The LearningWorks development and delivery frameworks

LearningWorks is implemented as the composition of four frameworks: a LearningBook presentation and interaction framework that supports the basic user model, a programming framework with access to a library of reusable software components, an authoring framework for creating LearningBooks, and a team communications framework. Using the communications framework, a team of students can work together to create network-based simulations of virtual worlds. An author creates curriculum to be delivered using these four frameworks. The curriculum itself can be designed as a framework of activities or microworlds. The purpose of this brief article is to outline the structure of the four frameworks. Design goals, implementation details, and examples are provided in more detail in [4]. The LearningWorks prototype, which is available at no charge for educational and training purposes, is available for downloading at www.neometron.com/learningworks. LearningWorks information and activities are accessible from windows on the display screen that emulate the structure of a book, as shown in Figure 1. We refer to these online books as LearningBooks. LearningBooks provide the only way in which courseware activities—projects and software development assignments—are carried out. You read a book by selecting sections and, within a section, by selecting pages. Pages contain activities or applications that students interact with in order to explore various topics of a course of study. Pages can also contain programming tools for exploring existing object definitions and creating new ones. A typical book will contain information and exercises about a concept that the student must understand. The LearningBook framework manages the composition and execution of book components. Sections can have section themes, which are sets of interactive components that persist across all pages of the section. Any information created within a section theme can be shared with each page activity. In Figure 1, the section theme presents a scrollable list of shapes and shares the current selection.