Many researches are interested in the observation of learners' activities within a Technology-Enhanced Learning environment. This work is about how observation can be improved. We originally propose the concept of observation strategy. Such approach leads teachers-designers to design and specify the targeted observation, and all its components, as a dedicated artifact in relation with a learning scenario. We present and discuss in this paper the issues and challenges of the research work we are conducting.

The instructional designers may design learning sessions with tools offered by the Technology Enhanced Learning systems. Any learning situation is designed to follow specific learning objectives. Instructional designers examine the progress of these situations and evaluate the correlation between their deployment and the objectives through an observation activity. We present in this article theoretical and practical studies in order to understand the real needs of instructional designers in organizing their activity of observation. We also present the concept of Observation Strategy to answer the needs of instructional designers for organizing the observation of learning sessions deployed in the TEL systems.

Every learning situation is designed according to specific instructional objectives. Instructional designers evaluate the correlation between the objectives and the real progress of the learning session by practicing an observation activity. In order to be efficient, the observation must be organized. Our goal in this work aims to provide tools and methods to support the observation activity. That is why we propose the concept of Observing Strategy. In this paper, we present a concrete observation strategy formalization to illustrate our proposition. We also present two processes: the first one focuses on the specification of executable observation strategies by considering the elements of instructional scenario, the links between pedagogical indicators and observation means and the machinereadable format of all this information. The second one focuses on specifying an observation strategy by the user through the manipulation of dedicated tools.