Collaborative trails in e-learning environments

This deliverable focuses on collaboration within groups of learners, and hence collaborative trails. We begin by reviewing the theoretical background to collaborative learning and looking at the kinds of support that computers can give to groups of learners working collaboratively, and then look more deeply at some of the issues in designing environments to support collaborative learning trails and at tools and techniques, including collaborative filtering, that can be used for analysing collaborative trails. We then review the state-of-the-art in supporting collaborative learning in three different areas – experimental academic systems, systems using mobile technology (which are also generally academic), and commercially available systems. The final part of the deliverable presents three scenarios that show where technology that supports groups working collaboratively and producing collaborative trails may be heading in the near future

Morphological Computing as Logic Underlying Cognition in Human, Animal, and Intelligent Machine

This work examines the interconnections between logic, epistemology, and sciences within the Naturalist tradition. It presents a scheme that connects logic, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and cognition, emphasizing scale-invariant, self-organizing dynamics across organizational tiers of nature. The inherent logic of agency exists in natural processes at various levels, under information exchanges. It applies to humans, animals, and artifactual agents. The common human-centric, natural language-based logic is an example of complex logic evolved by living organisms that already appears in the simplest form at the level of basal cognition of unicellular organisms. Thus, cognitive logic stems from the evolution of physical, chemical, and biological logic. In a computing nature framework with a self-organizing agency, innovative computational frameworks grounded in morphological/physical/natural computation can be used to explain the genesis of human-centered logic through the steps of naturalized logical processes at lower levels of organization. The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis of living agents is essential for understanding the emergence of human-level logic and the relationship between logic and information processing/computational epistemology. We conclude that more research is needed to elucidate the details of the mechanisms linking natural phenomena with the logic of agency in nature.Comment: 20 pages, no figure

The Social Cognitive Actor

Multi-Agent Simulation (MAS) of organisations is a methodology that is adopted in this dissertation in order to study and understand human behaviour in organisations. The aim of the research is to design and implementat a cognitive and social multi-agent simulation model based on a selection of social and cognitive theories to fulfill the need for a complex cognitive and social model. The emphasis of this dissertation is the relationship between behaviour of individuals (micro-level) in an organisation and the behaviour of the organisation as a whole (macro-level)

Designing an engaging learning universe for situated interactions in virtual environments

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Studies related to the Virtual Learning approach are conducted almost exclusively in Distance Learning contexts, and focus on the development of frameworks or taxonomies that classify the different ways of teaching and learning. Researchers may be dealing with the topic of interactivity (avatars and immersion are key components), yet they do so they mainly focusing on the interactions that take place within the virtual world. It is the virtual world that consists the primary medium for communication and interplay. However, the lines are hard to be drawn when it comes to examining and taxonomising the impact of interactions on motivation and engagement as a synergy of learners’ concurrent presence. This study covers this gap and sheds light on this lack—or, at least, inadequacy—of literature and research on the interactions that take place both in the physical and the virtual environment at the same time. In addition, it explores the impact of the instructional design decisions on increasing the learners’ incentives for interplay when trying to make sense of the virtual world, thus leading them to attain higher levels of engagement. To evaluate the potential of interactions holistically and not just unilaterally, a series of experiments were conducted in the context of different Hybrid Virtual Learning units, with the participation of Computer Science & Technology students. One of the goals was to examine the learners’ thoughts and preconceptions regarding the use of virtual worlds as an educational tool. Then, during the practical sessions, the focus was placed on monitoring students’ actions and interactions in both the physical and the virtual environment. Consequently, students were asked as a feedback to report their overall opinion on these actions and interactions undertaken. The study draws a new research direction, beyond the idea of immersion and the development of subject-specific educational interventions. The conclusions provide suggestions and guidelines to educators and instructional designers who wish to offer interactive and engaging learning activities to their students, as well as a taxonomy of the different types of interactions that take place in Hybrid Virtual Learning contexts

Are developmental disorders like cases of adult brain damage? Implications from connectionist modelling

It is often assumed that similar domain-specific behavioural impairments found in cases of adult brain damage and developmental disorders correspond to similar underlying causes, and can serve as convergent evidence for the modular structure of the normal adult cognitive system. We argue that this correspondence is contingent on an unsupported assumption that atypical development can produce selective deficits while the rest of the system develops normally (Residual Normality), and that this assumption tends to bias data collection in the field. Based on a review of connectionist models of acquired and developmental disorders in the domains of reading and past tense, as well as on new simulations, we explore the computational viability of Residual Normality and the potential role of development in producing behavioural deficits. Simulations demonstrate that damage to a developmental model can produce very different effects depending on whether it occurs prior to or following the training process. Because developmental disorders typically involve damage prior to learning, we conclude that the developmental process is a key component of the explanation of endstate impairments in such disorders. Further simulations demonstrate that in simple connectionist learning systems, the assumption of Residual Normality is undermined by processes of compensation or alteration elsewhere in the system. We outline the precise computational conditions required for Residual Normality to hold in development, and suggest that in many cases it is an unlikely hypothesis. We conclude that in developmental disorders, inferences from behavioural deficits to underlying structure crucially depend on developmental conditions, and that the process of ontogenetic development cannot be ignored in constructing models of developmental disorders

Constructing the Learning Environment in Classroom Convivial Computer Tools for Higher Education

New education technologies are coming on stream, enabling connectivity among teachers, facilitators and students. Students have to learn how to access Managed Learning Environments each time they move to different course websites. These barriers can hinder the real understanding of the subject matter for a course. This research calls for a rethink of pedagogical process towards blending together commonly used emerging social software and legacy educational tools rather than developing new tools for the classroom. Indeed, a learning tool should fit well to the learning model and philosophy of that course. Three case studies were conducted through different courses in the Digital Media master program and Informatik program at the University of Bremen, Germany. Students worked in small groups to design digital media and learning portal that should make learning more interesting and meaningful for them. At the end, this research proposes the concept of Constructing the Learning Environment in classroom and Convivial Computer Tools for higher education, where students and teachers, via dialogues in the class, can negotiate to deploy a set of selected tools and functions to match their learning needs. It is also to show that a tool with too many functions can cause confusion, rather than enhance effectiveness. To empower collaborative, interactive and personal learning, this work proposes the blended learning and classroom procedures for a convivial selection of educational tools. At the end, our innovative attempt is to bring constructionist learning into the higher education context

Towards a Generalised Pedagogical Framework for Creating Mixed-Mode Role-Play in a 3D Virtual Environment

Role-play has proved itself to be an effective teaching method, and role-play within a virtual environment has been found to be more especially so. Thus, there have been many studies concerned with role-play and computer simulation used together; however, up to this point, limitations may still be found with respect to the work which has been done in this area. Some of the major outstanding problems associated with creating virtual environments for learning are: finding the simplest way to model and represent abstract concepts as 3D objects; and implementing the students’ interactions - with each other, with their instructor, and with the represented objects. Also, many projects have focused on only one pedagogical topic. My vision is to introduce a generalized method that facilitates the construction of learning scenarios and renders them as message-passing role-play activities. Then, these activities could be deployed in a virtual environment (VE) in order to help students to become more immersed in the learning process. Each such activity is to be constructed by humanizing a ‘non-human’ object, whereby the students embody and imitate an (often abstract) object which is part of a technological system and which occurs in a virtual world. This can lead to many benefits, such as being able to better support the students’ ability to imagine and visualize such objects, making them more engaged with their learning, enhancing their conceptual understanding, strengthening their reasoning when solving problems related to the topic area, and reinvigorating their interest in learning. This research presents an evaluation of an approach for the creation of a role-play simulation in a role-play supporting virtual environment, which harnesses the advantages of 3D virtual environments in an effective way - in order to benefit the students’ learning in terms of improving their understanding of abstract concepts. Moreover, this approach is generalized and thus extends the previous studies by offering a system that can be applied to a wide range of topics - that involve message-passing role-play scenarios. The approach is presented within a conceptual pedagogical framework that is supported by an analysis of the findings and results from experiments that were conducted in order to validate the framework from both the learning and technical perspectives