Teachers as instructional designers: Does involving a classroom teacher in the design of computer-based learning environments improve their effectiveness?

The REDEEM authoring tool was developed to allow teachers without programming knowledge to design computer-based learning environments (simple Intelligent Tutoring Systems) for their students in a time-effective manner. It was hoped that the systems that resulted from teachers authoring with REDEEM would be both effective for learners and easy for teachers to support and to integrate into their classroom practice. In this paper, we review a five year programme that was aimed at assessing the strengths and, just as importantly, the weaknesses of this approach to developing computer-based learning.