Using students’ learning style to create effective learning groups in MCSCL environments

Students have different ways for learning and processing information. Some students prefer learning through seeing while others prefer learning through listening; some students prefer doing activities while other prefer reflecting.Some students reason logically, while others reason intuitively, etc. Identifying the learning style of each student, and providing learning content based on these styles represents a good method to enhance the learning quality. However, there are no efforts onhow to detect the students’ learning styles in mobile computer supported collaborative learning (MCSCL) environments. We present in this paper new ways for automatically detecting the learning styles of students in MCSCL environments based on the learning style model of Felder-Silverman. The identified learning styles of students could be then stored and used at anytime toassign each one of them to his/her appropriate learning group

Dynamic group formation in mobile computer supported collaborative learning environment

Forming suitable learning groups is one of the factors that determine the efficiency of collaborative learning activities. However, only a few studies were carried out to address this problem in the mobile learning environments. In this paper, we propose a new approach for an automatic, customized, and dynamic group formation in Mobile Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (MCSCL) contexts. The proposed solution is based on the combination of three types of grouping criteria: learner’s personal characteristics, learner’s behaviours, and context information. The instructors can freely select the type, the number, and the weight of grouping criteria, together with other settings such as the number, the size, and the type of learning groups (homogeneous or heterogeneous). Apart from a grouping mechanism, the proposed approach represents a flexible tool to control each learner, and to manage the learning processes from the beginning to the end of collaborative learning activities. In order to evaluate the quality of the implemented group formation algorithm, we compare its Average Intra-cluster Distance (AID) with the one of a random group formation method. The results show a higher effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in forming homogenous and heterogeneous groups compared to the random method.(undefined

Unlocking the Potential of Wireless Learning

Wirelessly enabled learning offers distinctive benefits to teaching and learning because of portability, low cost and improved communication capabilities (Kukulska-Hulme & Traxler, 2005). This article presents an exploratory review of several categories of wireless technologies, their successful applications in higher education institutions and challenges from the educator’s perspective. Recent research reports a diverse range of wireless learning strategies, see for example Parsons et al. (2006), and current applications of wireless technologies in teaching are still emerging. Conclusions drawn from successful experiments using mobile devices and wireless networks in universities may inspire others and help reassess the challenges ahead. Further studies are needed to explore and successfully apply wireless capabilities driven by the pedagogy, rather than the technology. This paper attempts to outline various teaching strategies and relevant categories of wireless applications focusing on the relationship between the pedagogy and the supporting technology. It concludes with suggesting issues for further research, especially the need to thoroughly evaluate the learning benefits of wireless applications

The use of personal digital assistants in the K-8 classrooms

The purpose of this study was to determine if Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are being used in the K-8 classrooms and if so to what extent. By way of a stratified random sample, four counties in central and southern New Jersey were selected. A survey was developed and sent to the participating districts. Two hundred seventy-five surveys were mailed to eight districts, with a return rate of sixty-eight percent (68%). Data was collected from the surveys and calculated into percentages. Although seventy-two percent (72%) of the respondents report using some form of technology on a daily basis, only three percent (3%) report using PDAs. Those who report using PDAs agree with the experts on a number of areas. One hundred percent (100%) of the respondents agree that PDAs can do the following: help children to become more technologically literate; help teachers to differentiate instruction; and help motivate students to want to learn. This study found that PDAs are being used in the classrooms, but by very few teachers and/or districts. Recommendations for further studies are suggested

Similarity-based grouping to support teachers on collaborative activities in exploratory learning environments

This paper describes a computer-based tool that helps teachers group their students for collaborative activities in the classroom, the challenge being to organise groups of students based on their recent work so that their collaboration results in meaningful interactions. Students first work on an exploratory task individually, and then the computer suggests possible groupings of students to the teacher. The complexity of the tasks is such that teachers would require too long a time to create meaningful groups. The paper describes the design of the tool, the algorithms and metrics used for generating the groups, the evaluation of the tool, and the pedagogical context in which the tool was designed

Unlocking the Potential of Wireless Learning

Wirelessly enabled learning offers distinctive benefits to teaching and learning because of portability, low cost and improved communication capabilities (Kukulska-Hulme & Traxler, 2005). This article presents an exploratory review of several categories of wireless technologies, their successful applications in higher education institutions and challenges from the educator’s perspective. Recent research reports a diverse range of wireless learning strategies, see for example Parsons et al. (2006), and current applications of wireless technologies in teaching are still emerging. Conclusions drawn from successful experiments using mobile devices and wireless networks in universities may inspire others and help reassess the challenges ahead. Further studies are needed to explore and successfully apply wireless capabilities driven by the pedagogy, rather than the technology. This paper attempts to outline various teaching strategies and relevant categories of wireless applications focusing on the relationship between the pedagogy and the supporting technology. It concludes with suggesting issues for further research, especially the need to thoroughly evaluate the learning benefits of wireless applications

A method for supporting heterogeneous-group formation through heuristics and visualization

Group formation is a key issue in e-learning environments that make use of collaborative work to enhance student performance. While there are many ways to arrange students to work in cooperative groups, recent works have shown that learning styles offer good opportunities to organize students. Particularly, it seems the case that regarding learning styles, heterogeneous groups tend to perform better than groups formed by students with similar characteristics. This work addresses the issue of supporting the authors’ task of forming effective learner groups to improve student and group performance. This support is provided through a supervised method which, backed by a visualization tool, is able to produce groups with a good level of heterogeneity. Moreover, this method is not time-consuming for teachers.This project has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (TIN2007-64718) and Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid (S2009/TIC-1650)

Research Priorities in Mobile Learning: An International Delphi Study

Along with advancing mobile technologies and proliferating mobile devices and applications, mobile learning research has gained great momentum in recent years. While there have been review articles summarizing past research, studies identifying mobile learning research priorities based on experts’ latest insights have been lacking. This study employed the Delphi method to obtain a consensus from experts about areas that are most in need of research in mobile learning. An international expert panel participated in a three-round Delphi process involving two cycles of online questionnaires and feedback reports. Participants responded to the question, “What should be the research priorities for the field of mobile learning over the next 5 years?” Ten research categories were identified and ranked in order of priority: 1) teaching and learning strategies; 2) affordances; 3) theory; 4) settings of learning; 5) evaluation/assessment; 6) learners; 7) mobile technologies and interface design; 8) context awareness and augmented reality; 9) infrastructure and management; and 10) country and digital divide. This study also reported expert-generated research statements for each research category and the importance of these research statements rated by the experts. Selected research papers were summarized to help contextualize the discussions of research categories and statements

Designing for the Cooperative Use of Multi-user, Multi-device Museum Exhibits.

This work explores software-based museum exhibits that allow groups of visitors to employ their own personal mobile devices as impromptu user interfaces to the exhibits. Personal devices commandeered into service in this fashion are dubbed Opportunistic User Interfaces (O-UIs). Because visitors usually prefer to engage in shared learning experiences, emphasis is placed on how to design software interfaces to support collaborative learning. To study the issue, a Design-Based Research approach was taken to construct an externally valid exemplar of this type of exhibit, while also conducting more traditional experiments on specific features of the O-UI design. Three analyses, of – (1) museums as a context, (2) existing computer-based museum exhibits, and (3) computer support of collaborative processes in both work and classroom contexts – produced guidelines that informed the design of the software-based exhibit created as a testbed for O-UI design. The exhibit was refined via extensive formative testing on a museum floor. The experimental phase of this work examined the impact of O-UI design on (1) the visual attention and (2) collaborative learning behaviors of visitors. Specifically, an O-UI design that did not display any graphical output (the “simple” condition) was contrasted against an O-UI design that displayed multi-element, dynamically animated graphics (the “complex” condition). The “complex” O-UIs promoted poor visual attention management, an effect known as the heads-down phenomenon, wherein visitors get so enmeshed with their O-UIs that they miss out on the shared context, to the detriment of group outcomes. Despite this shortcoming, the “complex” O-UIs better promoted goal awareness, on-task interactions between visitors, and equity in participation and performance. The tight output coupling (visitors see only one shared display) of the “simple” O-UI condition promoted emergent competition, and it encouraged some visitors (especially males) to become more engaged than others. Two design recommendations emerge: (1) incorporating devices with private displays (O-UIs with output) as interfaces to a single large display better promotes collaboration (especially equity), and (2) O-UIs with “complex” displays may be used in museum exhibits, but visitors would benefit from mechanisms to encourage them to direct their attention to the shared display periodically.Ph.D.Computer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61771/1/ltoth_1.pd