A 'likely benefit' from aligning Web 2.0 technologies with an institutions learning and teaching agenda

This paper demonstrates a ‘likely benefit’, and a practical view of expected challenges, when incorporating Web 2.0 technologies in a contemporary higher education context. After first exploring which factors potentially influence a shift in thinking about learning and teaching in a Web 2.0 context this paper then addresses the important role, or the affordance, of an integrated Learning Management System (LMS) and the pedagogical applications of Web 2.0 technologies. It then uses a series of case study from the University of Southern Queensland, a large distance education provider in Australia, to support these propositions. Overall, this paper suggests that the goals and ideals of Web 2.0/ Pedagogy 2.0 can be achieved, or at least stimulated, within an institutional LMS environment, as long as the LMS environment is aligned with these ideals

Implementation and design of a service-based framework to integrate personal and institutional learning environments

The landscape of teaching and learning has changed in recent years because of the application of Information and Communications technology. Among the most representative innovations in this regard are Learning Management Systems. Despite of their popularity in institutional contexts and the wide set of tools and services that they provide to learners and teachers, they present several issues. Learning Management Systems are linked to an institution and a period of time, and are not adapted to learners' needs. In order to address these problems Personal Learning Environments are defined, but it is clear that these will not replace Learning Management Systems and other institutional contexts. Both types of environment should therefore coexist and interact. This paper presents a service-based framework to facilitate such interoperability. It supports the export of functionalities from the institutional to the personal environment and also the integration within the institution of learning outcomes from personal activities. In order to achieve this in a flexible, extensible and open way, web services and interoperability specifications are used. In addition some interoperability scenarios are posed. The framework has been tested in real learning contexts and the results show that interoperability is possible, and that it benefits learners, teachers and institutions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A collective intelligence approach for building student's trustworthiness profile in online learning

(c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Information and communication technologies have been widely adopted in most of educational institutions to support e-Learning through different learning methodologies such as computer supported collaborative learning, which has become one of the most influencing learning paradigms. In this context, e-Learning stakeholders, are increasingly demanding new requirements, among them, information security is considered as a critical factor involved in on-line collaborative processes. Information security determines the accurate development of learning activities, especially when a group of students carries out on-line assessment, which conducts to grades or certificates, in these cases, IS is an essential issue that has to be considered. To date, even most advances security technological solutions have drawbacks that impede the development of overall security e-Learning frameworks. For this reason, this paper suggests enhancing technological security models with functional approaches, namely, we propose a functional security model based on trustworthiness and collective intelligence. Both of these topics are closely related to on-line collaborative learning and on-line assessment models. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to discover how security can be enhanced with trustworthiness in an on-line collaborative learning scenario through the study of the collective intelligence processes that occur on on-line assessment activities. To this end, a peer-to-peer public student's profile model, based on trustworthiness is proposed, and the main collective intelligence processes involved in the collaborative on-line assessments activities, are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Impact of Cultural Familiarity on Students’ Social Media Usage in Higher Education

Using social media (SM) in Higher education (HE) becomes unavoidable in the new teaching and learning pedagogy. The current generation of students creates their groups on SM for collaboration. However, SM can be a primary source of learning distraction due to its nature, which does not support structured learning. Hence, derived from the literature, this study proposes three learning customised system features, to be implemented on SM when used in Higher Education HE. Nevertheless, some psychological factors appear to have a stronger impact on students’ adoption of SM in learning than the proposed features. A Quantitative survey was conducted at a university in Uzbekistan to collect 52 undergraduate students’ perception of proposed SM learning customised features in Moodle. These features aim to provide localised, personalised, and privacy control self-management environment for collaboration in Moodle. These features could be significant in predicting students’ engagement with SM in HE. The data analysis showed a majority of positive feedback towards the proposed learning customised SM. However, the surveyed students’ engagement with these features was observed as minimal. The course leader initiated a semi-structured interview to investigate the reason. Although the students confirmed their acceptance of the learning customised features, their preferences to alternate SM, which is Telegram overridden their usage of the proposed learning customized SM, which is Twitter. The students avoided the Moodle integrated Twitter (which provided highly accepted features) and chose to use the Telegram as an external collaboration platform driven by their familiarity and social preferences with the Telegram since it is the popular SM in Uzbekistan. This study is part of an ongoing PhD research which involves deeper frame of learners’ cognitive usage of the learning management system. However, this paper exclusively discusses the cultural familiarity impact of student’s adoption of SM in HE

Extending Moodle services to mobile devices: The Moodbile Project

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are widespread among most education and training institutions. Even though LMS are a mature technology, they have left the vanguard of innovation in e-learning to mobile devices and tablets. Mobile Learning (M-learning)may enhance e-learning by increasing communication and conversation opportunities to convents the learning process more collaborative and learner-centred. This paper describes a way to integrate mobile devices and educational applications with a LMS as Moodle through web services: The Moodbile Project. Rather than just creating mobile apps that replicates LMS functionalities on a mobile device, Moodbile provides to m-learning developers with the necessary tools to allow mobile devices to interact with the LMS. In this paper, we describe our proposal of an open specification of web services to support the integration of mobile external applications with Moodle.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Integrating Learning Management System with Facebook Function: The Effect on Perception towards Online Project Based Collaborative Learning

This study evaluates the effect on Perception towards Online Project Based Collaborative Learning (OPBCL). OPBCL was developed by integrating Moodle forum with Facebook function and using project based learning approach. A quasi-experiment was conducted with two classes of polytechnic students for three weeks which involved 54 students. Data were obtained using Perception of Online Collaborative Learning Questionnaire (POCLQ). The study was conducted to evaluate students’ perceptions toward CIDOS and OPBCL platform based on Learning Environment (LE), Learning Design (LD), Learning Interaction (LI) and Soft Skills (SS) construct. All collected data were analysed using SPSS 19.0 software. Overall, the findings revealed that perception score in OPBCL platform is higher than CIDOS platform.  Evaluation based on constructs showed that except for LD construct, other constructs have shown that score in OPBCL platform is higher than CIDOS platform. OPBCL has shown to be a better online learning platform that can promote students’ interaction in project based learning approach

Developing Moodle Plugin for Creating Learning Content with Another REST Function Call

The Moodle REST function calls enables third party applications having access to the Moodle database's through Moodle web services and REST (Representational state transfer) protocols. The access could be as learning content creation. According to Moodle architecture, the learning content creation, need to be placed on Moodle section tables. This is shown, a third party application should make or use the Moodle section when making a course. The 'section' is the most essential component on Moodle. Because, the 'section' contain documents, assignments, quiz for learners. However, some Moodle REST function calls, such as creating the "section" on Moodle courses, have not been implemented in the Moodle system, yet. And for our current development applications, it need to have an access to create complete learning content on section tables. With developing Moodle plugins, possibly create learning content in the Moodle sections, but needed Moodle REST function call to access developed plugin. Therefore, we propose solutions that developed a Moodle plugin to create learning content and solve an unprovided Moodle REST function call by developed another Moodle REST function call. This paper presents our current development to enable creation of learning content from third party application, using the developed Moodle plugin. As a result, with the developed Moodle plugin, success to create learning content on Moodle LMS, and developed another Moodle REST function call

Learning in an age of digital networks

The final years of the twentieth century and early years of the twenty first century have been marked by the rapid rise of digital and networked technologies. Some have even called it a paradigm shift and suggested that it will lead to a dramatic change in the way young people learn (Tapscott and Williams, 2010). As with all commentary on new technologies we should beware of being carried away with the excitement of the new. There is a recurrent innovation cycle beginning with over excitement followed by disappointment and once the reaction has set in against the new it is followed by a move away to yet another new technology, often before a proper assessment and evaluation of the previous cycle can take place. Equally we must be careful not to ignore the profound changes that are taking place and how they may affect universities and learning in society more generally. A recent description by a UK based think tank Demos characterized the kind of university that is emerging from the engagement with new digital and networked technologies as the 'edgeless university' (Bradwell, 2009). The term edgeless is borrowed from work on the city that suggests edgeless cities have the function of cities without being organized in their classic form. In the same way the Demos pamphlet suggests that the university retains an identifiable function but the functions of the university are no longer confined to a single institution nor are they confined to higher education institutions more broadly. Over a decade ago Brown and Duguid (2000) identified the core functions of universities as the capacity to grant degrees, to accredit students and to provide the warrant that guaranteed the credentials obtained by the students from the university. They also suggested that the introduction of what were then new technologies would lead to an increased focus on these core functions. The core role remains in the edgeless university but the boundaries to these may alter. This article tries to provide a way of thinking about new technologies that manages to balance these two conflicting needs. It identifies some current ways of thinking about the changes taking place in universities that are related to digital and networked technologies and to assess their impact. It then goes on to suggest the kinds of choices we may have to make in relation to new technologies at a variety of levels, the personal, the institutional and in terms of society in general. The edgeless university is associated with broad technological change but whether such change is inevitable is still an issue that needs to be discussed

Applying web services to define open learning environments

Evolution of learning processes is almost always linked to social changes and/or technological changes. One of those processes is eLearning, which is involved in the changes brought about by trends 2.0. This new tendencies consider the user, socialization and collaboration as the main important elements and this must be considered also in eLearning contexts. But today learning environments do not facilitate this approach. They are focused on the institutions or courses, not in the student as a key element of the learning process, as well not always provide elements of socialization and collaboration. In order to avoid these drawbacks, and by using service oriented architectures over learning management systems, new elearning environments could be defined. This paper will propose an architecture that would enable learning platforms evolve in that direction.Postprint (published version