PeBL User Stories
This post describes future use case scenarios for PeBL. These narrative stories show how PeBL revolutionizes learning in several different contexts. Help us envision the future of learning with PeBL by imagining and posting your own story in this forum!
Adult (military) technical training
Background
Jared is an Air Force aircraft maintenance person taking training to be certified to change a tire on a C-130.
The scenario includes:
* Adaptive content
* Content morphing
* Community of Practice (CoP)
* ITS integration
* Tech/operational manual integration
* On demand coaching
* Video chat
Scenario
1. Jared downloads the C-130 Tire Changing Certification PEBL eTextbook from his Wing’s training materials repository.
2. The PEBL eTextbook queries Jared’s learner profile and sees that he has never actually changed tires on an aircraft before, nor has he had any basic training in tire changing. The eTextbook therefore dynamically inserts an introductory section explaining the generalities and concepts of aircraft tire changing.
3. Some blocks of content in this introduction have variable content available through the PEBL Content Morphing extension. These blocks are set by default at the Novice level, but Jared tries out the Intermediate level text on a few of those paragraphs to see if he can handle them. He finds that they are too technically difficult for him and will just confuse him at this point, so he switches those paragraphs back to Novice level, but, on the direction of his commander, he sets himself a goal to eventually master not only the Intermediate but the Advanced level content in those paragraphs as well. He bookmarks this section with a note to go back and re-read it with the Intermediate level switched on, and then later with the Expert level switched on.
4. In this introduction, Jared uses a few embedded, contextualized PEBL Discussion extension objects to discuss aspects of the procedure with his fellow students in the certification program.
5. After Jared finishes the introduction, a placeholder for video supplied by the instructor appears on the first page of the section where the procedure for C-130 tire changing begins. The placeholder in this eTextbook is populated by a video demonstrating the C-130 tire changing procedure.
6. Jared reads a section that breaks down the steps shown in the video, with closeup images and text of details of the procedure, including some 3D animations, and covering outlier conditions, troubleshooting, and TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures). The operational checklists and tech manual for C-130 tire changing are also displayed, referred to, and accessible in this section (Jared can also access them at any time through the PEBL eReader Bookshelf). These checklists and tech manuals are associated through embedded markers with specific locations in the PEBL eTextbook and PEBL-ized tech/operational manuals, so learners can quickly switch back and forth (from either, via links) between the technical/operational documentation and the training.
7. At one point, Jared highlights a passage and indicates through the PEBL Coaching Request extension that he would like help from an instructor to answer questions about a technical point. An on-call coach is selected from a pool of available coaches, opens a video chat session with him through the PEBL Video Chat extension, and answers his questions.
8. Jared interacts with a PEBL Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) widget. This widget provides highly adaptive supported practice for Jared in the tire changing procedure using an interactive 3D simulation. The ITS controls the simulation to adapt to Jared’s performance throughout the ITS session, keeping him in the "zone of proximal development" and requiring more practice on certain aspects of the procedure on which he is showing weakness as well as the aspect he highlighted and got a coaching session on. The ITS remediates his deficiencies until Jared can perform the entire procedure unaided several times, with variable conditions tweaked differently each time. Data regarding his performance in this ITS simulation is compared with an expert’s performance in “stealth assessment” mode and collected into his learner profile as a percentage, i.e. “performed at 87% of an expert’s performance.”
9. Jared does a dry run of changing a tire for the first time on physical practice training equipment, using his operational checklist (set to training mode) displayed in the PEBL book. This practice equipment is instrumented with sensors and there is a dedicated webcam to record the student’s performance. A remote instructor observes via video feed and sensor input, and rates Jared’s performance using a dashboard displayed in his PEBL Instructor website.
10. The eTextbook presents a dashboard to Jared (in the PEBL Student Feedback extension) with a summary of his performance, which is not 100% flawless, so PEBL generates a list of suggested remedial sections and exercises in the eTextbook. The instructor personalizes this list further, and sets a learning path for Jared in the PEBL Custom Learning Path extension that navigates Jared through selected sections of the book, skipping others, that includes morphing content blocks to Intermediate level.
11. Jared goes through this custom (remedial) learning path. Per his commander’s instructions, he goes through it one more time with all content blocks set to Expert level.
12. Jared takes the final certification test, which involves the instructor remotely observing Jared’s performan through a PEBL Performance Rating extension in the PEBL Instructor Guide for the course. Jared does the test on the physical practice training equipment that he used in step 9 above, with a dedicated webcam set up to record his performance. The PEBL extension presents an evaluation rubric to the instructor. The information that the instructor rated Jared as passed on all measures is sent to the system of record for the Air Force aircraft maintenance certification authority.
13. Jared’s pattern of usage of the book is compiled by the system and associated with his success in the course. This profile of “consumption of the book leading to success” is aggregated with other such profiles and sent to the training administrators, who adjust the book accordingly, to optimize success for future students.
14. Jared is automatically enrolled in a community of practice (CoP) for his those in training or holding this aircraft changing certification in the Air Force. Jared’s eTextbook has an embedded portal to the CoP site (which can also be accessed on the web through a desktop browser), where he can do standard CoP things like upload links and materials, participate in discussion forums, see announcements, etc.
K-12 education - 5th grade student
Background
Tamisha has been issued a tablet device that has all of the PEBL eTextbooks for all of her school subjects preloaded. She is at home about to do her homework. This scenario includes the following:
* Flipped Classroom
* Peer tutoring
* Group learning
* Gamification
* Screen broadcast
* Parent monitoring
* Dynamic book morphing
Scenario
1. Tamisha logs on to her school-supplied tablet, which also logs her into PEBL.
2. She receives a notification through the PEBL Notifications extension that alerts her to the fact that she has homework in all subjects tonight, with an estimate (generated by the PEBL system) of how much time it will take for each assignment, based on the number of pages in the eTextbook she needs to complete in the assignment, the average time it has taken past students to go through these assignments and others like them, and other data.
3. She touches a link in the notification that launches her Learning eGuidebook, a PEBL eBook which has been updated earlier today by her teacher with details of all of the homework the class needs to accomplish tonight, as well as:
4. The summary data contained in the notification
5. An overall curriculum timeline for topics, assignments, tests, etc. for each class
6. General information about each class (behavior expectations, etc.)
7. Tips on good study habits
8. Her Learning eGuidebook has been custom-skinned by her school district with school logos and includes some personal color and preferences and decorative images that Tamisha has chosen. Tamisha notices one new image which was inserted earlier today by her school district. Tamisha touches it. It launches a motivational video recorded by a celebrity pop star with positive messages about the importance of doing well in school.
9. Tamisha decides to work on her math assignment first. She clicks a link in the Learning eGuidebook and her PEBL math eTextbook opens to the section that specifically addresses tonight’s homework.
10. The section starts with a short talking head + electronic whiteboard video made by her teacher that is embedded dynamically into the book, within a placeholder at the beginning of each section of the book (reserved for the teacher to populate with a video like this). The teacher does a short lecture demonstration of the new math concept, working through a few sample problems. The teacher has reused the same lecture demonstration video that she used in her 5th grade class last year, but the homework assignment has changed slightly, so she recorded a separate short video earlier today emphasizing a few details about tonight’s homework assignment. This second video launches immediately and automatically after the end of the first video.
11. Tamisha’s PEBL student profile shows that she can handle the more advanced version of the eTextbook content, so blocks of content that have advanced versions available have automatically morphed to that advanced version. Tamisha starts reading, and finds one block too difficult, so she overrides it using controls provided by the PEBL Content Morphing extension to go to the more basic block for that section.
12. As she is reading a page of the section assigned for homework, a message pops up from the PEBL Notifications extension: “Your classmate Yolanda is reading this page right now and has indicated she would like some help. Would you like to help her?” Tamisha’s PEBL profile shows that she is a high performer and has had successful peer tutoring sessions in the past (according to ratings from other students), so the system has identified her as a “qualified peer tutor”. In particular, it has matched Tamisha with Yolanda because their profiles indicate personal compatibilities such as similar interests. Students cannot request tutors from the PEBL system by name; the system always decides who is the best match. These requests are evenly distributed among the most qualified students so as not to overly burden any one highly popular individual.
13. Explaining concepts to others helps Tamisha learn, she often finds, and wants to help, so she is agreeable to do a tutoring session with her. She indicates “yes” to the dialog box, and an invitation for a text or VoIP chat is sent to Yolanda through the PEBL Peer Tutoring extension. Yolanda agrees, and the PEBL Tutoring extension initiates a session, which includes VoIP audio and an electronic whiteboard. They spend a few minutes going over the content.
14. They end the chat session and both rate it as successful using a rating function in the PEBL Tutoring extension. They do not see each other’s ratings. Tamisha continues reading her PEBL eTextbook. Data about the chat session with Yolanda (e.g., rating, date & time, and duration) is stored in Tamisha’s PEBL Learner Profile.
15. Retrieval practice (self check) interactions (e.g., multiple choice questions) occur frequently in the book to reinforce Tamisha’s understanding of the material. Although they are presented for learning, not assessment purposes, data about her performance on these interactions is stored in her PEBL profile. The time spent on each page, skips, and returns to previous pages is also recorded and stored in her profile. A complex algorithm infers and subtracts idle time when she was probably away from her tablet.
16. Several examples of application of concepts are presented in the section she is reading. These examples are tailored by default to address her interest in sports (as indicated in her learner profile), although the interface provides a way for her to see examples in other areas if she wishes.
17. Tamisha indicates that she is finished with the assigned section in the PEBL interface. The book closes, and a box appears with a summary of the assignment she has completed. The PEBL Parent Verification extension appears, asking for one of her parents to verify that Tamisha made a good faith effort to do the assignment (including attestation that it was not done by an older sibling, etc.)
18. She gives her tablet to her mother to sign off that she did the assignment. Her mother looks at a few of the interactions that Tamisha did and asks her to explain briefly what she learned. In the Parent Verification dashboard, her mother can see details of Tamisha’s performance in the assignment. Based on her observations, her mother is satisfied that Tamisha did the assignment to the best of her ability, so she enters a PIN to verify.
19. Tamisha goes back to the Learning eGuidebook, which has a link to her English assignment, and initiates a session with that PEBL eTextbook.
20. During her reading of that eTextbook, which is a short story, Tamisha thinks it would be worthwhile to read this material with one or more partners - not for tutoring help purposes, but as a group who are all learning something new together and can discuss it as they go. She sees in her PEBL Group Study extension that her friend Stacey is on the same page of the eTextbook that she is right now. She sends her a request for group studying, which Stacey accepts. They read together and engage in a discussion over VoIP about the material. In some cases, they do screen sharing. At one point, they decide to add their friend Alexandra to the group. However, the PEBL system indicates that Alexandra is not in this PEBL book at the moment, so they cannot add her.
21. In class the next day, Tamisha logs on to PEBL to do her math practice exercises based on the reading homework.
22. During class time, the teacher controls what students can do or see on their tablets; they are limited to accessing the PEBL math eTextbook to enforce keeping them on task.
23. The teacher starts the class practice session by using the PEBL Screen Broadcast extension to broadcast her screen to the class’s individual PEBL eTextbooks from her PEBL book (which through administrator settings has morphed from the baseline book into a Teacher’s Edition version of the book with special additional functions and privileges). She goes through a couple of practice problems, reviewing with the class what they learned in the homework about how to do these problems.
24. The teacher tells the class to do the rest of the problems on their own.
25. After a few minutes the teacher asks for a volunteer to show their work. The teacher calls on someone with their hand up. The teacher selects the student from a list of students in the PEBL Screen Broadcast extension and broadcasts that student’s screen to other students’ screens. The student explains how they did it to the class.
26. Students continue working their exercises, which are gamified within the PEBL Gamification extension with points, levels and achievements, and leaderboards.
27. Tamisha’s performance on the exercises is entered into her PEBL learner profile, and is aggregated for the teacher and displayed in the teacher’s dashboard embedded in her Teacher’s Edition of the book, giving her detailed feedback on both the class as a whole and individual students’ progress on this set of competencies.
28. The next time Tamisha opens her tablet, she sees a notification that there is a change to the schedule of assignments due. The teacher has pushed this notification out to all of her students in Tamisha’s class via her PEBL Notification extension. There is also a note pushed by the teacher only to Tamisha congratulating her on her excellent performance in this latest assignment.
29. Tamisha goes to the Learning eGuidebook to see the change in schedule.
K-12 Education - 11th grade student
Background
Robert is offered a school-provided tablet device at the outset of the school year, but he has his own tablet that he prefers (it is his personal tablet that he uses for gaming, entertainment, email, etc. - he does not want to carry around two tablets). He has loaded the PEBL eReader and the eTextbook library for all of his classes on his personal tablet from the school content repository site. Robert is required to install mobile device management (MDM) and security features in his personal tablet to allow the school district to sequester and protect any sensitive data (test scores, profile data, etc.) sent to and from the tablet, as well as IP-protected content materials.
This scenario includes:
* Competency-based education approach
* Virtual lab
* Adaptive content
* Social learning via asynchronous discussion
* Content rating
* Class polling
* Machine essay evaluation (ITS)
Scenario
1. Robert logs on to his PEBL eReader.
2. He receives a notification through the PEBL Notifications extension that alerts him to the fact that he has homework in all subjects tonight, with an estimate generated by the PEBL system of how much time it will take for each assignment based on the number of pages in the eTextbook he needs to complete in the assignment, the average time it has taken past students to go through these assignments and others like them, and other data.
3. He touches a link in the notification that launches his Learning eGuidebook, a PEBL eBook which has been updated earlier today by his teachers with details all of the homework the class needs to accomplish tonight, as well as:
4. The summary data contained in the notification
5. An overall curriculum timeline for topics, assignments, tests, etc. for each class
6. The competencies, competency frameworks, and performance standards for competencies for each class subject Robert is taking
7. The teachers’ statements of requirements for grade attainments for each class
8. General information about each class and the school
9. Reminders of good study habits
10. Robert decides to work on his computer science assignment first. He touches a link in the Learning eGuidebook. His PEBL computer science eTextbook opens to the section that specifically addresses tonight’s assigned competencies. The book’s content structure is efficiently organized to match the school district’s competency framework. This is possible since the book has been authored with content objects tagged with competency metadata, permitting dynamic assembly of objects (i.e., sections) based on the competency framework of a state, school district, or teacher preferences. The curriculum coordinator at the district has assembled the eTextbook sections of this book before distribution to teachers and students.
11. The section starts with a short talking head + electronic whiteboard video made by the teacher that is embedded dynamically into the book, within a placeholder at the beginning of each section of the book (reserved for the teacher to populate with a video like this). The teacher does a short lecture demonstration of the new programming concepts, working through a few sample problems. The teacher reused the same lecture demonstration video that he used in his 11th grade computer science class last year, but today he is using a virtual lab, so he recorded a separate short video earlier today explaining how to do tonight’s virtual lab assignment. The virtual lab involves a webcam set up in the classroom that shows a simple miniature railroad crossing mockup. The assignment is to program an Arduino board (connected to the Internet as an IoT device) so that it properly controls the miniature crossing gate (with actuators connected to it). This second video launches immediately and automatically after the end of the first video.
12. Robert goes through the eTextbook content, which contains retrieval practice exercises. At the end of the assigned section, he encounters the PEBL Virtual Lab extension embedded into the book.
13. The Virtual Lab extension tells him that some other students are queued in front of him to get time on the virtual lab setup, so he reads some supplementary “While You Wait” material about the task in the meantime. This material automatically comes up for any student who has to wait in the queue. The material includes an adaptive flash card widget for retrieval practice on the coding competencies involved in this exercise. The flash cards dynamically change to be easier or harder based on the student’s performance, to keep the student tightly in the zone of proximal development.
14. Robert gets his turn to enter the virtual lab, and tinkers with the code, seeing the results on each try, and finally gets it working properly. His performance on this exercise is tracked and entered into his profile.
15. He participates in an asynchronous discussion forum associated with this virtual lab exercise through the PEBL Discussion extension. The forum includes posts from all students who have ever done this virtual lab exercise (not just students in his class).
16. Robert rates the value of the virtual lab setup as an exercise for learning the coding competencies. This rating is stored in the competency system integrated with PEBL, which lists the virtual lab as a resource aligned with specific computer science curriculum competencies.
17. In class the next day, during discussion of the solution to the problem, the teacher polls the class at several points as live retrieval practice for certain key concepts, and to gauge their mastery of the competencies. He does this through a PEBL Class Polling extension. On the fly, he adjusts the class topics and pace accordingly.
18. During study hall later that day, Robert completes and submits a written report on a research assignment for homework through a PEBL Student Assignment Upload extension embedded in his science eTextbook.
19. Robert then wants to get a head start on upcoming topics and assignments in the class, so he accesses the Learning eGuidebook to see what is coming up in the next week, and gets started on it. This show of initiative is recorded in his learner profile; this along with other aspects of his profile such as good performance on exercises, assessments, teacher rating, and consumption pattern for the book (showing he is a conscientious learner) results in a high rating for him as a peer tutor.
20. A week later, Robert takes the midterm computer science exam. He is asked to explain in a short essay a particular topic of the area of computer science they have been studying. A PEBL ITS Integration extension does machine evaluation of his essay answer and compares it to an expert essay. It tells him “Congratulations! The quality of your explanation is 93% of an expert’s explanation. You passed.” The score is written to a School Information System (SIS) on the back end, which interfaces with PEBL through an API.
Higher education - 3rd world
Background
Kalyani is a graduate student in economics at an online university in India. She comes from a family that shares one computer. Like a growing number of Indians nowadays, she also has a smartphone (but no tablet or laptop). As a high school student she took a series of free MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) to learn the basics of economics from the world’s top professors at Harvard, MIT, etc. She earned an undergraduate degree by taking online courses, which is an option at a particular public university in India. She now has enrolled in the Master’s degree program at this university, which is a blended learning program. She cannot afford to go to a brick and mortar institution, and cannot logistically do it since she must live at home to take care of her ailing mother.
This scenario includes:
* Dynamic insertion of content
* Crowdsourcing of content
* ePortfolio
* Graceful transitions between devices
* Annotation sharing and rating
* Contextualized discussion forums
* ITS integration
Scenario
1. Her assignment in one class is to read a PEBL eTextbook, provided free to her as a subsidy from the public university.
2. She downloads the eTextbook from the online university’s content library.
3. As she reads through the eTextbook, she notices that the book’s Table of Contents has turned into a heat map that shows the amount of time she has spent on various sections of the book. A complex algorithm detects and adjusts for idle time, and weights revisited portions (i.e., time spent on these sections is worth more than time spent on the first go through). The heat map is helpful to her; it helps her manage her studying time - she knows the topics she is weaker on and needs to ensure she spends more time on those sections than the others, as shown by the heat map.
4. The instructor has augmented the eTextbook with some additional custom content, which is dynamically inserted into all of the students’ books in certain places.
5. She annotates certain passages in the eTextbook with her notes, links, and references, using the PEBL annotations feature. Kalyani has a friend who is also a student in this program with whom she shares her annotations (Kalyani is too shy to share it with the whole class). Her friend gives her annotations the highest rating via the PEBL Annotation Rating extension.
6. Kalyani’s friend finds the insights and ideas in her annotations brilliant and original, and persuades Kalyani to suggest them to the eTextbook producers as additions. In any case, her annotations will by default be sampled and reviewed by the instructor, and the PEBL system will record the number, length, and ratings of her annotations and suggest to the instructor a grade factor for input to her grade.
7. The eTextbook producer has created the PEBL book as a “crowdsourcing-enabled” book, so, per her friend’s suggestion, Kalyani writes her ideas based on her annotations into the eTextbook using a feature similar to Microsoft Word Revision Tracking. She uploads the marked up eTextbook to the publisher using a built in function for doing so. There is a chance that her material will be credited and she may get paid for it, if the producer feels it is of sufficient quality.
8. Kalyani needs to go out frequently on errands to get food and medicine (since she doesnt have a refrigerator). To enable travel time to be productive, she consumes the eTextbook using the PEBL Synchronization extension that operates behind the scenes to maintain and synchronize state (content context, location, and status) between devices (her desktop computer and smartphone) when transitioning from one device to another. Because PEBL books use responsive design, she has little trouble consuming the book on either platform.
9. Kalyani encounters a lot of interactive media in the book, including macroeconomic data visualizations that lets her try out economic scenarios to better understand how variables interact. Her usage of these simulation widgets is tracked in her profile and has some input into her grade.
10. An Intelligent Tutoring System supports her through some of the interactive media exercises, challenging her with questions to try to answer through manipulating simulations, and evaluating those manipulations and responding. It also does traditional tutoring on some of the main concepts on which she is weak.
11. Kalyani encounters many embedded, contextualized asynchronous mini discussion forums in the book (using the PEBL Discussion extension), and deepens her understanding of the material by reading what others have posted and posting to them. The Discussion extension allows her to switch between viewing postings from her class cohort alone or all students who have ever consumed this book. The number, length, and ratings of her postings, and her level of effort in reading others’ postings (inferred by browsing behavior) is tracked by PEBL and is factored into a suggestion to the instructor for input to her grade, like the annotations mentioned earlier.
12. She produces several papers as assignments based on what she is learning in the book. She uploads these through the PEBL ePortfolio extension, where they are reviewed, commented on, and rated by peers, and graded by the teacher using the PEBL Grade Book extension in the instructor’s Teacher’s Edition of the book.
13. Kalyani takes the end of course test, which is delivered by the PEBL Exam extension within the PEBL eTextbook. It is a closed book test, so access to the rest of the book is not enabled while she is taking the test. There is a knowledge portion of the test delivered via multiple choice questions, and a portion assessing higher order thinking skills via dialogue with the integrated ITS. The ITS concludes through this dialogue that Kalyani understands the subject matter at 95% of the level of an expert.
14. Test results are written to Kalyani’s profile and sent to the teacher’s Grade Book extension.
Discretionary/Self-directed Learning
Background
Juanita always wanted to learn Portuguese, since she has relatives in Brazil that she likes to visit often. She wants to learn to speak Portuguese but not read or write it for now. She already knows some Portuguese, but her knowledge has large gaps and is basic at best. Because she speaks Spanish (which is similar to Portuguese), she feels she will probably catch on fast; she probably wont need to go through the course in the same way as a complete novice to the language.
Juanita is a empirical data person; the language learning company she chose attracted her by the fact that they do data-driven continuous improvement of their materials, using sophisticated statistical modeling of successful learning and micro-behavior tracking (through use of xAPI). Their built in assessments identify successful performers, profile their pattern of consumption of the materials, and frequently readjust the materials to optimize them for greater success. The company’s learning method is transparently competency-based, with clear performance standards and evidence of success, which Juanita also likes.
This scenario includes:
* Adaptive content
* Continuous improvement based on user data
* Intelligent content provisioning
Scenario
1. Juanita pays for a subscription to the company’s learning program and downloads onto her tablet the course (PEBL eTextbook) this company sells for learning Portuguese.
2. She notices that the Table of Contents is organized as a list of competencies.
3. A notice pops up, asking Juanita if she already knows some Portuguese or Spanish. She answers yes. It also asks her what her learning goals are (speaking only, or reading and writing also, what level of fluency she desires, and other questions).
4. A detailed pre-assessment appears, which Juanita takes. This pre-assessment is dynamically tailored to stay within the confines of the goals she selected, e.g., it does not waste her time assessing her Portuguese reading or writing skills.
5. PEBL tells her that, based on her learning goals and the assessment results, a learning path (through sections representing specific competencies in the book) has been generated for her. The system also asks her what their available time is to spend with the book, and in what type of schedule, and applies spaced learning algorithms to recommend a schedule of usage. It asks her if she wants this schedule inserted into her calendar on her tablet as reminders. She says “Yes”.
6. The PEBL eTextbook will be presented to her in such a way as to hide certain sections and show others, navigating her in a specific sequence according to her specific goals and assessed abilities. If she decides later to learn to read and write Portuguese, she can return the book to its default state (i.e., showing all sections) at no extra charge. However, the version of the book she paid for is the Beginner version. If she wants the Intermediate version, she has to pay extra. That version covers the same competencies as the Beginner version, but at a higher level of proficiency, with extra exercises, more vocabulary, more complex examples, higher thresholds for passing to the next section, etc.. The Intermediate version includes a feature wherein she has opportunities to talk to a live tutor.
7. Juanita is about to leave for work the next day and wants to spend 20 minutes doing the first lesson in the eTextbook. She has indicated in the PEBL User Preferences extension that she will be using PEBL books often at times with no or intermittent connectivity. When she opens the eTextbook, it asks her: “Do you plan to be offline during this session?” She answers “Yes”, since there are a couple of long tunnels she will be going through on her train, with no connectivity. She is presented with a dialog box warning her that the eTextbook contains cloud-based content and services that will not work while she is offline. It asks her “Do you want to put these items into a queue for later interaction with them, when you are back online?”. Regardless of her answer, tracking data that would normally be sent in real time will be cached for later transmission. When Juanita answers “No.” PEBL then recommends that she download content files in advance so as to be self-contained (at least as far as consuming the content) while offline. It warns her that the files (including video) are quite large, so she should ensure that she is on a free wireless network.
8. After her first lesson, Juanita finds the material a little too easy and decides to pay to unlock the Intermediate version. This does not involve downloading a new book; the content is already contained (but locked/hidden) in this book. Moreover, the results of her assessment and stated goals are already known by this book, and she is already comfortable with this book’s structure; the concepts covered are the same, but unlocked Intermediate portions simply replace the Beginner content with greater number of vocabulary words introduced, more challenging exercises, etc.
9. Behind the scenes, the eTextbook does micro tracking of her usage behaviors. These could be as complex as “user x started the video on p. 21, paused at point b, rewatched from point a to point b, then played the video to point c and stopped. User x then watched the video again to point d after reading to the end of the book chapter.”
10. One of the additions Juanita can pay for to be added to her book is location based content. She decides to pay for it. It asks her questions about her location such as “Describe what kinds of things the store you are in front of has for sale.” If she were in Brazil, it could prompt her to try out particular interactions, like “Ask the store clerk what kind of clothes he sells.”
11. After finishing the course, she is now motivated to go for the Advanced level and decides to pay to unlock the Advanced version. She pays to unlock it and goes through the course in Advanced mode. This Advanced content is addressing the same competencies as she has taken in the book, only at a higher level of performance.
12. After she has finished the course, Juanita is offered a monetary reward for submitting documentation on success or non-success for some important milestone related to her learning goal, using a PEBL Success Factors extension built into the eTextbook. For example, “I passed the XYZ certification exam after using this eTextbook”. This gives the book producers feedback on their efforts to improve the product. A detailed record of her pattern of usage of the book (stored in her learner profile) is associated behind the scenes with her documentation.