In “Educational Concept Maps: a Knowledge Based Aid for Instructional Design.” by Giovanni Adorni, Mauro Coccoli, Giuliano Vivanet (DMS 2011: 234-237), you will find the following passage:
…one of the most relevant problems concerns the fact that there are no canonical representations of knowledge structures and that a knowledge domain can be structured in different ways, starting from various points of view. As Ohlsson [2] highlighted, this fact has such relevant implications for authoring systems, that it should be stated as the “Principle of Non-Equifinality of Learning”. According to this, “The state of knowing the subject matter does not correspond to a single well-defined cognitive state. The target knowledge can always be represented in different ways, from different perspectives; hence, the process of acquiring the subject matter have many different, equally valid, end states”. Therefore it is necessary to re-think learning models and environments in order to enable users to better build represent and share their knowledge. (emphasis in original)
Nominees for representing “target knowledge…in different ways, from different perspectives….?”
In the paper, the authors detail their use of topic maps, XTM topic maps in particular and the Vizigator for visualization of their topic maps.
Sorry, I was so excited about the quote I forgot to post the article abstract:
This paper discusses a knowledge-based model for the design and development of units of learning and teaching aids. The idea behind this model originates from both the analysis of the open issues in instructional authoring systems, and the lack of a well-defined process able to merge pedagogical strategies with systems for the knowledge organization of the domain. In particular, it is presented the Educational Concept Map (ECM): a, pedagogically founded (derived from instructional design theories), abstract annotation system that was developed with the aim of guaranteeing the reusability of both teaching materials and knowledge structures. By means of ECMs, it is possible to design lessons and/or learning paths from an ontological structure characterized by the integration of hierarchical and associative relationships among the educational objectives. The paper also discusses how the ECMs can be implemented by means of the ISO/IEC 13250 Topic Maps standard. Based on the same model, it is also considered the possibility of visualizing, through a graphical model, and navigate, through an ontological browser, the knowledge structure and the relevant resources associated to them.
BTW, you can find the paper in DMS 2011 Proceedings Warning: Complete Proceedings, 359 pages, 26.3 MB PDF file. Might not want to try it on your cellphone.
And yes, this is the paper that I found this morning that triggered a number of posts as I ran it to ground. 😉 At least I will have sign-posts for some of these places next time.
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