Research and Development

The AADLC is involved in a variety of R&D projects to develop new learning technologies. We create functional prototypes and final products to demonstrate proof-of-concept capabilities of standards (e.g. SCORM) and learning system architectures. These projects include: online course development, educational video games /simulations, game engines, content management/delivery systems, repositories, content registry systems, and development tools. Below you will find descriptions of some of our R&D efforts. Please contact us for information about these or other Co-Lab projects.

Trafficking in Persons Training Modules

Trafficking in persons is a global problem that is systemically connected to a wide range of other intractable geopolitical issues. The Department of Defense has a zero tolerance policy for TIP. In the pursuit of educating DoD employees and affiliates about the TIP issue and DoD policy, the department contracted the Co-Lab to develop online courses in support of the combating trafficking in persons (CTIP) initiative. To date the Co-Lab has worked in partnership with the Polaris Project to develop three discreet courses for the DoD as part of the CTIP initiative. They are: Trafficking in Persons – General Awareness, Trafficking in Persons – Law Enforcement Training, and Combating Trafficking in Persons – Leadership Training. Each course contains a pretest, a number of discreet media rich modules and an accompanying quiz, a post-test, and supplementary resources for the learner. To date over 100,000 individuals have utilized the CTIP courseware developed by the Co-Lab to advance the fight against trafficking in persons.

Augmented Reality via the Local Games Lab

Dr. Kurt Squire received notice on September 9, 2005, that the Academic ADL Co-Lab GLS Group (through the University of Wisconsin System) was awarded a 3-year Star School Grant. The grant is in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. This program has yielded eight handheld games covering a number of topic areas including Lake Wingra, Dow Day, MadCity Mystery, and more.

This project leverages the effectiveness of augmented reality (AR) simulation games on mobile computers with global positioning systems to improve middle-school mathematics and literacy instruction and student achievement in those fields. Its target populations are under-served urban middle school students and teachers. You can find information about ongoing work within the Local Games Lab at the Games, Learning, & Society website.

The Local Content Server (LCS) Project

The AADLC has developed an open source learning object repository using Plone as the core code. This repository is unique because it is designed to be a part of a federated system of learning object repositories. The initial goal of the project is to provide a series of local repositories for each campus in the UW System. These repositories allow professors and students to contribute SCORM compliant learning objects to their campus LCS, then through a simple activation, allow their content to become searchable across all UW campuses.

UW Lacrosse is a key partner in this project and now has a functioning LCS for housing their learning objects designed to teach math and science concepts for teachers who are planning to take the Praxis exam. More about that project can be found on their website.

The LCS is one component of the Open-Source Federated Object Repository Architecture (OSFORA) project being run through UW System.

A second component of this project connects to proof-of-concept work with the Department of Defense and the Joint ADL Co-Lab to connect a federated repository system, registry, and learning management system together. We are using the modifying the LCS to with an XML schema appropriate for the ADL-R and then using Moodle as the LMS for delivery. Code for the current iteration of the LCS is available via SourceForge.

LibSCORM

LibSCORM was originally an internal AADLC project to assist course developers in creating SCORM conformant HTML and Flash -based courses. Now an open source program, it is available to any developer who would like to use it. For the latest code and for recent videos on how to use LibSCORM, see our LibSCORM page.

Civilization III Educational Use and Development

Dr. Kurt Squire and his graduate students are studying use of the commercial video game Civilization III for use in teaching world history. The team has created more than 12 modifications (mods) for the game that teach specific historical times and events. These modifications are currently being used to teach afterschool programs and summer clubs. The AADLC has recently signed an agreement with the Florida Virtual School to prototype the Civilization III concept into an existing online World History course for middle and high school students.

To learn more about this research or to download existing educational mods and curricula, visit the Civ World website.

XML Course Template Development

We are currently in prototype development of a course content system using an XML schema that allows rapid aggregation and disaggregation of course components. This project has multiple components including the content schema, a set of content transformation engines, and a suite of editing/development tools. This work is still very early and not ready for release but we are very excited about the current and future possibilities for this system.

Other AADLC Projects

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