Project-based Exercises and Activities

Educational Exercises and Activities Community Group,

Hello. I would like to share with the group a quick excerpt from a publication that I am writing. The excerpt describes ideas for a new kind of project-based educational item. Beyond those existing technologies<https://www.w3.org/community/exercises-and-activities/wiki/Existing_Technologies> for serializing and storing educational items, the approach described below would involve embedding data into extensions of existing project file formats, those of IDEs, 2D/3D design, and CAD/CAE software applications and tools.

Today, there exist file formats for projects in IDEs, 2D/3D design, and CAD/CAE software, e.g., DWG and DXF. Extensions to these formats could be developed, e.g., EDUDWG and EDUDXF, which would, as envisioned, contain additional educational data including, but not limited to, machine-utilizable design specifications and other task descriptions. When software applications and tools would open these new educational project files, they would operate in a new educational mode which would provide users with enhanced interoperability with educational AI assistants or copilots.

These ideas are interesting to me and hopefully are of some interest to you. Here is that aforementioned excerpt:

Artificial intelligence assistants can continue to provide new educational possibilities and can augment, amplify, and accelerate human creativity and creative processes. Here described are some envisioned user-interface and user-experience concepts along with some technical, implementational considerations pertaining to the interoperation of AI assistants, or copilots, and educational and professional software tools for creativity, 2D/3D design, and engineering.

AI assistants could answer learners’ questions and assist them as they perform project-based educational exercises and activities from design and engineering courses. To enable these educational capabilities, IDEs, 2D/3D design, and CAD/CAE software could support special file types for educational projects. These new project files would, as envisioned, include additional data for these software tools to interoperate with AI assistants and other integrated educational technologies more fully.

As envisioned, supplemental data in educational project files would include, for the CAD/CAE case, natural-language, machine-utilizable design specifications. With such data, AI assistants would be able to recognize learners’ activities and intentions as they made use of interoperating software applications and tools, as they asked task-relevant questions, and as they requested task-relevant assistance.

Project-based educational exercises and activities should be able to support the expressiveness with which to provide required, or recommended, paths of progression and completion, e.g., when teaching specific techniques and combinations thereof, and the expressiveness with which to relax such requirements to enable or encourage procedural creativity. File formats for project-based items should include both the expressiveness for tasks with explicit procedural recommendations and for open, creative tasks.

These more intricate project-based exercises and activities would simplify delivering advanced features for learners from complex software systems comprised of design and engineering tools interoperating with AI assistants. Developing these more intricate project-based items would seemingly require new authoring tools.


Best regards,
Adam Sobieski