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An open – source Learning Management System (ASDL) using ICT for High
Schools
S. Manitsaris A. Perdos S. Pavlidis
Ph.D. Student Ph.D. Student Teacher
Department of Applied Informatics, UOM
sotiris@uom.gr perdos@uom.gr sapavlidis@yahoo.gr
Abstract
This paper presents the specifications of an open –
source Learning Management System using ICT, which
was implemented on a Greek High school. This effort
began because of our interest to see the impact of the
use of Multimedia and Internet resources having e-
learning content, in a classroom. Greece lags far
behind in use of Internet towards other European
Countries. This paper also presents how pupils
evaluated the use of this innovative pedagogical
framework. Our research was extended to the new role
that teachers called to adapt in teaching
1. Introduction
Personal use of Internet increases significantly in
Europe even though the level of progress varies among
the member countries (42% in 2000 towards 53% in
2003). Greece lags far behind in use of Internet and in
infrastructure. Only one to five Greek people used
Internet in 2004. 55% were students and Lyceum pupils
towards the 85% of E.U other countries. A significant
detail is that 40% of Greeks users search in Internet for
educational purposes [1],[2].
66% of Greeks who have Internet access use low
bandwidth connections (PSTN) and only 1% have high
bandwidth connection (ADSL) towards the 13%
European average percentage. 50% of Greek users
access internet from their home, 25% from school or
university, and 20% from Cyber
Anyone can understand that even though Greece
lacks Internet infrastructure, there is a great willing
form students and pupils to use internet for educational
purposes. Greece has the biggest access percentage
from schools and universities in comparison to other
European countries.
Computers can play significant role in the
educational process as they bring important changes to
the traditional way of teaching, with the use of
multimedia and internet applications.
European and Greek experience shows that it is not
very easy to apply ICT - based educational methods.
There are many factors that contribute to this such as
Infrastructure hardware
Educational software
National central planning
All the above difficulties create the need to put
all the individual efforts of teachers under a single
platform, which in no case substitutes the school and
the traditional role of teacher. It is the use of the tool
that will transform the educational process and not
the tool itself [3].
2. Characteristics of the Educational
Platform
Taking under consideration the situation described
above, it is cleared that there is a need to create a
platform for distance education, adapted in following
characteristics:
Sharing of knowledge
It is important to publish educational material as
well as to access it, not only during the tutorials
(synchronous education) but also during the study and
preparation (asynchronous education).
Interaction between teachers and pupils
Another requirement is to extent communication
between teachers and pupils beyond the limits of the
school building. In this way pupils sense the presence
of teacher, even when they study.
Administration of courses classes schools
For best administration, the platform must satisfy
some basic organizational operations such as the
bulletin board, workgroups, homeworks and the
exemplarily resolved exercises.
Intensification of wish to access the knowledge
The most important success factor for distance
education, regarding pupils of High school or Lyceum,
is the satisfaction that they feel from this process.
Self-assessment of students
On line tests such as multiple choice tests
Personalization for each student and professor
The educational software should be adapted in the
demands of teachers. As far as pupils are concerned
they should be able to evaluate his knowledge through
escalated difficulty tests
A lot of new ideas that use the significance of
proximity, concerning ICT, make their appearance,
proximity digital spaces proximity distance
education etc. The ICT can decrease distance of
exchange of all kind of information. Before the
integration of ICT in the educational process, the
proximity had powerful bonds with geographic
distance, size absolutely measurable. We easily can
conclude the differentiation from the direction of
geographic distance to that of points of presence in the
World Wide Web, and the hyperlinks that connect
them. In other words, even if the schoolteacher and the
pupil are not found in the same place, they feel very
close to each digital spaces
digital worlds
distance does not exist any more if there is a common
objective or framework [4], [5].
3. ASDL Asynchronous and Synchronous
Distance Learning
ASDL is a platform that integrates the functionality
of a dynamic database and the ability to store and
project educational multimedia information. Moreover
it is not required technical knowledge of Internet
services, in order to publish and manage data as it
offers remote management only by using an Internet
browser.
Links between the platform and the educational
process are multi-dimensional based on the need of
teachers and pupils to communicate in a virtual
classroom [6].
ASDL, which is an extension of an existing system
named DOKEOS, meets synchronous communication
requirements such as videoconferencing, streaming
video and SCORM (Sharable Content Object
Reference Model) lessons [7] in Greek language. It is
implemented by Multimedia and Graphics Lab of the
Department of Applied Informatics of University of
Macedonia, Greece [8], [9]. After an extended
research, we found that familiar platforms do exist in
other universities and schools but they do not meet all
the specifications of ASDL. Therefore we examined if
this platform could be applied in High Schools and
Lyceums and tried to evaluate its use.
Briefly ASDL:
Supports storage and projection of
educational multimedia files. In addition
SCORM lessons can be supported in order
to achieve reusability, accessibility and
interoperability of the content only by
using any internet browser.
Offers distance administration as
everything can be done only by using an
internet browser. In this way there is no
demand for users to possess technical
knowledge as well as for the administrator
to be physically presented.
Supports different kinds of users in order to
provide personalization, protect the files
and the parameters of the platform and
make the administration easier.
Supports videoconferencing and streaming
video and as a consequence it gives the
feasibility for synchronous education.
Therefore it cancels all the geographical
limits that do exist in Greece.
All these features show that ASDL create proximity
links between teachers and pupils or even better
between pupils and the lesson. Therefore a virtual
educational community is created.
4. The application of ASDL in education
According to statistics concerning the use of
Internet and the technical infrastructure in Greece, the
ASDL exceeds all the mentioned difficulties because:
1 It suppresses the distance as an obstacle of
communication because it is based on the technology
of Internet
2 It offers easy access to knowledge because it
is just a web page in the Internet and there is no need
for expensive equipment usually required by ICT.
Therefore the segregation in privileged and not
students is abolished.
3 It exceeds the problem of low connection
speeds in the Internet. The solution that was adopted,
concerns creation of pages that do not require
significant transferring times from servers to clients.
Moreover the publication of educational material is
achieved with very low speeds of 33, 6 Kbps.
4 The platform is based on a simple installation
in a central computer, unique for a lot of schools. Thus,
the user of ASDL needs only an operating system, an
internet browser and office applications.
5 The system can function even with computers
with low resources.
6 The high economic demands often prohibit the
financing and the creation of such applications in
schools. The ASDL is an open source platform.
7 ASDL resolves the problem of distance when
it concerns Greek islands and inaccessible mountainous
villages. The world is flat as Bill Gates said.
8 The level of required knowledge concerning
the use of ASDL is as minimal as possible. Greek
teachers have been trained in use of computers during
the seminars organized by Information Society. Pupils
have just to recall the knowledge that they acquire from
the course of Informatics in the High school
5. ASDL and Evaluation
Our opinion about the role of the schoolteacher and
the way that a course is implemented, is definitely
influenced by our perceptions and beliefs and the
relative research that we have conducted [10], [11],
[12], [13], [14]. In order to obtain a more integrated
perception, questionnaires were given to pupils. The
questionnaires consisted of 38 questions divided in 9
sections depending on the use, the operability and the
undertaking of whole process. Some indicative
questions that show the opinion of pupils about the use
of ASDL, are now presented.
40,3%
43,4%
10,9%
3,9%
1,6%
Excellent
Good
Adequate
Poor
N/A
Figure 1. What is your opinion about ASDL?
The first question is about how pupils estimate
ASDL. It is obvious from the following graph that a
great percentage of pupils strongly accepted the
concept of ASDL.
The following graph shows if ASDL helped pupils
in case of absence.
Strongly Agr ee
Agr ee
Neutral
Disagre e
Strongly Disagree
percentage
50
40
30
20
10
0
47
22
8
6
13
Figure 2. Does ASDL help in case of absence?
Although it is obvious that ASDL helps pupils to
obtain the same level of knowledge either in case of
absence or not, there is a significant percentage of
pupils that consider ASDL did not actually helped
them. An explanation for this, lies in the fact that some
pupils did not have internet access from their home.
There is also the possibility that some pupils are used
to the traditional way of teaching and they cannot adapt
themselves to ICT based training.
Another indicative question that shows how ASDL
brings new standards in education is shown in Figure 3
24,8%
33,3%
20,9%
11,6%
9,3%
Extremely
Very
Moderately
A little
Not at all
Figure 3. Does ASDL give a motive for study?
The fact that pupils find a motive to study more is
not only proved by the above diagram but also from the
grades they achieved. This fact was observed by us
during the teaching process and was confirmed by the
pupils through the questionnaire.
6 Conclusion and Future Work
After the analysis of the questionnaire and the
experience that we obtained through the teaching
process we came in the following conclusions
1 If a pupil loses a tutorial because of case of
illness or participation in school activities, he/she has
the ability to have access to the presentations, the
examples and all the teaching material. In this way all
students obtain the same level of knowledge either they
attend the classroom or not.
2. The pupils have better assimilation of the
course concepts in comparison with to the ones of
previous years. In this, contributes the fact that they
have the chance to do exercises and tests from their
home and evaluate their knowledge.
3. The pupils recognize that computers do not
exist only for playing games but also as a mean to gain
knowledge. Since they are familiar with ICT, they will
probably correspond very easily later, in the
requirements of their academic studies.
For more than 6 months ASDL supports two courses
of secondary education that have very high acceptance
from pupils. This encourages us to create courses based
on SCORM lessons, which will be available next
school year. We also intend to create videos lectures
videoconference feature more, in
order to share knowledge in various ways.
7. References
[1] Internet and the public at large, FlassEB no135 report,
p.25, fig4a, accessed on 3/2/2006,
http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/flash/fl125_en.pdf
[2] The digital divide in Europe, (2005), Eurostat News
Release 143/2005, accessed on 3/2/2006
http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/PGP_PR
D_CAT_PREREL/PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2005/PGE
_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2005_MONTH_11/4-10112005-
EN-AP.PDF
[3
accessed on 3/2/2006,
http://www.eap.gr/news/EXAGGELIA_SYNEDRIOU/syned
rio/html/sect5/85.htm
[4] Les conditions de -learning et le travail
3/2/2006, http://www.renupi.org/IMG/pdf/e-learning_travail-
collaboratif-2.pdf
[5]
3/2/2006
http://www.renupi.org/IMG/pdf/proximite_societe_de_l_info
rmation.pdf
[6
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[7 -based
intelligent le
learning technologies, (2004), p12-15
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[11] GIAKOUMATOU T
(2004), p392-399
[12] KARAGIANNIS G
(2004), p72-83
[13] PAVLIDIS S., PERDOS A., MANITSARIS S.
, (2004)
[14] PERDOS A., MANITSARIS S., SYRRIS B
, (2004), p579-584