Knowledge Cartography for Open Sensemaking Communities

Knowledge Cartography is the discipline of visually mapping the conceptual structure of ideas, such as the connections between issues, concepts, answers, arguments and evidence. The cognitive process of externalising one's understanding clarifies one's own grasp of the situation, as well as communicating it to others as a network that invites their contributions. This sensemaking activity lies at the heart of the Open Educational Resources movement's objectives. The aim of this paper is to describe the usage patterns of Compendium, a knowledge mapping tool from the OpenLearn OER project, using quantitative data from interaction logs and qualitative data from knowledge maps, forums and blog postings. This work explains nine roles played by maps in OpenLearn, and discusses some of the benefits and adoption obstacles, which motivate our ongoing work

Empowering Learners for Lifelong Competence Development

Sligte, H. W., & Koper, R. (2008). Empowering Learners for Lifelong Competence Development: pedagogical, organisational and technological issues. Proceedings of the 4th TENCompetence Open Workshop. April, 10-11, 2008, Madrid, Spain: SCO-Kohnstamm Instituut, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.These proceedings consist of the peer reviewed papers presented at the Fourth TENCompetence Open Wokrshop. This workshop was organised by the EU 6th Framework integrated project TENCompetence, and took place in the Hotel Santo Domingo, Madrid, Spain, on the 10th and 11th of April 10 2008. The objective of the workshop was to identify and analyse current research and technologies in the fields that provide design guidelines and evidence for powerful interfaces, interaction and navigation support, and tailormade competence development opportunities for individual learners, teams and organisations. These actors and organisations (will) use open source infrastructures that contain all the services to (further) develop their competences, using all the distributed knowledge resources (including actors), learning activities, units of learning and learning routes/ programmes that are available online. The main theme of this workshop is to provide an overview on current research on support and empowerment of learners in relation to their competence development. The papers are grouped in the following thematic sections: 1) Pilots & Practices; 2) The Integrated Architecture; 3) Group interaction and group learning; 4) Assessment.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

Clustering Moodle data as a tool for profiling students

International audienceThis paper describes the first step of a research project with the aim of predicting students' performance during an online curriculum on a LMS and keeping them from falling behind. Our research project aims to use data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence methods for monitoring students in e-learning trainings. This project takes the shape of a partnership between computer science / artificial intelligence researchers and an IT firm specialized in e-learning software. We wish to create a system that will gather and process all data related to a particular e-learning course. To make monitoring easier, we will provide reliable statistics, behaviour groups and predicted results as a basis for an intelligent virtual tutor using the mentioned methods. This system will be described in this article. In this step of the project, we are clustering students by mining Moodle log data. A first objective is to define relevant clustering features. We will describe and evaluate our proposal. A second objective is to determine if our students show different learning behaviours. We will experiment whether there is an overall ideal number of clusters and whether the clusters show mostly qualitative or quantitative differences. Experiments in clustering were carried out using real data obtained from various courses dispensed by a partner institute using a Moodle platform. We have compared several classic clustering algorithms on several group of students using our defined features and analysed the meaning of the clusters they produced

Open Social Learning Network

This paper considers the affordances of social networking theories and tools to build new and effective e-learning practices. We argue that “connectivism” (social networking applied to learning and knowledge contexts) can lead to a reconceptualization of learning in which formal and non-formal learning can be integrated as to build a potentially lifelong learning activities to be experienced in “personal learning environments”. In order to provide a guide in the design, development and improvement both of personal learning environments and in the related learning activities we provide a knowledge flow model called Open Social Learning Network (OSLN) —a hybrid of the LMS and the personal learning environment (PLE)—is proposed as an alternative learning technology environment with the potential to leverage the affordances of the Web to improve learning dramatically and  highlighting the stages of learning and the related enabling conditions. The derived model is applied in a possible scenario of formal learning in order to show how the learning process can be designed according to the presented theory. Keywords: Open Social Learning Network OSLN, Learning Theory, Connectivism, Networked Learnin, Collaboration Technologies, Collaborative Learning and Relationship Classification.

Enhancing Employability and e-Business Capacities for Arabic-Speaking Residents of Australia through START Online Training

Background: Arabic minority groups in Australia face language barriers and shortage of computer skills, which cause unemployment and/or an inability to establish their own businesses. The unemployment rate for this group is ~ 20.5%, which is 3-times higher than the average unemployment rate in Australia (~7%). The unemployment will get worse due to COVID-19 pandemic. The current provision of computer and language training in Australia is in English, which results in longer training times and higher chances of non-completion. Objective: The Smart Training for Arabic Residents on Technology (START) is an interventional online bi-lingual training that assists Arabic-speaking residents of Australia to establish an online business with minimum resources (money, space, and infrastructure) or at least help them find suitable employment. Methods: START uses Design-Based Research DBR, as it has its own progressive refinement approach. Both qualitative methods (skills assessment interviews, semi-guided observation, and final follow-up interviews) and quantitative methods (practical tests, log analysis/learning analytics, feedback surveys) contribute to evaluation and improvement cycles. Discussion: DBR has not been applied to vocational immigrant education previously. This research project contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between educational theory, designed learning and outcomes, to help advance learning and teaching environments by refining critical factors that lead to success for trainees. Practically, Arabic residents are provided opportunities to master computer and English skills for establishing their own online businesses. This research, however, has some limitations. Usually a team of teacher, learning designer, and researcher is recommended for DBR, but that is not possible in this PhD study. It is also acknowledged that although this study aims for optimal refinement of the START program, through multiple cycles of improvement, realistically it will be difficult to “recreate” the exact learning environment in future programs

Moodbile: A Framework to Integrate m-Learning Applications with the LMS.

[ES] Los Sistemas de Gestión de Aprendizaje (LMS) se han generalizado entre la mayoría de los centros de educación y formación. Ya se trata de una tecnología madura, han dejado la vanguardia de la innovación. Los usos educativos de la Web 2.0, los Entornos Personales de Aprendizaje, el aprendizaje basado en el juego y en particular la introducción de los teléfonos móviles y las tabletas en la educación están sucediendo fuera de los límites de los LMS. En este trabajo se propone una manera de integrar los dispositivos móviles y las aplicaciones educativas con el LMS a través de servicios web; Se presenta el proyecto Moodbile que proporciona una extensión de servicios web de Moodle 2.0 para la integración móvil y dos clientes móviles listos para utilizar en situaciones reales.[EN] Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become widespread among most centres for education and training. Being a mature technology, LMS have left the vanguard of innovation. Educational usages of the Web 2.0, Personal Learning Environments, Game-based Learning and particularly the introduction of mobile phones and tablets in education are happening outside the boundaries of the LMS. This paper proposes a way to integrate mobile devices and educational applications with the LMS through webservices; introducing the Moodbile project that provides an extension of Moodle 2.0 webservices for mobile integration and two mobile clients ready to use on real courses