TELS Technologies  

TELS researchers have created a new, Java-based architecture for designing, developing, and delivering curricula that guides students through the process of scientific inquiry and takes advantage of highly interactive dynamic visualizations and simulations.
  
 
The new Scalable Architecture for Interactive Learning (SAIL) merges the WISE and Pedagogica educational software, developed at UC Berkeley and the Concord Consortium, respectively.
  
 
Borrowing from WISE, SAIL supports the design and delivery of curricula that: 1) guides both students and teachers, and 2) collects data that can be used for assessment and analysis. Borrowing from Pedagogica, SAIL: 1) supports the development of richly interactive modeling and visualization activities, and 2) logs students’ actions within these environments.
  
 
SAIL Software
The Scalable Architecture for Interactive Learning (SAIL) has several features of particular interest to the educational design community:
 
Open Source - SAIL is available under the Gnu Public License (GPL)
 
It integrates computer simulations (or other content-based software coded in Java) and step-by-step support for students as they engage in scientific inquiry
 
It revises current applications, like WISE and Pedagogica, with modular, object-oriented systems that work better together and better meet the needs of teachers and students
 
It supports customization of content and improved collection and logging of student responses to scientific models and other activities—features that are not currently available in either WISE or Pedagogica
  It runs on local student computers, making the system more responsive
     
 
In departing from the standard Web server/Web browser paradigm, SAIL gives more sophisticated treatment to important operational features such as user accounts, authentication and security, re-usability of content, and interoperability with other educational software. The SAIL-based platform makes the TELS learning environment even more dynamic, leading to more diverse curriculum designs with adaptive flow of activities and greater capabilities for student collaboration.
 
TELS has developed specifications for properties, data structures, and rules for combining Java objects to support a wide range of learning technologies. Implementing these specifications will support a community of developers interested in creating educational software that interoperate smoothly. To foster innovation and collaboration, TELS will encourage other researchers to adopt the open source framework of SAIL.

Progress to Date
To maintain continuity with current TELS curricular activities, TELS researchers have created a WISE-like inquiry map (dubbed WISE 3.0) using the Java-based SAIL platform that results in various kinds of steps, including simulations and visualizations designed by the Concord Consortium, each of which can be authored and customized to collect various types of data from students. Students will not notice a difference when they use the software (except, perhaps, improved performance and an updated interface). However, content and data management is quite different. An immediate advantage for TELS research will be improved logging of student data from interactions with simulations.
 
The TELS technology and development teams have reviewed user skills to characterize needs for the next generation software. TELS researchers have begun pilot-testing a number of WISE 3.0 curriculum modules in classrooms around the country during the 2006-2007 school year. Development of the SAIL-based teacher management system is also underway and will provide an improved interface and a greater number of management tools for teachers running TELS modules in their classes. In addition, a new SAIL-based authoring tool is also being developed for teachers and researchers who wish to create their own curriculum projects or customize existing ones. For more details, see the SAIL Wiki and the WISE 3.0 Design Wiki.