Educational Software Architecture and Systemic Impact: The Promise of Component Software1

The biggest advantage of the World Wide Web (WWW) is seemingly effortless integration among educational content across different sites. We need the same integration to occur in all educational software. A student should be able to explore a graph of an accelerating vehicle first in an experimental notebook, then move the same content to a classroom presentation or internet discussion, and later use familiar analytic tools to examine the data in a final exam. Multiple kinds of educational tools (e.g. graphs, simulations, calculators) must be flexibly combined within many different forms of display (e.g. tutorials, notebooks, network communications, classroom slide shows, standardized assessments). To support flexible combination of many kinds of interactive content in multiple display formats, schools need a Òlearning worksÓ that is analogous to the integrated office software for businesses. Educational software today is failing to meet this goal. Available software for math and science, while often excellent within its own research agenda, is failing to achieve larger scale needs (Chipman, 1993). Software is too expensive, fragmentary, and incompatible to achieve broad marketplace acceptance (OTA, 1988). Instead of deep integration of software and curriculum we have isolated task-specific tools (Bork, 1995). This letter examines the roots of this failure, and then direct attention to a promising solution, component software architecture. We argue the current failure arises from Òstand-aloneÓ application architecture.This architecture requires building a separate computer program for each educational software idea. We argue