KLSG

Knowledge and Learning
Systems Group

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

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KLSG Research

Chame-Learn

Our e-Learning system, named Chame-learn, represents a new stage in online instructional delivery and management. Chame-Learn is an adaptive learning environment that changes to fit the needs of the learners, instructors, and administrators.

Like its namesake, the chameleon, Chame-learn by its very nature adapts itself to its environment.  It does this by allowing users to combine and customize the components of its nine modular systems.  In addition to be highly customizable, Chame-learn blends established programming and data storage practices with newly emerging technologies to create a dynamic, sophisticated, instructional system capable of supporting a wide range of technologies that can adapt and scale to fit an organization’s resource capabilities and individual learner’s instructional needs.

Chame-learn’s users can dynamically create and deliver instructional content without the need for HTML editors or the need to transfer  files to/from the server.  Once in the database, the content can be easily recalled from any location and any time, edited, and saved where it then can be made immediately available to other instructors to integrate into their curriculum or for learners to consume.  Beyond the simplicity inherent in using a database system to build instructional content, what makes Chame-learn truly unique from existing instructional systems is how adaptable it is at the instructor, learner, and administrative levels.

Instructor-oriented adaptability – unlike other systems, Chame-learn has pedagogical sound, content construction templates that facilitate the creation of content based upon established theories of learning, such as Constructivism, Behaviorism, Mental Modeling, etc.  These theory-based templates can be mixed and matched by the instructor in order to promote the maximum learning possible for each unique learning goal or event.  Also Chame-learn,through its Instructional Support System (one of the nine aforementioned modular systems), can house and facilitate cross-curricula sharing of up to 1 billion individual instructional components such as multimedia presentations, ADA transcripts, online articles, learning goals, etc.  It also can house, integrate, and deliver up to 1 million instructional courses per US Federal CIP classification category.

Learner-oriented adaptability – its well established that not all individuals learn the same way.  Chame-learn, unlike other systems, allows the individual learner to customize how the instruction is presented to him/her.  With a few clicks of the mouse, a user can select from any number of predefined interface designs/skins or may create his/her own.

Administrator-oriented adaptability – as is the case with individuals, not all organizations want or can support the same level of instructional or technological capability.  Chame-learn allows system administrators to select and configure the system to fit the resources and needs of each individual organization.  This includes support for the integration of existing and emerging third-party technologies thereby allowing administrators to upgrade/exchange one technology for another without costly recoding and enhancement efforts.

Interface and functionality prototyping and testing have already been completed for Chame-learn.  For more information about Chame-learn contact Steve Downey at downey@uiuc.edu.