2,301 research outputs found

    Contextual Learning Analytics Apps to Create Awareness in Blended Inquiry Learning

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    Blended inquiry learning, where students for example use online labs to perform experiments, is considered a promising approach to increase the skills and interest of students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains. For teachers to provide adequate guidance to their students, it is critical that they are aware of the progress and difficulties encountered by each student. This can be accomplished through visual learning analytics, namely by tracking student interaction, data analysis and adequate visualisations. To address this awareness issue, we present in this paper a set of contextual learning analytics apps which provide the teacher with learning-specific information. This paper presents a requirement analysis from a summer school with 32 teachers, the design and implementation of three contextual learning analytics apps, the main outcomes from a case study as well as an outlook on future research avenues

    Using Learning Analytics at School: a Go-Lab Study

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    Go-Lab is an European project devoted to promote STEM education by means of pedagogical guidelines based on blended Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL), authoring tools for rich open educational resources, and online labs. In such a framework, we have analysed the orchestration needs of expert teachers in inquiry learning and STEM, and provided a set of Learning Analytics (LA) apps to address them. This document reports on three LA apps -Online Users, Student Time Spent, and Submitted Reports- which, based on the context description, provide visualisations of the student activity to support teacher awareness and reflection

    Enhancing Social Media Platforms for Educational and Humanitarian Knowledge Sharing:Analytics, Privacy, Discovery, and Delivery Aspects

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    Social media (SM) platforms have demonstrated their ability to facilitate knowledge sharing on the global scale. They are increasingly often employed in educational and humanitarian domains where, despite their general benefits, they expose challenges peculiar to these domains. Specifically, the research context of this thesis is directed by my participation in the Go-Lab European project and my collaboration with MĂ©decins Sans FrontiĂšres (MSF) where SM platforms were used extensively. In this thesis, we address four challenges regarding analytics, privacy, discovery, and delivery, aiming to answer corresponding four research questions. How to provide user-oriented analytics in knowledge sharing systems to support awareness and reflection? What privacy management interfaces and mechanisms are suitable for knowledge analytics and learning analytics? How to enable discovery of knowledge relevant to user interests? How to facilitate knowledge delivery into settings where Internet connectivity is limited or absent? Henceforward, we provide an overview of our results. Analytics. To enable awareness and reflection for an SM platform users, we propose the embedded contextual analytics model where the analytics is embedded into the interaction context and presents information relevant to that particular context. Also, we propose two general architectures materializing this model respectfully based on real-time analytical applications and a scalable analytic back-end. Using these architectures, we provided analytics services to the SM platform users. We conducted an evaluation with the users demonstrating that embedded contextual analytics was useful to support their awareness and reflection. Privacy. To address the privacy concerns associated with the recording, storage, and analysis of user interaction traces, we propose a novel agent-based privacy management model. Our proposal uses a metaphor of physical presence of a tracking agent in an interaction context making the platform user aware of the tracking and allows to manage the tracking policy in a way similar to the physical world. We have implemented the proposed privacy interface in an SM platform and obtained positive evaluation results with the users. Discovery. Due to a large number of content items stored in SM platforms, it can be challenging for the users to find relevant knowledge. Addressing this challenge, we propose an interactive recommender system based on user interests enabling discovery of relevant content and people. We have implemented the proposed recommender in an SM platform and conducted two evaluations with platform users. The evaluations demonstrated the ability of the approach to identify relevant user interests and to recommend relevant content. Delivery. At the moment of writing in 2016, near half of the world's population still does not have reliable Internet access. Often, the places where humanitarian action is needed have limited Internet connection. We propose a novel knowledge delivery model that relies on a peer-to-peer middleware and uses low-cost computers for local knowledge replication. We have developed a system implementing the model and evaluated it during eight deployments in MSF missions. The evaluation demonstrated its knowledge delivery abilities and its usefulness for the field staff

    Monitoring for awareness and reflection in ubiquitous learning environments

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    Producción CientíficaDespite the educational affordances that ubiquitous learning has shown, it is still hampered by several orchestration difficulties. One of these difficulties is that teachers lose awareness of what the students perform across the multiple technologies and spaces involved. Monitoring can help in such awareness, and it has been highly explored in face-to-face and blended learning. Nevertheless, in ubiquitous learning environments monitoring has been usually limited to activities taking place in a specific type of space (e.g., outdoors). In this paper we propose a monitoring system for ubiquitous learning, which was evaluated in three authentic studies, supporting the participants in the affordable monitoring of learning situations involving web, augmented-physical, and 3D virtual world spaces. The work carried out also helped identify a set of guidelines, which are expected to be useful for researchers and technology developers aiming to provide participants’ support in ubiquitous learning environments

    Designing and launching a year-long executive education programme at LSE Confucius Institute for Business London: Chinese language and culture for business (CLCB)

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    This paper focuses on designing and launching the first year-long executive education programme, namely Chinese Language and Culture for Business (CLCB) at LSE (London School of Economics) in London. The essential features of this program include the curriculum design, delivery mode and on-going student support. A blended learning (BL) approach is adopted in the Mandarin teaching, with course delivery and assessment taking place in face-to-face contact hours in class, combined with the use of online learning environment and mobile technology out of class. This combination is used to meet the needs of busy business professionals, to provide them with online and offline support, and thus to maximise their learning outcome. From the intercultural communication perspective, the programme provides intensive training and business master sessions addressing core values of Chinese culture and Chinese business communication styles. The invited guest speakers who hold senior positions in different businesses areas share their live experiences with the students on the unique Chinese business concepts and practice such as ‘hanxu’ and ‘heqishengcai’. Meanwhile, talks and events, from China Business Briefings to Open Business Forum, are organized to provide the students with global networking opportunities. Embedded in this program, a fortnight summer study trip to Tsinghua University enables students to fully immerse themselves in Chinese language and life. The paper addresses some practical considerations and challenges in designing the programme with the hope to shed light on and provide pedagogical implications for other programme leaders and course designers in the field of language teaching for specific purposes

    Decoding learning: the proof, promise and potential of digital education

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    With hundreds of millions of pounds spent on digital technology for education every year – from interactive whiteboards to the rise of one–to–one tablet computers – every new technology seems to offer unlimited promise to learning. many sectors have benefitted immensely from harnessing innovative uses of technology. cloud computing, mobile communications and internet applications have changed the way manufacturing, finance, business services, the media and retailers operate. But key questions remain in education: has the range of technologies helped improve learners’ experiences and the standards they achieve? or is this investment just languishing as kit in the cupboard? and what more can decision makers, schools, teachers, parents and the technology industry do to ensure the full potential of innovative technology is exploited? There is no doubt that digital technologies have had a profound impact upon the management of learning. institutions can now recruit, register, monitor, and report on students with a new economy, efficiency, and (sometimes) creativity. yet, evidence of digital technologies producing real transformation in learning and teaching remains elusive. The education sector has invested heavily in digital technology; but this investment has not yet resulted in the radical improvements to learning experiences and educational attainment. in 2011, the Review of Education Capital found that maintained schools spent £487 million on icT equipment and services in 2009-2010. 1 since then, the education system has entered a state of flux with changes to the curriculum, shifts in funding, and increasing school autonomy. While ring-fenced funding for icT equipment and services has since ceased, a survey of 1,317 schools in July 2012 by the british educational suppliers association found they were assigning an increasing amount of their budget to technology. With greater freedom and enthusiasm towards technology in education, schools and teachers have become more discerning and are beginning to demand more evidence to justify their spending and strategies. This is both a challenge and an opportunity as it puts schools in greater charge of their spending and use of technolog

    Toward the integration of monitoring in the orchestration of across spaces learning situations

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    Technologies such as augmented Reality (AR), 3D Virtual Worlds (3DVWs) and mobile phones are extending education to other spaces beyond the classroom or the Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). However, the richness of across-spaces learning situations that could be conducted in all these spaces is hampered by the difficulties (encompassed under the “orchestration” metaphor) that teachers face to carry them out. Monitoring can help in such orchestration, and it has been highly explored in face-to-face and blended learning. Nevertheless, in ubiquitous environments it is usually limited to activities taking place in a specific type of space (e.g., outdoors). In this paper we propose an orchestration system which supports the monitoring of learning situations that may involve web, AR-enabled physical and 3DVW spaces. The proposal was evaluated in three authentic studies, in which a prototype of the system provided monitoring through a web dashboard, an AR app, and a Virtual Globe

    Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

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    This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection
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