Top-down learning navigator based on the cellular models

This paper discusses navigator tools for the top-down learning system. The top down education is a type of goal-oriented education. The present education is generally conducted bottom-up, from basics to applications, and hence learners have to spend a lot of time before reaching the goal to lose their interest. In the top-down education, since they start from their goals, they can keeps focused on their primary interest to shorten the learning time by well motivated study. The navigator tools to lead learners in the hierarchy are implemented based on the cell models and the cellular databases. The study programs are dynamically generated by the navigation tools that match the learners systematically. Another main feature of the navigator tools is its ability to dynamically adapt itself to the learner's background and interests. This feature is made possible by the cellular model. The cell model is an information model advocated by one of the authors (TLK) [Kunii2002, Kunii2003]. It is based on the incrementally modular abstraction hierarchy. The prototype version of the navigator tools is implemented by the Python-based object-oriented ZOPE system and the ZOPE version of dynamic HTML.