A Wiki-Based Active Learning System

Indice Introduction Educational aspects Wiki-based lecture notes Conclusions

A wiki-based active learning systemhow to enhance learning material in epistemology

of computer science and computer ethics

(cc) Federico Gobbo and Gaetano Aurelio Lanzarone(federicogobbogaetanolanzarone)uninsubriait

Universita dellrsquoInsubria

Presented at FORMATEX 2006 November


1 IntroductionEpistemology of computer scienceComputer ethics

2 Educational aspects

3 Wiki-based lecture notes

4 Conclusions

Two key questions3 40

First question4 40

Whatrsquos epistemology of computerscience

Second question5 40

Whatrsquos computer ethics


Epistemology of computer science

The goal of the new discipline6 40

Epistemology of computer science aims to investigate thedifferent theories of knowledge underlying computer science andinformatics as well as Artificial Intelligence



A new discipline quite fragmented7 40

There isnrsquot any comprehensive textbook in epistemology ofcomputer science Two main reasons

1 the relative novelty of the discipline

2 different backgrounds of the researchers

However some main problems are generally acknowledged Nowtwo examples
























Alan Turing puts the main challenges of classic AI8 40



Turingrsquos classic the Imitation Game9 40

I propose to consider the question ldquoCan machinesthinkrdquo This should begin with definitions of themeaning of the terms ldquomachinerdquo and ldquothinkrdquo Thedefinitions might be framed so as to reflect so far aspossible the normal use of the words but this attitude isdangerous If the meaning of the words ldquomachinerdquo andldquothinkrdquo are to be found by examining how they arecommonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusionthat the meaning and the answer to the question ldquoCanmachines thinkrdquo is to be sought in a statistical surveysuch as a Gallup poll But this is absurd Instead ofattempting such a definition I shall replace the questionby another which is closely related to it and is expressedin relatively unambiguous words



A visualization of the Imitation Game first phase10 40



A visualization of the Imitation Game second phase11 40

ldquoMacchinardquo is the Italian word for ldquomachinerdquo



An other classic is the Chinese Room argument by Searle12 40



Good questions our students we expect to learn13 40

Is computer science really a science

How should an empirical experiment in computer science becarried out

What is the status of knowledge gained from conducting anexperiment in evolutionary or genetic programming




The need to have a historical background14 40

Our students are graduate in computer science with nophilosophical background We soon realized that these keyquestions are correctly addressed after an introduction to thehistory of computation and logic

In other terms we find that a historical perspective greatly helpsour students to relativize problems ie to understand the maintopics in a more general way



The history of logic15 40

The Ars Magna by Ramon Llull



From Ramon Llull to George Boole and beyond16 40

We explain the influence of Ars Magna by Raimond Llull intoWestern philosophy He was the first to postulate a way tomechanize the whole human thought into algorithms

Then we present the main steps of Western philosophy untilGeorge Boole and beyond At the end students understand whatis behind an everyday tool as Boolean Logic



The history of calculating machines17 40

Babbagersquos Difference Engine realized in meccano



From the abacus to modern computers18 40

We are deeply convinced that there are profound relations betweenthe history of calculation and the developments of the calculatingmachines

Our students learn a common background with students comingfrom humanities We are trying to break the Two Culturesapproach ie technologists vs humanists in favour of aRenaissance model



Being in and out at the same time19 40


Computer ethics

The epistemological foundation of Computer Ethics20 40

Computer Ethics start point technology should not beconsidered as a social monad ie a factor neutral in relation tosocial change but as socially determined ndash eg the debate free vsopen source software has social and political implications

Although computer ethics issues started as a branch ofepistemology of computer science this field has achieved a statusof relative autonomy at least since the fundamental work ofDeborah Johnson


Computer ethics

Some issues in computer ethics21 40

Is computer ethics indipendent from ldquogeneralrdquo ethics

Privacy freedom vs security

Copyright from free software to open source up to creativecommons

Artificial ethics may expert systems substitute humans Whynot

Professional codes of ethics for computer scientists


The need of lecture notes in our discipline22 40

Ours is the first experience in Italy so there isnrsquot any material inItalian we had to prepare lecture notes almost from scratch

In our view the lecture notes should be considered both as apreliminary textbook for our students and far more importantly asthe starting point to their homework


A metodology based on active tasks23 40

Students lsquolearn by doingrsquo they write some assessments and a finalessay about some topics The best one we used as complementarymaterial for next yearsrsquo students

Advantages (a) we may be surprised by the active tasksperformed by students and so learn something new obtaining goodfeedback for what we teach (b) active tasks commit students tolearn about learning ie they metalearn in particular rhetorics andlogics of argumentative writing


The need of lecture notes de- and reconstruction24 40

Some lectures are dedicated to deconstructing the myth of newand old writing media such as the web as an always trustablesource of public information and books as the unique mediacarrying state-of-the-art knowledge on every imaginable topic

Nevertheless most students treat our lecture notes reverentially aslsquosilver bulletsrsquo ie ontological entities outside society space andtime with some immutable characteristics that magically lead tothe right solution


The reasons behind a writing technology shift25 40

On the contrary we consider our lecture notes both as a work inprogress and as an arena for collaborative knowledge In particularwe want to emphasize that lecture notes play a role as guidelineson arguments and topics but their contents may be trusted and atthe same time expanded and annotated by students

Initially we wrote lecture notes through a word processor but thiswriting technology doesnrsquot encourage particularly active studyingWe thus decided to change our writing paradigm adopting awiki-based technology


Encouraging collaboration maintaing authorship26 40


Learning Management Systems unfit for our purposes27 40

LMSs as BlackBoard (used by our University) need to prepare thelearning objects a very time-consuming task We want to avoidthis Our technical requirements of the wiki system we werelooking for are

ease of converting existing lecture notes from Word format

ease of publishing into the BlackBoard platform

presence of a revision history to keep track of the differentversions


Wikis started from the analysus of thread systems28 40

thread content

root msg

spin-off topic

comment A

comment B

John SmithMario Rossi

Jack White Pietro Bianchi

comment Dcomment C

Too much complexity content redundancy personalisms


as an opposite and complementary KM system29 40

wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D

John Smith Mario RossiJack White Pietro Bianchi

Shared content collaboration anonymity


We need a non-standard wiki system30 40

We canrsquot allow anyone edit contents ie lecture notesanonymously as in standard wikis We need to retain the role ofauthorship in the following way

edit mode easy to convert lecture notes from MS Word

annotation mode easy to write different study paths

browser mode easy to navigate with any web browser


Our choice after a period of acceptance testing31 40

httpwwwtiddlywikicom


Easy integration with BlackBoard (itrsquos client-side only)32 40


Once dowloaded itrsquos ease to annotate33 40

Look at the right menu ldquonew tiddlerrdquo (ie lexia)


Not-so-easy to convert style from a word processor34 40

Itrsquos not clear how to extract meaningful text and its typesettingie bold quotations etc in an automatic way

Moreover the hypertext structure (ie non-sequential readingsthrough multiple paths) implies a content editing eg resolving alot of anaphoras


Sequential and non-sequential paths together35 40

We retain a classical sequential page-turn order of lexias (iesemantic hypertext units) with an index



Add semantic areas to lexias by tags36 40

Each lexia has meaningful tags ie keywords that form sets oflexias as definite semantic areas Our basic tagset is the followingone figure figure reference introduction note reference Thereare also additional tags depending on specific contents eg historyof logical calculus objection to Turingrsquos test

Students can choose which lexias to load in the TiddlyWiki webpage at a given time eg every reference cited in the text with orwithout figures


The search box and the reverse linking features37 40

For instance a student may want to review a picture about RamonLlull seen during the last lecture as it was already shown inprevious one in a different context After loading every lexiatagged rsquofigurersquo the student quickly finds the right one and then heor she may read the text lexias that comment that lexia throughthe reversed linking feature present in TiddlyWiki ie a speciallink showing every lexia which points to the current one

Alternatively if students donrsquot remember exactly why and howBabbage is important they may search through the whole lexiaset even using regular expressions


Open issues for further work38 40

1 Duplication By now each module is a separate TiddlyWikifile with some duplication (ie references as they werewritten once for all in the word version)

2 Integration Not easy to integrate PowerPoint or LatexPDFpresentations in TiddlyWiki We are exploring a HTML onlyslide show format S5

3 More collaboration Students may want to share their studypaths we may switch to a server-based TiddlyWiki cloneLesserWiki (httpwwwlesserwikiorg)












Letrsquos see a demo if we have enough time39 40

httpwwwdicomuninsubriaitsimfedericogobboformatex2006html


Thanks40 40

This presentation is under the following CreativeCommons licence

Attribuzione-Non Commerciale-Condividi allo stesso modo 25 Italia

httpcreativecommonsorglicensesby-nc-sa25it

Where to find this presentation (also LATEXsource)

httpwwwdicomuninsubriaitsimfedericogobbo2006

Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects

Wiki-based lecture notes

Conclusions


1 IntroductionEpistemology of computer scienceComputer ethics

2 Educational aspects

3 Wiki-based lecture notes

4 Conclusions


First question4 40


Second question5 40





















































































Computer ethics





Computer ethics

































thread content

root msg

spin-off topic

comment A

comment B



comment Dcomment C




wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D




















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions


First question4 40


Second question5 40





















































































Computer ethics





Computer ethics

































thread content

root msg

spin-off topic

comment A

comment B



comment Dcomment C




wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D




















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions

Second question5 40





















































































Computer ethics





Computer ethics

































thread content

root msg

spin-off topic

comment A

comment B



comment Dcomment C




wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D




















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions




















































































Computer ethics





Computer ethics

































thread content

root msg

spin-off topic

comment A

comment B



comment Dcomment C




wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D




















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions


Computer ethics

































thread content

root msg

spin-off topic

comment A

comment B



comment Dcomment C




wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D




















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions



























thread content

root msg

spin-off topic

comment A

comment B



comment Dcomment C




wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D




















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions



wiki content

edit A edit C

edit Bedit D




















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions


















































Thanks40 40






Questions

Indice

Introduction


Computer ethics

Educational aspects


Conclusions

A Wiki-Based Active Learning System

Education

Transcript of A Wiki-Based Active Learning System