A Software System for Online Learning Applied in the Field of Computer Science

Abstract

<p>The computer-assisted learning is a very modern study area, which can be applied to the learning process. The main objective of this paper is to present a software system for online learning based on the intelligent software agents technologies. The main ideas on which this paper is built are: to any person is associated a learning profile (the idea is based on the existence of multiple intelligences, defined by Gardner [3]); the pedagogical resources can be shaped through educational semantic networks or through conceptual maps; a flexible software system in computer assisted learning must be based on the intelligent agents’ technology. The system dedicated to computer-assisted learning must be adapted to the learning profile of each student.<br />The author presents a flexible online teaching software system, which learns to teach according to the learning profile of each student (the author defines this system in the PhD thesis and includes: intelligent agent structures, reward learning algorithms, algorithms to generate plans for an agent).<br />The application includes two agents: the supervising agent and the pedagogical agent, which determines the optimal pedagogical resources for teaching the course. The application has been designed in Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 and uses Microsoft Agent Technology, which allows vocal recognition. Also, the Protéjé 3.0 software has been used, software that allows building ontology for computer assisted learning. The system has been experimented on the Graph Theory Course, taught at postuniversitary computer science courses, the results proving the necessity of defining a strategy for selecting the pedagogical resources presented to the students according to their learning profile.</p>