EINO The Answer

Abstract

This study investigated the various methods involved in creating an intelligent tutor for the University of Central Florida Web Applets (UCF Web Applets), an online environment where student can perform and/or practice experiments. After conducting research into various methods, two major models emerged. These models include: 1) solving the problem for the student 2) helping the student when they become stymied and unable to solve the problem. A storyboard was created to show the interactions between the student and system along with a list of features that were desired to be included in the tutoring system. From the storyboard and list of features, an architecture was created to handle all of the interactions and features. After the initial architecture was designed, the development of the actual system was started. The architecture underwent a several iterations to conclude with a working system, EINO. EINO is an intelligent tutoring system integrated into the UCF Web Applets. The final architecture of EINO incorporated a case-based reasoning system to perform pattern recognition on the student’s input into the UCF Web Applets. The interface that the student interacts with was created using Flash™. EINO was implemented in three of the experiments from the UCF Web Applets. A series of tests were performed on the EINO tutoring system to determine that the system could actually perform each and every one of the features listed initially. The final test was a simulation of how the EINO would perform in “real life.” Test subjects with the same educational level as the target group were chosen to spend an unlimited time using each of the three experiments. A single experiment is designed to reinforce a topic currently being covered by the book. Each of the test subjects filled out a survey on every lab to determine if the EINO system produced a helpful output.