Personalised Learning: Developing a Vygotskian Framework for E-learning

Personalisation has emerged as a central feature of recent educational strategies in the UK and abroad. At the heart of this is a vision to empower learners to take more ownership of their learning and develop autonomy. While the introduction of digital technologies is not enough to effect this change, embedding the affordances of new technologies is expected to offer new routes for creating personalised learning environments. The approach is not unique to education, with consumer technologies offering a 'personalised' relationship which is both engaging and dynamic, however the challenge remains for learning providers to capture and transpose this to educational contexts. As learners begin to utilise a range of tools to pursue communicative and collaborative actions, the first part of this paper will use analysis of activity logs to uncover interesting trends for maturing e-learning platforms across over 100 UK learning providers. While personalisation appeals to marketing theories this paper will argue that if learning is to become personalised one must ask what the optimal instruction for any particular learner is? For Vygotsky this is based in the zone of proximal development, a way of understanding the causal-dynamics of development that allow appropriate pedagogical interventions. The second part of this paper will interpret personalised learning as the organising principle for a sense-making framework for e-learning. In this approach personalised learning provides the context for assessing the capabilities of e-learning using Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development as the framework for assessing learner potential and development

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

Practical Strategies for Integrating a Conversation Analyst in an Iterative Design Process

We present a case study of an iterative design process that includes a conversation analyst. We discuss potential benefits of conversation analysis for design, and we describe our strategies for integrating the conversation analyst in the design process. Since the analyst on our team had no previous exposure to design or engineering, and none of the other members of our team had any experience with conversation analysis, we needed to build a foundation for our interaction. One of our key strategies was to pair the conversation analyst with a designer in a highly interactive collaboration. Our tactics have been effective on our project, leading to valuable results that we believe we could not have obtained using another method. We hope that this paper can serve as a practical guide to those interested in establishing a productive and efficient working relationship between a conversation analyst and the other members of a design team.Comment: 11 page

Fostering reflection in the training of speech-receptive action

Dieser Aufsatz erörtert Möglichkeiten und Probleme der Förderung kommunikativer Fertigkeiten durch die Unterstützung der Reflexion eigenen sprachrezeptiven Handelns und des Einsatzes von computerunterstützten Lernumgebungen für dessen Förderung. Kommunikationstrainings widmen sich meistens der Förderung des beobachtbaren sprachproduktiven Handelns (Sprechen). Die individuellen kognitiven Prozesse, die dem sprachrezeptiven Handeln (Hören und Verstehen) zugrunde liegen, werden häufig vernachlässigt. Dies wird dadurch begründet, dass sprachrezeptives Handeln in einer kommunikativen Situation nur schwer zugänglich und die Förderung der individuellen Prozesse sprachrezeptiven Handelns sehr zeitaufwändig ist. Das zentrale Lernprinzip - die Reflexion des eigenen sprachlich-kommunikativen Handelns - wird aus verschiedenen Perspektiven diskutiert. Vor dem Hintergrund der Reflexionsmodelle wird die computerunterstützte Lernumgebung CaiMan© vorgestellt und beschrieben. Daran anschließend werden sieben Erfolgsfaktoren aus der empirischen Forschung zur Lernumgebung CaiMan© abgeleitet. Der Artikel endet mit der Vorstellung von zwei empirischen Studien, die Möglichkeiten der Reflexionsunterstützung untersucheThis article discusses the training of communicative skills by fostering the reflection of speech-receptive action and the opportunities for using software for this purpose. Most frameworks for the training of communicative behavior focus on fostering the observable speech-productive action (i.e. speaking); the individual cognitive processes underlying speech-receptive action (hearing and understanding utterances) are often neglected. Computer-supported learning environments employed as cognitive tools can help to foster speech-receptive action. Seven success factors for the integration of software into the training of soft skills have been derived from empirical research. The computer-supported learning environment CaiMan© based on these ideas is presented. One central learning principle in this learning environment reflection of one's own action will be discussed from different perspectives. The article concludes with two empirical studies examining opportunities to foster reflecti

A review of the empirical studies of computer supported human-to-human communication

This paper presents a review of the empirical studies of human-to-human communication which have been carried out over the last three decades. Although this review is primarily concerned with the empirical studies of computer supported human-to-human communication, a number of studies dealing with group work in non-computer-based collaborative environments, which form the basis of many of the empirical studies of the recent years in the area of CSCW, are also discussed. The concept of person and task spaces is introduced and then subsequently used to categorise the large volume of studies reported in this review. This paper also gives a comparative analysis of the findings of these studies, and draws a number of general conclusions to guide the design and evaluation of future CSCW systems

The use of Wikis in Education - a review of the literature

This paper reviews the literature surrounding the use of Web 2.0 in education. It examines various perspectives of what Web 2.0 means, and how Web 2.0 can support a constructivist pedagogy. Case studies involving Wikis are examined and the problems experienced are considered from both a technological and a group-working perspective. The paper concludes that although Wikis have the potential to support social-constructivism the differences between artificially constructed learning groups (formal learning) and self-forming and emergent social groups (informal learning) result in a requirement for greater attention to the theories on group working when creating group tasks using Wikis for learning purposes. Wikis are a tool and do not, by themselves, result in satisfactory collaborationPeer reviewe

Flexibility and Interaction at a Distance: A Mixed-Model Environment For Language Learning

This article reports on the process of design and development of two language courses for university students at beginning levels of competence. Following a preliminary experience in a low-tech environment for distance language learning and teaching, and a thorough review of the available literature, we identified two major challenges that would need to be addressed in our design: (1) a necessity to build sufficient flexibility into the materials to cater to a variety of learners' styles, interests and skill levels, therefore sustaining learners' motivation; and (2) a need to design materials that would present the necessary requisites of authenticity and interactivity identified in the examined literature, in spite of the reduced opportunities for face-to-face communication. In response to these considerations, we designed and developed learning materials and tasks to be distributed on CD-ROM, complemented by a WebCT component for added interactivity and task authenticity. Although only part of the original design was implemented, and further research is needed to assess the impact of our environment on learning outcomes, the results of preliminary evaluations are encouraging

Students and mobile devices: choosing which dream

There is a crisis looming and a paradox emerging. Many educators advocate, promote and encourage the dreams of agency, control, ownership and choice amongst students whilst educational institutions take the responsibility for provision, equity, access, participation and standards. The institutions traditionally procure, provide and control the technology for learning but now students are acquiring their own personal technologies for learning and institutions are challenged to keep pace. These allow students to produce, store, transmit and consume information, images and ideas; this potentially realises the educators’ dream but is for institutions potentially a nightmare, one of loss of control and loss of the quality, consistency, uniformity and stability that delivered the dreams of equity, access and participation. This paper traces the conflicting dreams and responsibilities