John Eklund
Access Australia
Co-operative Multimedia Centre
Technology
Park, Cornwallis Street Eveleigh
j.eklund@cmcaccess.com.au
James
Sawers
The Institute of Interactive
Multimedia
The University Of Technology,
Sydney
james.sawers@uts.edu.au
Romain Zeiliger
National Scientific Research Centre
(CNRS)
GATE, 93 ch. des Mouilles, 69130 Ecully, FRANCE
zeiliger@irpeacs.fr
Annotations, browser, discourse, map
This paper describes NESTOR NAVIGATOR, a graphical Web browser which supports
collaborative learning (Zeiliger, Belisle & Cerratto, 1999 in press). NESTOR
is based on the principle that an individual's path through an information space
reflects their discourse context with the information, it allows them to
personalise that space, and in effect, solve their own navigation problems. In a
window to one side of the browser window, it dynamically builds a navigable
overview map of the hyperspace as the user interacts with it. It distinguishes
the type of node that the user is currently at and illustrates possible paths
from that node. Users are able to annotate nodes with personal notes, and
describe their preferred path through the information space, in other words,
which path contains the most meaning for them. Users may export these
descriptions as 'tours' and thus share their personal interactions with the
information space with others. In terms of solving navigation problems, NESTOR's
approach is to provide an interactive, stimulating environment where the
learner's expertise is deployed, rather than drawing on knowledge held in some
expert model as in a knowledge-based system. It encourages users to reflect on
their interactions with an information space, to augment those interactions with
annotations, to collaborate with others through the sharing of tours and
annotated maps, and to apply their own methodologies to solve navigational
problems. We overview the software, with particular emphasis on the principles
of discourse theory on which it is based, and outline ways in which it is being
integrated into teaching and learning contexts, and describe experiments that
are being undertaken with it.