Improving an interactive simulator for computer systems with learning objects

In the 21^st century, learning is a crucial activity through which people can assimilate or acquire new knowledge. However, many existing e-learning systems contain complicated knowledge structure that hinders the reuse or sharing of knowledge. In a previous project awarded by the Microsoft Research Asia, we successfully developed an interactive simulator to facilitate the learning of essential concepts related to computer systems through live animations. Here, we propose to integrate learning objects and relevant technologies into our interactive simulator to illustrate the underlying knowledge structure and, more importantly, facilitate the sharing and reuse of relevant concepts. Through adopting the IEEE learning object metadata (LOM) standard, our simulator can easily exchange relevant learning objects with other e-learning systems. The system design and prototype implementation of our LOM-based simulator is considered in this paper to evaluate how general and experienced users can benefit from our LOM-based simulator in various ways.