Learner-Centred Design (LCD) is a methodology used in the development of educational systems which involves the learner and any other relevant stakeholders in the design process. Stakeholders such as learners, parents and teachers may be involved in this process as fully-fledged design partners, as a source of information which is fed into the design or as a tester of prototypical systems. This is invaluable for requirements gathering through observation of current practice, critiquing of existing systems, low-tech prototyping and formative evaluation of high-tech prototypes.

A related, but distinctly different area, is Design Patterns. In general, such patterns make explicit sound practices of how to solve repeatedly-occurring design problems and provide re-usable knowledge for creating systems. Since the origin of design patterns in the area of architecture in 1977, analogous approaches have been developed in a variety of domains. In particular, in the last decade, design patterns have been used extensively in software engineering and, more specifically, have recently been applied to human-computer interaction, groupware and software development.

Since both techniques draw on the identification of guidelines of how to design systems, this workshop aims to explore the potential synergy between these two approaches specifically in the context of the design of AIED systems. The workshop will consist of a series of presented papers in these areas. Contributors will also be asked to provide accompanying posters of their work to facilitate discussion throughout the day. The workshop will conclude with a plenary session led by an expert panel drawing together the effective techniques that have been running themes within the workshop presentations.

http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/aied_design_workshop/