Improving Usability of an Online Learning System by Means of Multimedia, Collaboration and Adaptation Resources

Abstract

This paper describes an adaptive and collaborative environment for helping problem solving. The main user of the environment is a teacher, here called teacher-student, who accesses the environment aiming at solving difficulties he/she encounters in the classroom. In order to improve the usability of the system during the problem-solving process, the environment provides the teacher-student with adaptive assistance by identifying what information should be provided and how it should be shown on the screen according to characteristics of the teacher-student, domain and context of use. Moreover, the teacher-student has a collaborative support that allows him/her to interact with other teacher-students.