Context based learning: a survey of contextual indicators for personalized and adaptive learning recommendations. A pedagogical and technical perspective

Learning personalization has proven its effectiveness in enhancing learner performance. Therefore, modern digital learning platforms have been increasingly depending on recommendation systems to offer learners personalized suggestions of learning materials. Learners can utilize those recommendations to acquire certain skills for the labor market or for their formal education. Personalization can be based on several factors, such as personal preference, social connections or learning context. In an educational environment, the learning context plays an important role in generating sound recommendations, which not only fulfill the preferences of the learner, but also correspond to the pedagogical goals of the learning process. This is because a learning context describes the actual situation of the learner at the moment of requesting a learning recommendation. It provides information about the learner current state of knowledge, goal orientation, motivation, needs, available time, and other factors that reflect their status and may influence how learning recommendations are perceived and utilized. Context aware recommender systems have the potential to reflect the logic that a learning expert may follow in recommending materials to students with respect to their status and needs. In this paper, we review the state-of-the-art approaches for defining a user learning-context. We provide an overview of the definitions available, as well as the different factors that are considered when defining a context. Moreover, we further investigate the links between those factors and their pedagogical foundations in learning theories. We aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of contextualized learning from both pedagogical and technical points of view. By combining those two viewpoints, we aim to bridge a gap between both domains, in terms of contextualizing learning recommendations

A System Architecture for a Context-aware Blended Mobile Learning Environment

Mobility offers new possibilities for interaction and communication in education. Pervasive nature of mobile devices makes learning on the move and across time a reality. Their characteristics fit into the blended use of technology in education since they posses socializing powers, re-conceptualize learning by making it more informal, ambient, collaborative and personal. Nevertheless, the problem of creation and coordination of a learning environment based on mobile devices still exists. This article presents a system called MILE and its extensible context-aware architecture to support the use of mobile devices in blended learning environments. In the end, some experience and lessons learned during the development of the system are described

AndroMedia : Towards a Context-aware Mobile Music Recommender

Portable music players have made it possible to listen to a personal collection of music in almost every situation, and they are often used during some activity to provide a stimulating audio environment. Studies have demonstrated the effects of music on the human body and mind, indicating that selecting music according to situation can, besides making the situation more enjoyable, also make humans perform better. For example, music can boost performance during physical exercises, alleviate stress and positively affect learning. We believe that people intuitively select different types of music for different situations. Based on this hypothesis, we propose a portable music player, AndroMedia, designed to provide personalised music recommendations using the user's current context and listening habits together with other user's situational listening patterns. We have developed a prototype that consists of a central server and a PDA client. The client uses Bluetooth sensors to acquire context information and logs user interaction to infer implicit user feedback. The user interface also allows the user to give explicit feedback. Large user interface elements facilitate touch-based usage in busy environments. The prototype provides the necessary framework for using the collected information together with other user's listening history in a context- enhanced collaborative filtering algorithm to generate context-sensitive recommendations. The current implementation is limited to using traditional collaborative filtering algorithms. We outline the techniques required to create context-aware recommendations and present a survey on mobile context-aware music recommenders found in literature. As opposed to the explored systems, AndroMedia utilises other users' listening habits when suggesting tunes, and does not require any laborious set up processes

The ecology of resilience learning in ubiquitous environments to adverse situations

Primary education in Mexico is facing a growing set of challenges that the government has tried to counteract through the use of communication technologies (ICT) in formal education. While these efforts provide support for students and educators, there remains a need for a renewed and contextualized awareness that will re-conceptualize the adverse experiences of students and the importance of resilience in the context of the learning environment. The objective of this document is to give an account of the learning acquired by nine telesecondary students in a rural area of Hidalgo and the student’s benefits of building awareness about the ecology of learning. The paper highlights the process of re-envisioning their experiences that emerged from the various points of views shared in discussion. The study was triangulated by quantitative and qualitative phenomenological and hermeneutical analyses. It was organized into three stages and employed a survey, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and use of the Google-Classroom platform. The hermeneutical analysis of autobiographies and the use of technological resources enhanced the personal analysis of the experiences of the participants. These experiences generated learning that may often be invisible in formal education but can empower critical thinking, collaboration and autonomy of students to become aware of their learning and the scope of their social contribution