Managing evolution and change in web-based teaching and learning environments

The state of the art in information technology and educational technologies is evolving constantly. Courses taught are subject to constant change from organisational and subject-specific reasons. Evolution and change affect educators and developers of computer-based teaching and learning environments alike – both often being unprepared to respond effectively. A large number of educational systems are designed and developed without change and evolution in mind. We will present our approach to the design and maintenance of these systems in rapidly evolving environments and illustrate the consequences of evolution and change for these systems and for the educators and developers responsible for their implementation and deployment. We discuss various factors of change, illustrated by a Web-based virtual course, with the objective of raising an awareness of this issue of evolution and change in computer-supported teaching and learning environments. This discussion leads towards the establishment of a development and management framework for teaching and learning systems

Building communities for the exchange of learning objects: theoretical foundations and requirements

In order to reduce overall costs of developing high-quality digital courses (including both the content, and the learning and teaching activities), the exchange of learning objects has been recognized as a promising solution. This article makes an inventory of the issues involved in the exchange of learning objects within a community. It explores some basic theories, models and specifications and provides a theoretical framework containing the functional and non-functional requirements to establish an exchange system in the educational field. Three levels of requirements are discussed. First, the non-functional requirements that deal with the technical conditions to make learning objects interoperable. Second, some basic use cases (activities) are identified that must be facilitated to enable the technical exchange of learning objects, e.g. searching and adapting the objects. Third, some basic use cases are identified that are required to establish the exchange of learning objects in a community, e.g. policy management, information and training. The implications of this framework are then discussed, including recommendations concerning the identification of reward systems, role changes and evaluation instruments

Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories

This paper outlines some enablers and barriers in the use of learning object repositories (LORs) to support learning within a range of communities. Key dimensions of use of LORs as well as relationships between LORs and the learning communities that they aim to support are discussed. The LORs and communities analysed in the paper are SIESWE Learning Exchange (formerly Stor Curam), JORUM, IVIMEDS, and DIDET. Guided by the Activity Theory perspective, the LORs and the communities are analysed as sociocultural activity systems. Based on this analysis, some initial barriers and enablers for the use of LORs to support learning are outlined and implications for the future use of LORs are discussed

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Scientific Literacy in the digital age: tools, environments and resources for co-inquiry

This paper describes some European and International projects to promote Scientific Literacy in the digital age as well as technologies, environments and resources for co-inquiry. The aim of this research is also to describe computer applications, software tools and environments that were designed to support processes of collaborative inquiry learning to promote Scientific Literacy. These tools are analyzed by describing their interfaces and functionalities. The outcomes of this descriptive research points out some effects on student learning and competences developed known from the literature. This paper argues the importance of promoting scientific citizenship not only through schools and Universities (formal learning), but also non-credit online courses and community-based learning programmes (non-formal context), as well as daily life activities, educational open digital materials through social networks (informal scenario)

The adoption of open sources within higher education in Europe : a dissemination case study

For some time now, the open-source (OS) phenomenon has been making its presence felt; disrupting the economics of the software industry and, by proxy, the business of education. A combination of the financial pressure Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) find themselves under and the increasing focus on the use of technology to enhance students' learning have encouraged many HEIs to look towards alternative approaches to teaching and learning. Meanwhile, the "OS" has challenged assumptions about how intellectual products are created and protected and has greatly increased the quantity and arguably the quality of educational technologies available to HEIs

A Rule Set for the Future

This volume, Digital Young, Innovation, and the Unexpected, identifies core issues concerning how young people's use of digital media may lead to various innovations and unexpected outcomes. The essays collected here examine how youth can function as drivers for technological change while simultaneously recognizing that technologies are embedded in larger social systems, including the family, schools, commercial culture, and peer groups. A broad range of topics are taken up, including issues of access and equity; of media panics and cultural anxieties; of citizenship, consumerism, and labor; of policy, privacy, and IP; of new modes of media literacy and learning; and of shifting notions of the public/private divide. The introduction also details six maxims to guide future research and inquiry in the field of digital media and learning. These maxims are "Remember History," "Consider Context," "Make the Future (Hands-on)," "Broaden Participation," "Foster Literacies," and "Learn to Toggle." They form a kind of flexible rule set for investigations into the innovative uses and unexpected outcomes now emerging or soon anticipated from young people's engagements with digital media