Persuasive Design in Teaching and Learning

The EuroPLOT project (2010-2013) has developed Persuasive Learning and Technologies (PLOTs) and has evaluated them in four real-world case studies, which cover the widely different teaching scenarios of university education, adult learning in industry, informal learning at a museum, literature studies, and language learning. At the International Workshop of EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013), the results of the project were presented, and an overview of related research was given. One of the main conclusions of EuroPLOT has been that the specific learning context has to be considered when applying persuasive designs. At IWEPLET 2013, both the theoretical background as well as evaluations of persuasive technology demonstrations were presented. This paper provides an overview of these presentations

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

Tagging, Recognition, Acknowledgment of Informal Learning experiences (TRAILER)

[EN] Learners do not only learn in the institutions, they learn during their live in different contexts, with different resources and from the interaction with different persons. This kind of learning that is not always intentionally carried out is known as informal learning. The application of Information and Communication Technologies to learning and teaching processes facilitates making visible such kind of learning for the institutions. However the nature of formal and non-formal, coursebased, approaches to learning has made it hard to accommodate these informal processes satisfactorily. The project aims to facilitate first the identification by the learner (as the last responsible of the learning process), and then the recognition by the institution, in dialogue with the learner, of this learning. To do so a methodology and a technological framework to support it have been implemented and tested

Analysing the Impact of Built-In and External Social Tools in a MOOC on Educational Technologies

Proocedings of: 8th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning: Scaling Up Learning for Sustained Impact (EC-TEL 2013). Paphos, Cyprus, September 17-21, 2013MOOCs have been a disruptive educational trend in the last months. Some MOOCs just replicate traditional teaching pedagogies, adding multimedia elements like video lectures. Others go beyond, trying to engage the massive number of participants by promoting discussions and relying on their contributions to the course. MOOC platforms usually provide some built-in social tools for this purpose, although instructors or participants may suggest others to foster discussions and crowdsourcing. This paper analyses the impact of two built-in (Q&A and forum) and three external social tools (Facebook, Twitter and MentorMob) in a MOOC on educational technologies. Most of the participants agreed on the importance of social tools to be in touch with their partners and share information related to the course, the forum being the one preferred. Furthermore, the lessons learned from the enactment of this MOOC employing social tools are summarized so that others may benefit from them.This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Project TIN2011-28308-C03-01, the Regional Government of Madrid project S2009/TIC-1650, and the postdoctoral fellowship Alianza 4 Universidades.Publicad

Characterization of the Ezousas aquifer in south-west Cyprus for the storage and recovery of treated sewage effluent

This thesis reports on research from a full-scale demonstration project to recharge a depleted aquifer with treated sewage effluent from the Paphos (Cyprus) wastewater treatment plant. The project artificially recharged the Ezousas river basin, located in the south-western coastal plain of Cyprus, with tertiary treated, disinfected effluent through a network of artificial infiltration ponds. The aims of the research were to determine the capacity of the aquifer to provide a suitable buffer for the flow from the wastewater without flooding and to measure the changes in reclaimed water quality. The aquifer hydraulics and treatment capacity, including recharge basins, were analysed using field and laboratory measurements. A geological field survey and modelling was used to assess, both by practice and theory the effectiveness of the Ezousas river aquifer for storage and recovery of the reclaimed water. The aquifer was found to be mainly composed of alluvium with typical hydraulic characteristics. The average porosity was 20% and hydraulic conductivity around 90 m/day, it was concluded the aquifer would be able to accept all the annual output of the treatment plant which was 5 Mm3 /a. The recharge network consisted of five groups of infiltration basins arranged on both banks of the River Ezousas about 2km upstream of the wastewater treatment plant. Each infiltration basin contained two, four or six recharge ponds, each basin was 2,000m2 in area with a depth of 1.5 m. A recharge pattern consisting of alternating weeks of wet-fill and drying cycles was found necessary to maintain the unsaturated zone below the ponds in order to maximise the amount of water that could be recharged whilst optimising water quality. The hydraulic impact of the artificial recharge and extraction from the field measurements of borehole water levels indicated recharged water down to 15m below the surface. Tracer tests on the groundwater flow, capture zone, residence times and mass balances of recharged and native waters gave widely varying residence times between 30 days and 5 years, these were attributed to the complex flow patterns found. Recharged water was sampled using a series of extraction wells located along the downstream river basin, starting at the infiltration ponds and then at stages downstream. Eight production and monitoring wells were tested including control samples up-gradient (upstream) from the ponds, to about 7km down-gradient (downstream). Water quality was analyzed for the standard wastewater constituents including indicator organisms, organic matter, nutrients N and P and the metals. It was one of the recommendations of the thesis however that attention also be paid to the persistent organics, including the pesticides, biocides, plasticizers and pharma residues. The chemical data was used to build and validate a solute transport model of the ponds and surrounding area to predict the transport and fate of priority contaminants. In this way, the geo-chemical potential for the retardation, attenuation and chemical or biochemical degradation processes taking place in the unsaturated and saturated zone were assessed. From the results it was concluded that for most analytes, which included metals, nitrate and common salts, the main processes were mixing and dilution by the native ground water. The extracted water was then a mix of waters according to the different residence times and flow of natural groundwater, giving a stable water quality for irrigation. A third reaction involving cation exchange with the local geology was however identified which reduced the concentrations of copper and phosphate beyond what was expected from just mixing. It was also concluded that denitrification did not occur because of a combination of the high quality of the effluent, the operational cycling of the ponds and the high porosity of the vadose zone. Previous work has found denitrification if the recycled water still contains organic matter, further work was recommended to determine the critical organic concentrations. The renovated water from the Ezousas wastewater reuse Project was able to meet the health and agronomic requirements for unrestricted irrigation. The risk of flooding with sewage effluent resulting from hydraulic mounding was also investigated to define the growth and decay of the mound. It was possible to report that after more than fifteen years of operation and a total infiltration of 40Mm3, there have been no signs of reduced hydraulic capacity or water quality

Towards an integrated model of teacher inquiry into student learning, learning design and learning analytics

This poster introduces the first version of an integrated model of three traditions of research in TEL: Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning (TISL) [1], Learning Design (LD) [2] and Learning Analytics (LA) [3]. The integrated model, is based on four existing models: TISL Heart Model [4], Design Inquiry Model [2], Scenario Design Process Model [5], and the Model for Integrating Design and Analytics in Scripting for CSCL (MIDAS4CSCL) [6]. The result is leading towards a new strand of inquiry, called teacher-led design inquiry of learning

A design-based study of Citizen Inquiry for geology

Citizen Inquiry forms a new method of informal science learning and aims to enable the engagement of citizens in online scientific investigations. Citizen Inquiry combines aspects from Citizen Science and Inquiry-based learning and is implemented through a community of practice where people having a shared interest interact and exchange knowledge and methods supported and guided by online systems and tools within a web-based inquiry environment. To explore the potential of Citizen Inquiry, a series of design-based studies will be developed to help in understanding and improving the engagement of citizens in online scientific investigation. “Inquiring Rock Hunters” is the first design-study of Citizen Inquiry, applied to Geology, and it explores the experience of participants with inquiries, other participants and tools

Science learning in online communities of scientific investigations: evidence and suggestions

This study is looking at how citizens engage with scientific investigations and it comprises two citizen inquiry communities: ‘Inquiring Rock Hunters’ and ‘Weather-it’. The communities originated from the idea of having citizens act as scientists. Therefore, the citizens were allowed and supported to create and facilitate investigations in collaboration with experts and based on their experience of everyday-life science. The following science learning aspects were investigated: type of learning taking place within the community, inquiry behaviour and patterns, scientific vocabulary and self-reported knowledge. Reflection on the main findings led to essential design suggestions that aim to facilitate the understanding of inquiry activities as part of a complete scientific process; balance the enjoyable parts of the projects with gains in scientific literacy; improve transferrable skills; and involve experts in conveying quality science topic culture and learning