Forum Getting Started: Adaptive LAMS?

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Guin

Our current version of LAMS does not include branching or conditioning.

However, we are currently rebuilding LAMS to incorporate such functionality. Have a look at this presentation to get a glance on how branching and conditioning will be supported in the next versions of LAMS (see slide 15 to 17).

In principle, you will be able to create branches of activities according to output of certain activities or by groups (eg: group1 & 3 go down this branch and the rest go in this other one).

Conditioning will quite a powerful tool. And since you'll be able to do it based on activities output and groupings, you can have a nice variety of conditions... to a point that you can easily get confused in your own branches and conditions . That's why we need to have (and think really clearly) how the visualization will be like.

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Jeffrey Earp

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Hi Ernie and co,

our group in Italy is also extremely interested in a future adaptive version of LAMS with branching and grouping functions. Am I right in thinking they're foreseen for version 1.1? It's a bit cheeky of me to ask with 1.0.2 due out this week, but have you got any idea of the time frame for 1.1, even in rough terms? One last technical question for you - does the introduction of these new features necessarily entail a move closer to levels b and c of IMS LD?

Thanks,
Jeff

Posted by Jeffrey Earp

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Jeff,

Yes, the grouping functions will be available in 1.1. That means that you'll have three ways of using groups: you can select which students go in each group (eg: Tom and Benito in Group A; Mary and Jerry in Group B), the system can randomly assign students to groups (this is the current way we support groupings in the current version of LAMS) or you set the maximum number of students per group (eg: 5 people per group only).

Branching support will be built in 1.1. However the interface on how to use it and define branches will not be available until 1.2.

> It's a bit cheeky of me to ask with 1.0.2 due out this week

Well, for all you Mac users, LAMS 1.0.2 has been out for a while. But the "official" release has not been done due to administrative issues which we are trying to nail this week.

I know, I've been saying this for a while, but releasing a new version involves quite a lot of stuff around it that needs to be finalized (press releases, repackaging and testing installers for all the supported platforms, etc). I can't tell you how frustraiting this is, but hey, it's part of a new release.

Regarding timeline for 1.1, we aim to have an alpha version before the end of the year. This will just a very simple demo on the new LAMS 1.1 architecture that will show people that want to create LAMS tools how it works and how they need to go about writting tools using the new LAMS Tool's API.

Then around Feb 2006, we aim to release a beta1 version of LAMS 1.1. This should be a testing version that will available for people to download and help us debug it and fix all remaining bugs. Once the betatesting is over, then we'll be close to something that looks like the final version of 1.1.

> does the introduction of these new features necessarily
> entail a move closer to levels b and c of IMS LD?

Well, despite the fact that LAMS 1.1 will export sequences in IMS LD level A, let me answer with another question for you:

What does it mean to you if LAMS is able to export sequences in IMS LD level A, B and C?

IMS LD is a notation and description language that it was not originally build to deal for run-time mode (how you "play" a sequence to a user). Therefore, even if LAMS can export all levels of IMS LD, it might not be of much use.

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: James Dalziel

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Ernie's right that branching is a key feature planned for future releases of LAMS.

However, there are still some things you can do today - although not as elegantly as in the future.

The simplest adaptive feature today is in the Multiple Choice Quiz tool, where you can set a pass mark. This allows you to, say, provide some content and discussion activities, then run the quiz, and if students don't get a high enough mark, you can direct them back to the original resources for further review, then they can come back and take the test again.

An elaboration on this is that you could have two sets of content (one after another), where you name the first content as "required" and then have a second set of content as "additional", with instructions that all students do the required material, but only those who fail the later test (or who feel they need additional study) should do the additional material (the rest can just click "Finished" immediately on the second set of content to skip it). In this way, you can incorporate extra content into a sequence for those who might need it without making everyone do it. The instructions for the quiz could say something like "return to the additional content for futher study if you don't achieve the pass mark for the quiz".

A third approach to branching is to have an Optional activity that contains several activities of the same type, but with different topics - eg, several Share Resources but with different content. You could then have a Grouping task before this, and then in the instructions for the Optional activity, explain that students should select the content according to their group (you could name the Share Resources tasks by group number, or by topic area, to help facilitate this). Another approach is to have a Multiple Choice quiz before the Optional activity, and then your instructions could say something like "If you scored 9 or 10 out of 10, then do topic A, if you scored 6-8, then do topic B, if you scored 5 or lower, do topic C".

The point is that with some careful design and some text-based instructions, you can still do interesting adaptive things with LAMS today. In the future version of LAMS, we'll be able to automate much of this so it isn't necessary to rely on the students to choose the path you want for them - the system can help do this (of course, you could still give students choices as well!).

Posted by James Dalziel