An Approach for the Personalization of Exercises Based on Contextualized Attention Metadata and Semantic Web technologies

Proocedings of: 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2010). Sousse, Tunisia, 5-7 July 2010.The generation of Contextualized Attention Metadata (CAM) allows to retrieve information about the different actions that users execute over different resources in a specific context. This paper presents how CAM is used within a learning system to personalize help provided to students while working on online exercises. We outline our approach and present two application examples within this framework for the personalization of exercises with hints.Work partially funded by the Learn3 project TIN2008-05163/TSI within the Spanish “Plan Nacional de I+D+I”, and the Madrid regional community project eMadrid S2009/TIC-1650. This research was partially supported by the European Commission within the Role IP (Grant agreement no.:231396).Publicad

Evaluating the Effectiveness and Motivational Impact of Replacing a Human Instructor by Mobile Devices for Teaching Network Services Configuration to Telecommunication Engineering Students

Proceedings of: 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2010). Sousse, Tunisia, 5-7 July 2010.The introduction of mobile technologies in class provide instructors with tools for contextualized, active, situated, any-time any-where learning. In fact, the role of the instructor can be partially delegated to the student by the use of a mobile device. This paper assesses if this delegation can be brought to the limit of eliminating the need of the physical presence of the instructor in the particular context of a situated learning environment consisting of a server room where third year Telecommunication Engineering students learn how to configure network services such as DNS, SMTP and HTTP. The paper presents the results of two experiments inside the "advanced telematic applications" course at the Carlos III University of Madrid. Two groups of students participated in the experiments, one following traditional instructor based classes and the other using NFC enabled mobile phones. The paper analyzes both learning increments and motivational aspects.The work presented in this paper has been partially funded by the project Learn3 TIN2008-05163/TSI within the Spanish “Plan Nacional de I+D+I”, the SOLITE CYTED Program 508AC0341 and the e-Madrid project S2009/TIC-1650 funded by the Madrid regional Government. Thanks to INNOVISION for providing the NFC tags for this experiment. Gustavo Ramirez-Gonzalez is funded by the EU Programme Alban, scholarship number E06D101768CO and by the Universidad del Cauca.Publicad

Multi-User 3D Virtual Environment for Spanish Learning: A Wonderland Experience

Proceedings of: 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2010). Sousse, Tunisia, 5-7 July 2010.In this paper, we describe a 3D virtual collaborative system designed for the learning of Spanish as a second language. Several initiatives for second language learning in 3D virtual worlds exploiting immersive, interactive and motivating features of these worlds have been carried out successfully during the last years. However, these systems tend to be sometimes too rigid from a pedagogical point of view, requiring the presence of a teacher. We have used the Wonderland development toolkit to deploy a 3D virtual learning environment, which is flexible enough to allow learners to improve their language skills with minimum teacher's help, setting up an instructional sequence in which fostered, motivating, and pre-designed collaboration is the key for self-learning. The environment includes technical issues such as natural text chatting with synthetic characters, textual tagging of virtual objects, automatic reading of texts, and the integration of a 3D mouse in learning sequences in order to exploit the capabilities of 3D virtual worlds.This research has been partially supported by the following projects: The Spanish CDTI project “España Virtual” funded by the Ingenio 2010 programme, subcontracted by Deimos Space2. The Spanish project “Learn3: Towards Learing of the Third Kind” (TIN2008-05163/TSI) funded by the Spanish “Plan Nacional de I+D+i” of the Ministry of Research and Innovation. The project “eMadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” (S2009/TIC-1650) funded by the Government of the Region of Madrid.Publicad

Educational tool based on topology and evolution of hyperlinks in the Wikipedia

We propose a new method to support educationalexploration in the hyperlink network of the Wikipedia onlineencyclopedia. The learner is provided with alternative parallelranking lists, each one promoting hyperlinks that represent adifferent pedagogical perspective to the desired learning topic.The learner can browse the conceptual relations between thelatest versions of articles or the conceptual relations belongingto consecutive temporal versions of an article, or a mixture ofboth approaches. Based on her needs and intuition, the learnerexplores hyperlink network and meanwhile the method buildsautomatically concept maps that reflect her conceptualizationprocess and can be used for varied educational purposes.Initial experiments with a prototype tool based on the methodindicate enhancement to ordinary learning results and suggestfurther research.Peer reviewe

OER Development and Promotion. Outcomes of an International Research Project on the OpenCourseWare Model

In this paper, we describe the successful results of an international research project focused on the use of Web technology in the educational context. The article explains how this international project, funded by public organizations and developed over the last two academic years, focuses on the area of open educational resources (OER) and particularly the educational content of the OpenCourseWare (OCW) model. This initiative has been developed by a research group composed of researchers from three countries. The project was enabled by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid OCW Office�s leadership of the Consortium of Latin American Universities and the distance education know-how of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL, Ecuador). We give a full account of the project, methodology, main outcomes and validation. The project results have further consolidated the group, and increased the maturity of group members and networking with other groups in the area. The group is now participating in other research projects that continue the lines developed her

D8.6 Dissemination, training and exploitation results

Mauerhofer, C., Rajagopal, K., & Greller, W. (2011). D8.6 Dissemination, training and exploitation results. LTfLL-project.Report on sustainability, dissemination and exploitation of the LtfLL projectThe work on this publication has been sponsored by the LTfLL STREP that is funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme. Contract 212578 [http://www.ltfll-project.org

Web-Mediated Education and Training Environments: A Review of Personalised Interactive Learning.

This chapter reviews the concept of personalised eLearning resources in relation to integrating interactivity into asynchronous learning. Personalised eLearning resources are learning resources which are selected to suit a specific student or trainee’s individual learning requirements. The affordance of personalised eLearning would provide educators with the opportunity to shift away from eLearning content that is retrieved and move towards the provision of personalised interactive content to provide a form of asynchronous learning to suit students at different degree levels. A basic introduction to the concept of ePedagogy in online learning environments is explored and the impacts these systems have on students learning experiences are considered. Issues, controversies, and problems associated with the creation of personalised interactive eLearning resources are examined, and suggested solutions and recommendations to the identified issues, controversies, and problems are reviewed. Personalised interactive asynchronous learning resources could potentially improve students’ learning experiences but more research on the human computer interface of these authoring tools is required before personalised eLearning resources are available for use by non-technical authors

Challenges Encountered in Creating Personalised Learning Activities to Suit Students Learning Preferences

This book chapter reviews some of the challenges encountered by educators in creating personalised e-learning activities to suit students learning preferences. Technology-enhanced learning (TEL) alternatively known as e-learning has not yet reached its full potential in higher education. There are still many potential uses as yet undiscovered and other discovered uses which are not yet realisable by many educators. TEL is still predominantly used for e-dissemination and e-administration. This chapter reviews the potential use of TEL to provide personalised learning activities to suit individual students learning preferences. In particular the challenges encountered by educators when trying to implement personalised learning activities based on individual students learning preferences

A case study for measuring informal learning in PLEs

The technological support for learning and teaching processes is constantly changing. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) applied to education, cause changes that affect the way in which people learn. This application introduces new software systems and solutions to carry out teaching and learning activities. Connected to ICT application, the emergence of Web 2.0 and its use in learning contexts enables an online implementation of the student-centred learning paradigm. In addition, 2.0 trends provide “new” ways to exchange, making easier for informal learning to become patent. Given this context, open and user-centered learning environments are needed to integrate such kinds of tools and trends and are commonly described as Personal Learning Environments. Such environments coexist with the institutional learning management systems and they should interact and exchange information between them. This interaction would allow the assessment of what happens in the personal environment from the institutional side. This article describes a solution to make the interoperability possible between these systems. It is based on a set of interoperability scenarios and some components and communication channels. In order to test the solution it is implemented as a proof of concept and the scenarios are validated through several pilot experiences. In this article one of such scenarios and its evaluation experiment is described to conclude that functionalities from the institutional environments and the personal ones can be combined and it is possible to assess what happens in the activities based on them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version