10. Authoring Tools to Design Smart LOs

Nowadays the teaching and learning processes are widely supported by the adequate authoring tools. In general, the aim of using the tools is to gain the technological value in the first place, i.e. efficiency, flexibility, etc. (of course, the pedagogical value comes together if the tools are applied properly). Our approach is different in many aspects from those analysed throughout the book. The main distinguishing feature is the realization of the concept of producing and adapting the teaching content automatically. The automation, however, never comes for free. The process of developing smart LOs (SLOs) is the time-consuming and error-prone activity. It requires specific knowledge, competency and some experience of working with meta-programming. Of course, it is possible to write the meta-programming-based SLO specifications manually (by the knowledgeable CS teacher or even by knowledgeable students). Our practice shows that, at the initial phase of adoption of the approach, it is even recommended to apply the manual development. On the other hand, the human efforts are highly dependable on the complexity of SLOs (simply, it might be measured by the number of parameters and their dependency, i.e. model complexity). The more complex SLOs are, the more efforts to develop them are needed. In this case, the use of the adequate tools is highly desirable. Such a situation is with the development of SLOs.