The Scalable Adapter Design Pattern: Enabling Interoperability Between Educational Software Tools

For many practical learning scenarios, the integrated use of more than one learning tool is educationally beneficial. In these cases, interoperability between learning tools - getting the pieces to talk to one another in a coherent, well-founded manner - is a crucial requirement that is often hard to achieve. This paper describes a re-usable software design that aims at the integration of independent learning tools into one collaborative learning scenario. We motivate the usefulness and expressiveness of combining several learning tools into one integrated learning experience. Based on this we sketch software design principles that integrate several existing components into a joint technical framework. The feasibility of the approach, which we name the "Scalable Adapter" design pattern, is shown with several implementation examples from different educational technology domains, including Intelligent Tutoring Systems and collaborative learning environments.