ICT SUPPORTED ENGINEERING COURSE CASE STUDY AND GUIDELINES

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1 ICT SUPPORTED ENGINEERING COURSE CASE STUDY AND GUIDELINES Jerzy Rutkowski, Katarzyna Moscinska Institute of Electronics Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science Silesian University of Technology Akademicka 16, Gliwice, Poland ABSTRACT Redevelopment of a large scale engineering course from a traditional to blended model is a challenging prospect. Based on more than five years experience with the Circuit Theory course redevelopment, some basic guidelines are given. Both the learning component and assessment program are taken into account. A special attention is laid on final examination and its redevelopment from traditional to e-exam form, with fully automatic pre-exam preparations, post-exam marking and statistical analysis. Effectiveness of this model have been confirmed by both students and teachers. KEY WORDS Advanced technology in education, Web-based education, Faculty development, e-learning 1. Introduction to ICT supported learning Learning (education, training) has become an important part of economic activity, from 25% in 2000 to a predicted 60% in 2020 [1], and ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) supported learning, the so called e-learning, seems to be the most rapidly developed form of knowledge acquisition/delivery. There are numerous definitions of e-learning. Definition given in the elearning Action Plan [2], adopted by the European Commission on 24 May 2000, seems to be the most adequate, and till today it is the binding one for all 27 EU states. Following up the conclusions of the Lisbon European Council, elearning Action Plan sets out the principles, objectives and lines of action of elearning, defined as the use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchange and collaboration. This Action Plan initially covered the period of , then it has been extended for the next years. The elearning Programme for the effective integration of ICT in education and training systems in Europe [3] in its preamble states the following: Information and Communication Technologies, properly used, contribute to the quality of education and training and to Europe s move to a knowledge-based society. Education and Training 2010 program [4] sets out three strategic objectives and thirteen associated objectives. These strategic objectives are as follows: 1. Improving the quality and effectiveness of education and training systems in the EU. 2. Facilitating the access of all to education and training systems. 3. Opening up education and training to the wider world. The associated objectives, among others, include the following: - Ensuring access to ICT for everyone ICT should be used for the purpose of enhancing the quality of education provided. - Making learning more attractive. The following conclusions can be drawn from these documents: I. Among three main objectives of ICT supported learning (e-learning), namely: - quality (enhancement), - access (improvement), - cost (reduction), with strong tension among them [5], the last one is of the least importance and the first one is of the greatest importance

2 II. Quality of education can be enhanced by wise use of ICT, technology should enhance the learning process, not hinder it! As observed by many authors, interactivity is the key component of all instructional activities. Learning should be interactive, engaging and constructivist in nature. Formats of e-learning are discussed in Section 2. In Section 3 the case study, redevelopment of the Circuit Theory (CT) course, lessons learned and guidelines are presented. 2. Formats of e-learning, construction of a blended engineering course Four possible formats of online course can be distinguished [6]: - Teacher-facilitated online - Teacher- facilitated hybrid (teacher for both f2f and online portions) - Teacher-facilitated f2f plus self-paced online - Self-paced online only. When selecting the format, the following question has to be answered: Are there activities which cannot easily or satisfactorily be performed online? If yes, and this is the case for any engineering course, then only hybrid, the so-called blended format may be applied. This format has been portrayed as a good solution to constraints and disadvantages of traditional and online model [7] and it is extensively developed in the US Universities. Also, Universities in the EU countries are developing blended learning, however stage of development is not the same in all 27 member states. In Poland, the largest from the twelve members states that accessed the EU in this century, dynamic development of e-learning can be observed. Today, in practically every EU state, access to the Internet is common. In Polish universities practically every student has own laptop and immediate access to the Internet, both in university premises (wireless Internet) and dormitories/homes. In Silesian University of Technology (SUT) most of lecture rooms are equipped with multimedia that enable slide (PowerPoint) presentation and Broadband Internet Access (BIA). Then, there are no technology-based constraints for a broad use of ICT in education, redevelopment of all courses from traditional to blended format. In most Polish universities the Moodle open source LMS is used as a portal supporting education. At the SUT this portal is extensively used for more than five years. Some general points of consensus about what is important in a blended course can be enlisted and the following are the major ones [6]: - selection of an appropriate Course Management System (CMS), - thoughtful integration of the f2f and online elements, - assurance of interaction and interactivity. As mentioned already, interaction is the main factor determining the quality of learning. The following observations have been confirmed by many authors [6]: high association between interaction and retention, high association between interaction and passing, high association between interaction and student satisfaction. Then, the following forms of interaction can be distinguished: interaction with teacher: teacher announcements; commentary/lectures; feedback in discussion; feedback on assignments, interaction with peers: discussion; projects; peer review; presentations, interaction with content: library and Web; textbooks; multimedia; teacher presentation and guest speakers; self-assessment, and all these forms have to be taken into account when redesigning a course. The blended model should definitely enhance quality of education but also it should bring improvement to organizational context. To specify the e-learning scenario, the following basic questions have to be answered. What is the best mix of synchronous and asynchronous elements in a course? What is the best mix of f2f and online elements? In general, a course content may be divided into two parts: learning content (knowledge delivery), assessment program (knowledge assessment). Synchronous elements seem to be more suitable for knowledge delivery while asynchronous elements seem to be more suitable for knowledge assessment. In-class, face to face knowledge delivery, followed by online discussion (knowledge assessment) seems to be the better mix of these two elements, rather than online knowledge delivery followed by f2f discussion. Moreover, a course restructuring is a perfect opportunity to make changes and updates to the traditional content, not only introduction of online elements. 130

3 Polish regulations enable on-line learning, however the total hours of on-line portion can t be greater than 80%, of all teaching hours, set by the teaching standards (established by the Ministry), excluding laboratories and practical activities. 3. Circuit Theory course Redevelopment of the engineering course, from traditional to blended format, will be discussed on the Circuit Theory example. This course is the basic engineering course, delivered practically to every student of every university of technology. First, redevelopment of the course content and assessment program will be discussed. Then, students feedback, lessons learned and resulting guidelines will be presented. 3.1 Circuit Theory, learning content Authorities of the SUT have decided that 100% of the learning content has to be delivered f2f, for both stationary (daily) and non-stationary (correspondence and evening) courses. Then, the SUT teachers efforts in using ICT concentrate on: - supporting of the in-class knowledge delivery, - replacement of the traditional assessments by the online ones, - enabling on-line discussion, share of information. The CT course, same as all engineering courses, are organized as one-semester or two-semester courses. Generally, three components of an engineering course content can be distinguished: - Lectures, - Practical (exercise) Classes, - Laboratory. Lecture component generally remains unchained, however, traditional teacher by the blackboard presentation has been replaced by slide presentation. It is a common opinion, especially among experienced teachers, that slide presentation is ineffective, does not allow tracing of the problem deduction, and then, it is against interaction, worsens the quality of education. This statement is obviously correct as long as the presentation is made with a use of standard PC, even with the applied PowerPoint animations and on-blackboard supporting notes. To attract students attention, use of tablet PC is absolutely necessary! Some parts of the lecture content, such as circuit diagrams, data of exemplary problems, etc., can be preset on slides. The remaining parts, such as e.g. derivation of formulas, should be added on slides, hand written on the PC screen, the same way as it is done on a traditional blackboard. The lecture should be supported by interactive animations and simulations. The professional simulation software is usually available, like PSpice for solving Circuit Theory problems. The animation software is not available, has to be created by the teachers team. It is a very time consuming work and it can be partially done by students, e.g. as part of B.Sc. or M.Sc. project. The greater is the number of interactive animations, the more attractive and effective is the lecture. Today students are enthusiastic to computer games and the more game-like is the content presentation, the more attractive to students it is. The wise owl standing by the blackboard with a choke in hand is not attractive anymore. Today, the CT lecture at SUT is supported by only few animations. Animation of travelling waves in a transmission line is one of them. The user, teacher in a lecture room or student at home, may adjust the load and generator impedance, line parameters and observe either the mechanism of voltage waves interference along the line or voltage time plot at the line output (load) or input. The analyzed circuit and a screen shot are presented in Fig. 1, Lecture is the basic component of a course. The knowledge is delivered in a systematic manner, designated by the teacher, in Polish universities, in fifteen 45 or 90-minutes modules per semester. Lectures are complemented by practical classes, fifteen 45 or 90 minutes classes, in which students may verify knowledge possesses during the lecture, by solving theoretical, the so called academic, problems as well as the practical ones. To better understand some theoretical aspects of a course, delivered during lectures and verified by practical classes, students attend laboratory, that usually consists of 2x6 exercises, or 1x6 exercises. Fig. 1 Screen shot of transmission line animation 131

4 Obviously, such simulations and animations are presented during the lecture, and then, students may repeat them at home, using the software filed on the course website. Practical classes component may be ICT supported the same way as the lecture component, common access to tablet PC is the only problem. Today, at the SUT, only some professors are equipped with such PCs. Laboratory component may be supported by virtual lab, which is entered prior to the real-world lab. That way student may virtually practice the exercise that is then repeated in real lab, under the guidance of the teacher. Creation of the software is very time consuming, however use of such software has been already reported [8]. With this e-learning scenario, each participant, either student or teacher, is able to determine at any time, which tasks have to be handled at this time. Communication teacher-student, student-content, student-student is clearly stated, the so called lost-in-e-learning situation is practically impossible. 3.2 Circuit Theory, assessment program For more than three years ICT supports the Circuit Theory course assessment program. The CT problems repository of around 500 problems has been created and it is revealed to students, filed on the course website. These problems are used: during lectures and classroom exercises, in pre-lab quizzes, in formative tests, in final examination. Pre-lab quizzes are assigned to individual exercises and solved by students, first on-line. Then, to avoid cheating, same quizzes are repeated in-lab, in a traditional manner (pen + paper). Formative tests are solved on-line, in an asynchronous manner. Student can access the course materials and test tasks from anywhere, and can chose time of completion the test, given 2-5 hours window of opportunity. Formative tests are non-anonymous and obligatory, however they have no effect on the final grade. This final grade is given only based on the final examination. Number of tasks per pre-lab quiz or formative test is variable, subject to the scope of the checked course material. Final examination is performed on-line, in the synchronous manner, with all examined students sitting in computer labs and guarded by teachers, to avoid cheating. The e-exam problems are drawn automatically from the repository, taking into account six attributes and 14 parameters ( ). The following attributes are assigned to each problem: 1. assignment to the given part of the course material, 2. format of the solution, 3. form of the solution presentation, 4. easiness, 5. character of reasoning, 6. complexity. The CT course material, domains of circuit analyses, are divided into four sections, namely: 1.1 DC 1.2 transient 1.3 AC 1.4 transmission line Then, each section has 2-7 subsections, what gives the total of around 20 subsections. Two possible formats of the problem solution are distinguished: 2.1 open-ended, 2.2 close-ended (multi-choice answer). As it is generally accepted, both formats have advantages and disadvantages. Solving of the open-ended problem requires understanding of the concept, wild-guessing is absolutely eliminated. The close-ended problems are more suitable for large classes, as they enable the automated system of marking wild-guessing is not eliminated however penalized. Three forms of solution presentation are possible: 3.1 numerical, 3.2 graphical - figure/diagram/plot, 3.3 symbolic - formula/equation. Practically, all problems with numerical answer are classified as open-ended problems and problems with graphical or symbolic form of the solution are classified as close-ended. If the student gives a wrong answer to numerical question, then it does not necessarily mean that he/she does not understand the problem. In numerical (close-ended) problems, students are often making silly mistakes in calculations, mainly due to carelessness. However, students must learn that in engineering calculations accuracy of the final result is as important as the correctness of the process they follow to obtain it [9]. Easiness of each problem from the database may be classified as: 4.1 easy, 4.2 moderate, 4.3 difficult. 132

5 Initially, problems are classified by the CT team. Then, classification is updated after each re-use of the given problem. Generally, two characters of reasoning can be distinguished, namely: 5.1 forward-reasoning, 5.2 reverse-reasoning. The reverse-reasoning task requires the students to process the information/reasoning in a different fashion than typically presented, e.g. given the system description and its output, they must reason backward to find the input, or given the input and the output, they must reason backward to find the system structure/parameters. Classroom experience suggests that students who do not fully understand a concept may correctly answer the forward-reasoning version, while giving the wrong answer to the reverse-reasoning version of the same concept [Wage]. When taking into account the problem complexity, two classes can be distinguished: 6.1 single-concept, 6.2 multiple-concept. Three problems, used in winter 2009 examination session, are shown in Fig.2. The DC4.2 problem has been classified, open-ended, numerical, easy, forward reasoning and single-concept. The TR2.15 has been classified as: open-ended, numerical, moderate, reverse reasoning and singleconcept. The AC5.10k has been classified as: close-ended, graphical, moderate, forward reasoning and singleconcept. During the last three years, the CT final e-exam has been applied as the only form of examination, with more than 300 students examined each year. Then, the following general parameters of e-exam have been experienced, as the optimum ones. Number of tasks: Q = 18. Total time: T = 5x18 = 90 min. Number of choices for multi-choice task: M = 5. Score of correct answer: S c = 1. Score of incorrect answer in multi-choice task: S p = 0.5. Score of no-answer or incorrect numerical (openended) answer: S i = 0. For numerical (open-ended) task, the correct answer score of 1 is granted, if the given answer is within ±10% margins of the correct answer. All multiple-choice tasks are tasks with four choices in the symbolic or graphical form and other as the fifth one. It may happen that this other choice is the correct one, while all symbolic/graphical choices are distracters. Next, the following parameters have been assigned to each attribute. Fig.2 Exemplary examination problems Some problems may probe multiple concepts, however most of the problems should be single-concept ones. They have this advantage that they provide a clear measure of what the student does and does not understand. Number of tasks assigned to each part of the material: o Q 11 = 6-7 (1.1) o Q 12 = 4-5 o Q 13 = 5-6 o Q 14 = 1-2 Number of open-ended (numerical) and multi-choice tasks: o Q 21 = Q 31 = 9-11 (1.2), (1.3) o Q 22 = Q 32 + Q 33 = 9-11 Number of multi-choice tasks, with other as the correct answer: o Q 22,other = 1-2 (1.2a) Number of easy/moderate/difficult tasks: o Q 41 = 2-3 (1.4) o Q 42 = o Q 43 = 2-3 Number of forward-reasoning/reverse-reasoning tasks: o Q 51 = (1.5) o Q 52 = 3-5 Number of single-concept/multiple-concept tasks: 133

6 o Q 61 = (1.6) o Q 62 = 0-2 Assignment of attributes to individual repository problems as well as values of e-exam parameter, are obviously confidential, not revealed to students. The automated form of e-exam allows post-exam statistical analysis. For each problem, its 1. easiness, 2. discrimination, 3. percent choosing can be calculated [10]. Next, all questions can be evaluated, classified into: 1. good, 2. fairly good, 3. not too bad, 4. bad. A question is considered good, if it is gives good discrimination - is answered well by top students, not well by bottom (below average score) ones, its easiness is consistent with the assigned one, in case of multichoice, it has good percent choosing distribution between five possible answers is reasonably uniform. A question is considered fairly good, if its easiness is consistent with the assigned one, it gives good discrimination but its percent choosing not to diverse. A question is considered not too good, if it has the properly assigned easiness but non-uniform distribution of distracters and low discrimination. Bad question fails all three criteria. Based on such post-exam statistical analysis, the problems repository is updated. Badly defined problems have to be deleted or modified before re-use. New distracters have to be found and/or re-defined problems have to be added. Easiness of each problem is verified. Moderate problem can be changed to easy or difficult, easy or difficult can be changed to moderate. 3.3 Students feedback Lessons learned Both the students and the teachers are continuously asked to express their opinion about the developed blended format of the CT course. After more than five years experience, the students feedback and lessons learned, classified into content delivery and assessment program, are as follows Learning content In-class lectures and classroom exercises Still, for most courses carried on in the SUT, in lectures and class exercises, the traditional way of presentation is dominating. However, students greatly appreciate the new way of content presentation, replacement of choke & blackboard presentation by the PowerPoint presentation, supported by computer simulations and animations. On the other hand, students absolutely neglect presentation with a use of standard PC. Only presentation with a use of tablet PC, with part of the content added manually (hand written) on a computer screen, is accepted! The more game-like is the presentation, the better, and this goal can be achieved by adding attractive and interactive simulations and animations. Both the PowerPoint presentation and simulation/animation software are filed on the course website, such that students may copy all graphics prior the lecture and repeat animations/simulations at home, after the lecture. Replacement of chock & blackboard presentation by tablet PC supported presentation not only improves its attractiveness but also gives savings in time average 15 minutes per 90 minutes lecture module. During this saved time some more computational examples can be solved, what definitely enhances quality of knowledge delivery. Laboratory At the moment, use of ICT is limited to pre-lab instructions and quizzes and post-lab reporting. Creation of the virtual lab is planned in the near future Assessment program Pre-lab quizzes Teachers note that students appear to be arriving in lab better prepared, than in past semesters, however no significant improvement has been observed. Still, most of the students do not solve quizzes as long as they are not obligatory. Nevertheless, the CT lab resources are the most frequently visited. The lab instructions contain detailed information on all the tasks to be solved at the lab. It is assumed that a good-working student, who has studied the instruction carefully, is fully prepared to do the lab exercise without supervision. In practice, however, this refers to the minority of students, due to the lack of experience, problems with comprehension, equipment failures etc. Nevertheless, thanks to the web resources, all the diligent students can practise a lot and develop their abilities before entering the lab. Formative assessments The Authors first experience with web-based formative assessment included the application of LMS for nonobligatory quizzes [11]. Unfortunately, there was very little feedback from the students not more than 15% tried to solve these quizzes. This is unfortunately consistent with the Authors experience from the traditional ways of teaching if an activity is nonobligatory (including extra tutorials at tutors office), the interest is almost none, up till the final examination time. Similar conclusions were presented by Rodanski [9]. The students were surveyed and most of them appreciated the idea of having opportunity to learn using the stored repository, but somehow they happened not to take it. Some minor feedback from the students who did the quizzes leads to the interesting conclusion, similar to this 134

7 presented by Palma[12]. Students would take the test as many times as possible, in order to get the correct answer to each question. To address this problem the authors decided not to reveal the correct answers to particular problems from the repository. Then, non-obligatory quizzes have been replaced by the obligatory ones. That way, students strategy of multiple attempts have been completely eliminated, however, still the obtained scores did not count for the final grade. As the result of this change, students have been forced to more systematic learning, some better students interaction has been observed. The most difficult problems are now reported by students, and these problems are then discussed thoroughly during the classroom exercises. Generally, students praise the effectiveness of the on-line formative assessments and rate them highly as an efficient component of their learning. The details can be found in [13]. Summative assessment (final exam) In order to decrease the examination failure ratio the repository of more than 500 problems, comprising all examination problems from the last ten years, have been filed on the course website. The students are encouraged to solve the problems but no promise is given that the problems would be repeated in the examination. However, practically all the examination problems used during the last two years were repository problems with some minor modifications, such as reconfiguration of a circuit drawing and/or randomization data. In order to get as much feedback as possible, the students were asked to or contact the tutors, in order to discuss the ambiguous or misleading problems. The students feedback was extremely disappointing, failure ratio was not decreased significantly. With the preset parameters (1.1-6), as presented in Section 3.2, Pass/Fail threshold has been established at the total score of S = 6 ± 0.5. With this threshold, average of 50% failed each examination. Majority, more than 80%, of students declare usefulness of the repository, however, the common strategy is to possess the minimum knowledge enough to pass the examination, to learn not all the material but only the simplest parts of it and to learn solutions of typical problems by hart, without understanding the concept. Obviously, this strategy is very risky, as it does not leave any safety margin failure in any problem from the selected part causes failure of the whole examination. It is difficult to force change of this strategy by introducing administrative measures, change of students attitude to studying is the key factor. After few years experience with multi-choice problems, one positive change has been observed. Initially high percentage of wild-guessing has been reduced practically to zero, students have found that wild-guessing does not pay. Majority of students have found the e-exam objective, its problems similar to those of tutorials and formative tests, filed on the course web repository, the duration-time sufficient [14] The teachers have been asked to outline positives of e- exam, as compared with the old traditional one. The consensus has been achieved, the following positives of e- exam have been pointed out: - easy to check, - more objective, - cheating reduced practically to zero. 4. Conclusion and guidelines Based on more than five years experience with the CT course redevelopment, from traditional to blended model, the following guidelines can be formulated. The in-class, f2f and synchronous, knowledge delivery followed by online and asynchronous knowledge assessments seem to be the best combination of learning formats. 4.1 Content presentation (knowledge delivery) The in-class, f2f, knowledge delivery has all the advantages, when compared with on-line format, except one, namely access improvement. When students reside far from the university and/or may not attend classrooms regularly, due to professional duties, then and only then, on-line knowledge delivery is reasonable. In all other cases, in-class (f2f) form is the best one. In-class lectures/classroom exercises may have three following formats: 1. traditional, with chock and blackboard presentation of material dominating, 2. standard PC supported, with PowerPoint presentation, 3. tablet PC supported, with PowerPoint + slide handwriting and large number of interactive animations and simulations. The first format is not up-to-date, does not assure the highest quality of knowledge delivery, however, this form is still preferred by most of teachers. It should be clearly stated, that this is caused by teachers habits, not lack of access to ICT! The second format is absolutely ineffective, however used by many teachers, who wrongly understand necessity of using ICT in modern education. With this format, the students think that printed, downloaded from the course web-site, slides are merely notes in prepacked form, and they are not taking any notes during the lecture, they are not attending the lecture at all. The third format is definitely the best format of content presentation. It enables white-boarding and assures the maximum quality of education, if used wisely, i.e. without 135

8 misuse of ICT. The greater is number of interactive animations and simulations, the more attractive and effective are the lectures and/or classroom exercises. Professional simulation software can be easily purchased, while animation software have to created and it is very time consuming task, same as preparation of good slides. Nevertheless, this effort has to be undertaken by the course team, the sooner, the better. In this format, inclass lecture may be followed by class podcasts. McKinney[15] acknowledged that the students who downloaded the podcast seemed to do better with taking notes and paying closer attention to what being said, as they were able to go back and repeat parts of the lecture they had trouble understanding. She refers to podcasts as supplementary tool to the in-class lecture, that can help students gain a better understanding of the material, and also help free up teachers from answering repetitive questions [16]. 4.2 Assessment program (knowledge assessment) On-line pre-lab and formative quizzes and tests, performed in an asynchronous manner, are definitely more advantageous than f2f assessments. In case of large classes, on-line format is the only one that can be effectively applied! All pre-lab and formative quizzes and tests have to be obligatory, however the scores shouldn t count in the final grade. Elaboration of comprehensive repository of problems is the main task, its accomplishment is necessary, prior starting the automated assessment program. This task is very time consuming, but time spent on preparation the repository is very quickly returned, when preparing and marking the tests. The problems for both formative assessments and summative assessment are automatically drawn from the repository, taking into account all five attributes assigned to each problem and then the corresponding parameters, as described in Section 3.2. Post-exam statistical analysis enables correction of the repository as well as correction of the material delivery process., such that this process best matches the students ability of knowledge acquisition. [5] D. Lassner, Why Bother? Investments in Education Technologies and Institutional Priorities, Keynote Address 7 th IASTED Int. Conf. CATE, Kauai - Hawaii, [6] S.Ko, Keys to creating an effective online training program, Tutorial 10 th IASTED Int. Conf. CATE, Beijing, China, [7] J. McCracken, M. Dobson, Blended Learning Design, Proc. 7 th IASTED Int. Conf. CATE, Kauai - Hawaii, 2004, [8] J.P. Gerval, Y. Le Ru, Toward a virtual lab for Electronics virtual experiments, Proc. 8 th IASTED Int. Conf. CATE, Oranjestad, Aruba, 2005, [9] B.S.Rodanski, Web-Based Tutorials and Assessment in Technical Subject, Proc. 5 th Int. Conf. on Signals and Electronic Systems ICSES, Lodz, Poland, 2006, [10] Multi- choice Tests, Guidelines and Analysis, [11] K. Moscinska, J. Rutkowski, Introduction of summative and formative web-based assessment to the Circuit Theory course, Proc. 6 th IASTED Int. Conference on Web Based Education, Chamonix, 2007, [12] L.Palma, R.F.Morrison, P.N.Enjeti, J.W.Howze, Use of Web-Based Materials to Teach Electric Circuit Theory, IEEE Transactions on Education, 48(4), 2005, [13] J. Rutkowski, K. Moscinska, D.Grzechca, Students attitude to formative web-based assessment, Proc. 7 th IASTED Int. Conference on Web Based Education, Innsbruck 2008, [14] J. Rutkowski, K. Moscinska, P. Jantos, Web-based assessment and examination system from experiment to practice, Proc. 10 th IASTED Int. Conf. CATE, Beijing, China, 2007, [15] D. McKinney, J.L. Dyck, E.S. Luber, itunes university and the classroom: Can podcasts replace professors? Computers & education, 52 (3), 2009, [16] Class podcasts can lead to better grades, References [1] A. D Atri, Learning e-learning, Invited Presentation 7 th IASTED Int. Conf. CATE, Kauai - Hawaii, [2] elearning Action Plan, [3] elearning Programme, http //ec : europa. eu/education/. archive/elearning/programme_en.html [4] Education & Training 2010, education/policies/2010/et_2010_en.html 136