A conceptual model of personalized virtual learning environments

The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is one of the fastest growing areas in educational technology research and development. In order to achieve learning effectiveness, ideal VLEs should be able to identify learning needs and customize solutions, with or without an instructor to supplement instruction. They are called Personalized VLEs (PVLEs). In order to achieve PVLEs success, comprehensive conceptual models corresponding to PVLEs are essential. Such conceptual modeling development is important because it facilitates early detection and correction of system development errors. Therefore, in order to capture the PVLEs knowledge explicitly, this paper focuses on the development of conceptual models for PVLEs, including models of knowledge primitives in terms of learner, curriculum, and situational models, models of VLEs in general pedagogical bases, and particularly, the definition of the ontology of PVLEs on the constructivist pedagogical principle. Based on those comprehensive conceptual models, a prototyped multiagent-based PVLE has been implemented. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the learning achievements by comparing personalized and non-personalized systems. The result indicates that the PVLE we developed under our comprehensive ontology successfully provides significant learning achievements. These comprehensive models also provide a solid knowledge representation framework for PVLEs development practice, guiding the analysis, design, and development of PVLEs. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Teacher Beliefs on Personal Learning, Collaboration, and Participation in Virtual Communities of Practice

Virtual communities of practice have been used to improve teachers\u27 instructional practice; yet, many of these communities do not take into account the effect of teachers\u27 personal learning and collegial collaboration beliefs on engagement within this model. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine if teaching was enhanced through participation in virtual communities of practice and determine if teachers\u27 personal beliefs prior to entering these communities influenced their engagement. Wenger\u27s social learning theory served as the conceptual framework. The research questions asked how teachers\u27 beliefs on personal learning and their beliefs on collaboration influenced their engagement in virtual communities of practice and how personal learning networks facilitated extended technology-based learning in the classroom. Data were collected through 2 semi structured interviews with 9 teacher participants and analysis of digital records from the Classroom 2.0 and Flat Connections Nings. Manual, open-coding of the data revealed themes which explained the use of personalized learning networks for instructional growth and social networking for collaborative practice. Findings indicated that while teachers\u27 previously held ideas were not significantly altered, the social, supportive environments created through virtual learning communities made a suitable setting for professional development. These findings may effect positive social change as virtual communities of practice for teachers evolve into professional development environments that challenge teacher beliefs, use progressive technologies, and engage teachers in collaborative activities

Cracking the Code: Synchronizing Policy and Practice for Performance-Based Learning

Proposes a policy framework for integrating performance-based learning into the education system, synchronizing policy and practice, and ensuring collaborative state leadership and flexible federal leadership. Lists state policy issues and exemplars

Real‐time interactive social environments: A review of BT's generic learning platform

Online learning in particular and lifelong learning in general require a learning platform that makes sense both pedagogically and commercially. This paper sets out to describe what we mean by generic, learning and platform. The technical requirements are described, and various trials that test the technical, educational and commercial nature of the platform are described Finally, the future developments planned for the Real‐time Interactive Social Environments (RISE) are discusse

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

Implementation and design of a service-based framework to integrate personal and institutional learning environments

The landscape of teaching and learning has changed in recent years because of the application of Information and Communications technology. Among the most representative innovations in this regard are Learning Management Systems. Despite of their popularity in institutional contexts and the wide set of tools and services that they provide to learners and teachers, they present several issues. Learning Management Systems are linked to an institution and a period of time, and are not adapted to learners' needs. In order to address these problems Personal Learning Environments are defined, but it is clear that these will not replace Learning Management Systems and other institutional contexts. Both types of environment should therefore coexist and interact. This paper presents a service-based framework to facilitate such interoperability. It supports the export of functionalities from the institutional to the personal environment and also the integration within the institution of learning outcomes from personal activities. In order to achieve this in a flexible, extensible and open way, web services and interoperability specifications are used. In addition some interoperability scenarios are posed. The framework has been tested in real learning contexts and the results show that interoperability is possible, and that it benefits learners, teachers and institutions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Psychological elements explaining the consumer's adoption and use of a website recommendation system: A theoretical framework proposal

The purpose of this paper is to understand, with an emphasis on the psychological perspective of the research problem, the consumer's adoption and use of a certain web site recommendation system as well as the main psychological outcomes involved. The approach takes the form of theoretical modelling. Findings: A conceptual model is proposed and discussed. A total of 20 research propositions are theoretically analyzed and justified. Research limitations/implications: The theoretical discussion developed here is not empirically validated. This represents an opportunity for future research. Practical implications: The ideas extracted from the discussion of the conceptual model should be a help for recommendation systems designers and web site managers, so that they may be more aware, when working with such systems, of the psychological process consumers undergo when interacting with them. In this regard, numerous practical reflections and suggestions are presented

Twenty Years of Edtech

An opinion often cited among educational technology (edtech) professionals is that theirs is a fast-changing field. This statement is sometimes used as a motivation (or veiled threat) to senior managers to embrace edtech because if they miss out now, it’ll be too late to catch up. However, amid this breathless attempt to keep abreast of new developments, the edtech field is remarkably poor at recording its own history or reflecting critically on its development. When Audrey Watters recently put out a request for recommended books on the history of educational technology, I couldn’t come up with any beyond the handful she already had listed. There are edtech books that often start with a historical chapter to set the current work in context, and there are edtech books that are now part of history, but there are very few edtech books dealing specifically with the field’s history. Maybe this reflects a lack of interest, as there has always been something of a year-zero mentality in the field. Edtech is also an area to which people come from other disciplines, so there is no shared set of concepts or history. This can be liberating but also infuriating. I’m sure I was not alone in emitting the occasional sigh when during the MOOC rush of 2012, so many “new” discoveries about online learning were reported—discoveries that were already tired concepts in the edtech field