TuLiP, a Teacher's Tool for Lesson Planning

Teachers are expected to plan the daily learning environment in the classroom, and incorporate technology effectively in the curriculum and instruction. They need to provide information to parents and educational materials to students in accessible and alternative formats. These are requirements of the Federal "Leave No Child Behind" law [PL 107-110, 2002] and the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997" [PL Public Law 105-17, 1997]. Teachers are limited in reaching these goals by the scarcity of easy-to-use tools and resources to meet these challenges. These problems are addressed by the proposed Teacher's Lesson Planning Tool (TuLiP), a tool that is as simple as a form, but harnesses the power of XML and Java Servlet technology within a Cocoon2 dynamic web-publishing framework. The webbased framework allows widespread access to resources regardless of the teacher's operating system; it also allows for the generation of lesson plans in a variety of formats. It enables access to information by administrators, parents and students, and automates the production of alternative and diverse on-line materials, all from the same content. The flexibility for reuse and sharing is enabled by the use of the designed XML-based semantic Learning Environment and Planning (LEAP) language. By using LEAP markup, the content is categorized into classes of Fundamental Learning Objects (FLO), arranged and marked according to its instructional use, with Knowledge Type Templates (KTT). This structure allows storage in a repository (a metadata library), and retrieval using searches on sharable and reusable educational content.