Implementing a mobile campus using MLE Moodle

Mobile learning is considered the next step of online learning by incorporating mobility as a key requirement. Indeed, the current wide spread of mobile devices and wireless technologies brings an enormous potential to e-learning, in terms of ubiquity, pervasiveness, personalization, flexibility, and so on. For this reason, Mobile Learning is attracting significant research efforts covering a fairly variety of learning settings, from schools and universities to workplaces and cities. This research has evidenced that mobile technology can offer new opportunities for learners to learn inside and beyond the traditional instructor-oriented educational paradigm. However, mobile technologies are still in its infancy and many challenges arise. In this paper we analyze, from both learning and technological perspectives, the development of learning applications using mobile devices. To this end, proxy and proxy less architectures are considered as way to extend traditional virtual campuses with mobile clients. The objective is twofold: to access learning materials and to support learning activities. A prototype of a Virtual Campus is developed using MLE-Moodle -the Mobile Learning module of Moodle. The proposed Virtual Campus enables mobile clients to perform online learning activities and is a step towards achieving the “anytime, anywhere” paradigm.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mi-Learn : an evaluation of an m-learning management system

M-Learning is a novel concept concerned with delivering learning content over mobile devices, which today is being seen as a way to support for conventional and collaborative learning as well as for extending the scope of e-learning. This paper presents the work carried out on a research project named Mi-Learn, whose goal is that of gathering background knowledge within the field of m-learning, identification of related research problems, and creating an environment where solutions to these problems can be identified and evaluated. Pocket SCORM initiatives such as [ADL04] that are working towards a set of standards for m-learning have identified the restricted user interface and the requirement for offline learning sessions as the two major challenges in this area. The work presented in this paper forms part of the first phase of an m- learning research project and concentrates on the first of these challenges. By means of a pilot m-learning management system, an evaluation exercise was carried out in order to assess the impact of a restricted user interface on the learning experience. The evaluation carried out takes both the pedagogical and user interface aspects as the evaluation criteria. Evaluation results show that currently there seems to be a value for m-learning, but more as an extension for exiting e-learning programmes rather than a complete learning management system on its own. The results also helped in clarifying the research area and setting a direction for further research work.peer-reviewe

A collective intelligence approach for building student's trustworthiness profile in online learning

(c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Information and communication technologies have been widely adopted in most of educational institutions to support e-Learning through different learning methodologies such as computer supported collaborative learning, which has become one of the most influencing learning paradigms. In this context, e-Learning stakeholders, are increasingly demanding new requirements, among them, information security is considered as a critical factor involved in on-line collaborative processes. Information security determines the accurate development of learning activities, especially when a group of students carries out on-line assessment, which conducts to grades or certificates, in these cases, IS is an essential issue that has to be considered. To date, even most advances security technological solutions have drawbacks that impede the development of overall security e-Learning frameworks. For this reason, this paper suggests enhancing technological security models with functional approaches, namely, we propose a functional security model based on trustworthiness and collective intelligence. Both of these topics are closely related to on-line collaborative learning and on-line assessment models. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to discover how security can be enhanced with trustworthiness in an on-line collaborative learning scenario through the study of the collective intelligence processes that occur on on-line assessment activities. To this end, a peer-to-peer public student's profile model, based on trustworthiness is proposed, and the main collective intelligence processes involved in the collaborative on-line assessments activities, are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Emerging technologies for learning (volume 1)

Collection of 5 articles on emerging technologies and trend

Mobile VLE vs. Mobile PLE: How Informal is Mobile Learning?

Mobile Learning Systems are often described as supporting informal learning; as such they are a good fit to the idea of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), software systems that users choose and tailor to fit their own learning preferences. This paper explores the question of whether existing m-learning research is more in the spirit of PLEs or Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). To do this we survey the mobile learning systems presented at M-Learn 2007 in order to see if they might be regarded as informal or formal learning. In order to categorise the systems we present a four dimensional framework of formality, based on Learning Objective, Learning Environment, Learning Activity and Learning Tools. We use the framework to show that mobile systems tend to be informal in terms of their environment, but ignore the other factors. Thus we can conclude that despite the claims of m-learning systems to better support informal and personal learning, today’s m-learning research is actually more in the spirit of a VLE than a PLE, and that there remains a great deal of unexplored ground in the area of Mobile PLE systems

Mobile Learning in Distance Education: Utility or Futility

Can mobile technology improve flexibility and quality of interaction for graduate students in distance programs? This paper reports the results of an innovative study exploring the usability, learning, and social interaction of mobile access to online course materials at a Canadian distance education university. Through a system called MobiGlam, students accessed Moodle course materials on a variety of mobile devices. The Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model (Koole, 2006) was used to examine the complexities of this mobile system, its perceived usefulness, and potential impact on distance students. The researchers recommend further study of the balance between the controls and constraints of social technologies and the needs of distance students. Is there a way to achieve a balance so as to encourage adaptation to new technologies and a greater sense of “connectedness” among learners? As a result of the study, the researchers remain supportive of “device-agnostic” mobile tools that permit the greatest freedom of choice to distance learners.Acknowledgements: Thank you to Mr. Curtis Collicutt, Mr. Darren Harkness, and Dr. Fatma Elsayed Meawad for all your technical support

Learning beacons - using the Internet of Things to deliver health and safety materials in student workshops

Health and safety is an important part of student education within a wide range of both engineering and applied art fields. Until now, health and safety information for specific machinery was commonly held only as paper copies for student reference. The introduction of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies mean that it is possible to provide highly-localised health and safety information as well as short instructional videos detailing the safe operation of workshop equipment using mobile technology. Each workshop has been equipped with a “learning beacon” – a Bluetooth Low Energy beacon that points mobile devices towards web pages. Students can download the Physical Web app on their mobile device and then use it to access the web page pointed to by the local beacon. The content can be easily updated using Google Sites and the university’s own Sharepoint system, making it easy for teaching staff to maintain the content and to add and remove teaching materials as appropriate. Monitoring of the usage of the web pages showed that approximately 25% of the student cohort made use of this resource. This pilot project is a collaboration between the University of Wales Trinity St. David’s School of Applied Computing and the School of Applied Art and Design

Context-Aware and Adaptable eLearning Systems

The full text file attached to this record contains a copy of the thesis without the authors publications attached. The list of publications that are attached to the complete thesis can be found on pages 6-7 in the thesis.This thesis proposed solutions to some shortcomings to current eLearning architectures. The proposed DeLC architecture supports context-aware and adaptable provision of eLearning services and electronic content. The architecture is fully distributed and integrates service-oriented development with agent technology. Central to this architecture is that a node is our unit of computation (known as eLearning node) which can have purely service-oriented architecture, agent-oriented architecture or mixed architecture. Three eLeaerning Nodes have been implemented in order to demonstrate the vitality of the DeLC concept. The Mobile eLearning Node uses a three-level communication network, called InfoStations network, supporting mobile service provision. The services, displayed on this node, are to be aware of its context, gather required learning material and adapted to the learner request. This is supported trough a multi-layered hybrid (service- and agent-oriented) architecture whose kernel is implemented as middleware. For testing of the middleware a simulation environment has been developed. In addition, the DeLC development approach is proposed. The second eLearning node has been implemented as Education Portal. The architecture of this node is poorly service-oriented and it adopts a client-server architecture. In the education portal, there are incorporated education services and system services, called engines. The electronic content is kept in Digital Libraries. Furthermore, in order to facilitate content creators in DeLC, the environment Selbo2 was developed. The environment allows for creating new content, editing available content, as well as generating educational units out of preexisting standardized elements. In the last two years, the portal is used in actual education at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Plovdiv. The third eLearning node, known as Agent Village, exhibits a purely agent-oriented architecture. The purpose of this node is to provide intelligent assistance to the services deployed on the Education Pportal. Currently, two kinds of assistants are implemented in the node - eTesting Assistants and Refactoring eLearning Environment (ReLE). A more complex architecture, known as Education Cluster, is presented in this thesis as well. The Education Cluster incorporates two eLearning nodes, namely the Education Portal and the Agent Village. eLearning services and intelligent agents interact in the cluster

Examining student ICT ownership, use and preferences towards electronically delivered learning resources in Nakhon Phanom University and Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University

The objectives of this research were 1) to find students’ ownership of technology devices, ownership, soft-ware facility, and preferences, 2) to find out what devices instructors use in the classroom, 3) to find out how the students use the online learning that the university provided for them, and 4) to examine students’ software skills. The questionnaire and the interview instruments were designed to clarify participants’ attitudes, and used a Likert scale. Surveys and qualitative research design were developed using Qualtrics software, which is an online research survey tool that can be used for a whole range of data gathering purposes applicable to Higher Degree Research. The samples were the students in both universities (Nakhon Phanom University and Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University), a total of 977 people. A statistical computer program was employed

Technological Applications for Language Teaching

This paper suggests resources for teaching language for general or specific purposes with web-based technology. The authors review the most widely spread technological terms, options, and pedagogical uses