring tool, teachers create new The pedagogical format describes the way of learning units, reuse the existing ones or edit, update knowledge presentation in the learning units. It is them and save for future application. Each learning built on the basis of the selected pedagogical methods unit done according to the above described procedure and tools in compliance with pupils’ learning style. is contextualized with regard to the local specifics and learner’s preferences. Thus, the composed unit is 4.4. The learning units ready for use. The system allows access to learning units stored in databases or repositories. These resources can be 5. FUNCTIONAL MODEL OF THE modified, adapted and reused in a process of E-LEARNING SYSTEM composition of new learning units according to the given pedagogical format [5]. The functional model of e-learning system can be According to the Figure 1, the psychological test represented as composed of three parts [4] – the users, detects the strong and week points of cognitive the ICT platform and their interactions (Figure 2). abilities that have to be underlined in the learner’s Some essential characteristics of the system are: profile. Subject domain contains knowledge about the • To have sufficient technical tools in order to learning subject(s) (reading, writing, language, meet the requirements for diverse presentations mathematics, etc.). It gives the criteria for selecting of the learning matters including sounds, the appropriate personal features from the learner’s pictures, movies, clips, animations etc. profile. On that basis the learning style is determined USERS ICT PLATFORM Intention layer: Conceptual layer: Implementation layer: goals to be obtained methodology authoring tool Professionals Parents Learning Styles Personalization Pupils Examination Composition Presentation Teaching Methods Subjects Abilities Type of Skills INTERACTION Records of the learning process (task – solution – attempts – errors) Adaptation Evaluation Inference Interaction Knowledge Base Figure 2 Functional model of the presented e-learning system • To allow access to appropriate tools for impressions and experiences in parental forums. modelling and design of 3D objects. They can seek advices about problems concerning • To maintain data bases that contain learning the children’s training from the professionals. resources – learning units, learning facilities. Professionals have greater access rights to the • To have user friendly design. system. On the one hand, they must monitor the • To be flexible and adaptable. training process in order to record and analyse the mastering of learning material. Future steps in the 5.1. Users learning path are determined by these records and Among the above mentioned essentials, such a analysis (adaptation). On the other hand, they also system must have very specific features and participate in the forums – both professional and characteristics that meet the requirements and popular. In the first case they share their problems, perform functions of different types of users: ideas, solutions, tips, experiences, arrange 1. Professionals (psychologists, pedagogues – conferences. In the latter case, they give advices methodologists, teachers and speech and suggestions at "common level" in therapists), communication with parents, who generally are not 2. Pupils, experts in the matter. 3. Parents. These types of users (PPP) exploit the facilities 5.2. ICT platform of the system in different ways and in different The ICT platform consists of three layers – capacity and therefore they obtain different access intentional, conceptual and implementation. The rights. intention layer presents learning goals that have to Pupils have access only to learning materials be achieved and are built-in parameters of the e- and to some games and entertainment, which they learning system. Those specify the knowledge, receive as bonuses and rewards in order to be skills and abilities (in one or several subjects) that stimulated to deal with the material. It should be must be acquired, in compliance with the noted that the stimulus should only be positive; i.e. government regulations. there shouldn’t be penalties. The possible approaches to attain the learning Parents have access to the learning outcomes of goals are presented in the conceptual layer. their children and in case they could support According to the personal profile of the child the children in their training. Also they can share ideas, appropriate pedagogical method(s) are selected and implemented so as to achieve the learning goals 6. AN EXAMPLE efficiently. Furthermore, this profile serves for determination of the learning style and gives guide- The children with dyslexia (one of the common lines for the choice of relevant modes and forms of learning difficulties) need visual representation of the examination. The latter shouldn’t be distressful every single conception in order to understand its and upsetting, but motivating the pupils to do their meaning. That is why they have difficulty with best. prepositions, adverbs and similar words. Therefore Methodologists consider motivation and a phenomenological approach is applied for solving learner’s activity as the most important elements for such problems. The Davis’ method [2] is based on successful learning strategy. In order to awake the this technique. It recommends following steps: children’s activity it is necessary to engage them in • clear and precise explanation of the selected the learning process, which could be done best word; through the emotional connection with the learning • helping pupils to use this word in examples; matter. Motivation can be provoked by presenting • motivating them to construct model(s), the subject clearly and precisely so as to be representing their idea of the word. understood and absorbed quickly enough. Thus the The models could be either hand-made of plasticine accomplishment of learning tasks with noticeable (clay), or formed using ICT-based tools (e.g. results forces the motivation and heightens the self- Google SketchUp 6, TopMod3d, etc.). In addition esteem and self-confidence of the child. the modelled word has to be written. In this way the The implementation layer includes diverse child obtains an integral idea of the word: meaning, instruments that serve to gain the learning image and spelling and is able to understand and objectives identified in the intention layer. Modern use it properly. The example on Figure 3 shows the technologies provide a huge range of capabilities to process of building the conception of the adverb assist to the full extent the creation of learning units “backwards”. using different pedagogical formats. The latter are implemented by the specially designed authoring tool. Professionals use this authoring tool to compose learning resources. It supports various functions – development, structuring, reusing and adaptation of learning units, so as to carry out different learning courses and scenarios. In order to meet the necessities of the pupils, determined by their individual cognitive characteristics, the authoring tool must allow adaptation of learning units, regarding the following aspects: • Volume, • Presentation (through different types of media Figure 3 “Backwards” – illustrations, simulations), The child’s explanation was: “Four balls plus • Contextualization: one ball make five balls; ‘Backwards’ means the o Content Localization – language, custom, opposite action”. traditions, etc., o Fine Tuning – font, colour, size; etc. 7. CONCLUSIONS 5.3. Interaction The presented e-learning system exploits The interaction part of the system contains a effectively ICT for gaining better educational database for every child's reactions (assigned tasks, results for all pupils. Obviously, pupils with provided solutions, performed attempts, made learning difficulties have characteristics and errors). On this basis, the professionals can perceptions that distinguish them from the other determine the level of the acquired knowledge and pupils. These differences vary in some extent and infer how to continue the learning path. Besides the cause specific knowledge processing. For that above mentioned the system provides opportunities reason such pupils demand personalized education. to exchange information – opinions, ideas, plans, It should be adapted to their individual cognitive experiences, tips – between the different type of abilities and corresponding learning style. This users on the one hand and among peers on the approach is of benefit for all the children as well, other. Therefore the professionals outline and but it is crucial for these with learning difficulties arrange guidelines for both the further development as dyslexics. and assembling of learning units and any necessary On the other hand, the composition and adaptations to the specific needs of the pupils. adaptation of learning units for learners who need special education is very complicated and fatigue Pupils’ Acquisition of Reading Competence”, process, which requires additional teachers’ International Conference CompSysTech’09. ACM abilities. Hence ICT-based authoring tools are Series, vol. 433, 2009. badly needed and of vital importance nowadays. [2] Davis, R., The Gift of Learning. The Berkley That is the reason for developing a system that Publishing Group, USA, 2003. integrates ICT tools for: [3] M. 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