6 research outputs found
THE ROLE OF SIMULATION IN SUPPORTING LONGER-TERM LEARNING AND MENTORING WITH TECHNOLOGY
Mentoring is an important part of professional development and longer-term learning. The nature of longer-term mentoring contexts means that designing, developing, and testing adaptive learning sys-tems for use in this kind of context would be very costly as it would require substantial amounts of fi-nancial, human, and time resources. Simulation is a cheaper and quicker approach for evaluating the impact of various design and development decisions. Within the Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) research community, however, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how to design, de-velop, and use simulations in longer-term learning contexts. The central challenge is that adaptive learning system designers and educational practitioners have limited guidance on what steps to consider when designing simulations for supporting longer-term mentoring system design and development deci-sions.
My research work takes as a starting point VanLehn et al.’s [1] introduction to applications of simulated students and Erickson et al.’s [2] suggested approach to creating simulated learning envi-ronments. My dissertation presents four research directions using a real-world longer-term mentoring context, a doctoral program, for illustrative purposes. The first direction outlines a framework for guid-ing system designers as to what factors to consider when building pedagogical simulations, fundamen-tally to answer the question: how can a system designer capture a representation of a target learning context in a pedagogical simulation model? To illustrate the feasibility of this framework, this disserta-tion describes how to build, the SimDoc model, a pedagogical model of a longer-term mentoring learn-ing environment – a doctoral program. The second direction builds on the first, and considers the issue of model fidelity, essentially to answer the question: how can a system designer determine a simulation model’s fidelity to the desired granularity level? This dissertation shows how data from a target learning environment, the research literature, and common sense are combined to achieve SimDoc’s medium fidelity model. The third research direction explores calibration and validation issues to answer the question: how many simulation runs does it take for a practitioner to have confidence in the simulation model’s output? This dissertation describes the steps taken to calibrate and validate the SimDoc model, so its output statistically matches data from the target doctoral program, the one at the university of Saskatchewan. The fourth direction is to demonstrate the applicability of the resulting pedagogical model. This dissertation presents two experiments using SimDoc to illustrate how to explore pedagogi-cal questions concerning personalization strategies and to determine the effectiveness of different men-toring strategies in a target learning context.
Overall, this dissertation shows that simulation is an important tool in the AIED system design-ers’ toolkit as AIED moves towards designing, building, and evaluating AIED systems meant to support learners in longer-term learning and mentoring contexts. Simulation allows a system designer to exper-iment with various design and implementation decisions in a cost-effective and timely manner before committing to these decisions in the real world
Generative AI: Implications and Applications for Education
The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 precipitated a panic among some educators while prompting qualified enthusiasm from others. Under the umbrella term Generative AI, ChatGPT is an example of a range of technologies for the delivery of computer-generated text, image, and other digitized media. This paper examines the implications for education of one generative AI technology, chatbots responding from large language models, or C-LLM. It reports on an application of a C-LLM to AI review and assessment of complex student work. In a concluding discussion, the paper explores the intrinsic limits of generative AI, bound as it is to language corpora and their textual representation through binary notation. Within these limits, we suggest the range of emerging and potential applications of Generative AI in education
The student-produced electronic portfolio in craft education
The authors studied primary school students’ experiences of using an electronic portfolio in their craft education over four years. A stimulated recall interview was applied to collect user experiences and qualitative content analysis to analyse the collected data. The results indicate that the electronic portfolio was experienced as a multipurpose tool to support learning. It makes the learning process visible and in that way helps focus on and improves the quality of learning. © ISLS.Peer reviewe
European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN). Conference Proceedings
Erasmus+ Programme of the European UnionThe powerful combination of the information age and the consequent disruption caused by these unstable environments provides the impetus to look afresh and identify new models and approaches for education (e.g. OERs, MOOCs, PLEs, Learning Analytics etc.). For learners this has taken a fantastic leap into aggregating, curating and co-curating and co-producing outside the boundaries of formal learning environments – the networked learner is sharing voluntarily and for free, spontaneously with billions of people.Supported by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Unioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Dinâmicas de MOODLiz@ção num agrupamento de escolas de Matosinhos: o caso do agrupamento vertical de escolas de Leça da Palmeira/Santa Cruz do Bispo
Doutoramento em Multimédia em EducaçãoO advento da Internet e da Web, na década de 1990, a par da introdução e
desenvolvimento das novas TIC e, por consequência, a emergência da
Sociedade da Informação e do Conhecimento, implicaram uma profunda
alteração na forma de análise dos processos de ensino-aprendizagem, já não
apenas segundo um prisma cognitivista, mas, agora, também social, isto é,
segundo a(s) perspetiva(s) construtivista(s). Simultaneamente, torna-se
imperativo que, para que possam transformar-se em futuros trabalhadores de
sucesso, isto é, trabalhadores de conhecimento (Gates, 1999), os sujeitos
aprendentes passem a ser efetivamente educados/preparados para a
Sociedade da Informação e do Conhecimento e, tanto quanto possível, através
da educação/formação ao longo da vida (Moore e Thompson, 1997; Chute,
Thompson e Hancock, 1999). Todavia, de acordo com Jorge Reis Lima e Zélia
Capitão, não se deve considerar esta mudança de paradigma como uma
revolução mas, antes, uma evolução, ou, mais concretamente ainda, uma
“conciliação de perspectivas cognitivas e sociais” (Reis Lima e Capitão,
2003:53). Assim, às instituições de ensino/formação cumprirá a tarefa de
preparar os alunos para as novas competências da era digital, promovendo “a
aprendizagem dos pilares do conhecimento que sustentarão a sua
aprendizagem ao longo da vida” (Reis Lima e Capitão, Ibidem:54), isto é,
“aprender a conhecer”, “aprender a fazer”, “aprender a viver em comum”, e
“aprender a ser” (Equipa de Missão para a Sociedade da Informação,
1997:39; negritos e sublinhados no original).
Para outros, a Internet, ao afirmar-se como uma tecnologia ubíqua, cada vez
mais acessível, e de elevado potencial, “vem revolucionando a gestão da
informação, o funcionamento do mercado de capitais, as cadeias e redes de
valor, o comércio mundial, a relação entre governos e cidadãos, os modos de
trabalhar e de comunicar, o entretenimento, o contacto intercultural, os estilos
de vida, as noções de tempo e de distância. A grande interrogação actual
reside em saber se a Internet poderá também provocar alterações
fundamentais nos modos de aprender e de ensinar” (Carneiro, 2002:17-18;
destaques no original). Trata-se, portanto, como argumenta Armando Rocha
Trindade (2004:10), de reconhecer que “Os requisitos obrigatórios para a
eficácia da aprendizagem a ser assim assegurada são: a prévia disponibilidade
de materiais educativos ou de formação de alta qualidade pedagógica e
didáctica, tanto quanto possível auto-suficientes em termos de conteúdos
teóricos e aplicados, bem como a previsão de mecanismos capazes de
assegurar, permanentemente, um mínimo de interactividade entre docentes e
aprendentes, sempre que quaisquer dificuldades destes possam manifestarse”.
Esta questão é também equacionada pelo Eng.º Arnaldo Santos, da PT
Inovação, quando considera que, à semelhança da “maioria dos países, a
formação a distância em ambientes Internet e Intranet, vulgo e-Learning,
apresenta-se como uma alternativa pedagógica em franca expansão. Portugal
está a despertar para esta nova realidade. São várias as instituições nacionais
do sector público e privado que utilizam o e-Learning como ferramenta ou meio
para formar as suas pessoas” (Santos, 2002:26). Fernando Ramos acrescenta
também que os sistemas de educação/formação que contemplam
componentes não presenciais, “isto é que potenciam a flexibilidade espacial,
têm vindo a recorrer às mais variadas tecnologias de comunicação para
permitir a interacção entre os intervenientes, nomeadamente entre os
professores e os estudantes. Um pouco por todo o mundo, e também em
Portugal, se têm implantado sistemas (habitualmente designados como
sistemas de ensino a distância), recorrendo às mais diversas tecnologias de
telecomunicações, de que os sistemas de educação através de televisão ou os
sistemas de tutoria por rádio ou telefone são exemplos bem conhecidos”
(Ramos, 2002b:138-139).
Ora, o nosso estudo entronca precisamente na análise de um sistema ou
plataforma tecnológica de gestão de aprendizagens (Learning Management
System - LMS), o MOODLE, procurando-se, deste modo, dar resposta ao
reconhecimento de que “urge investigar sobre a utilização real e pedagógica
da plataforma” (Carvalho, 2007:27). Por outro lado, não descurando o rol de
interrogações de outros investigadores em torno da utilização do MOODLE,
nem enveredando pelas visões mais céticas que inclusive pressagiam a sua
“morte” (Fernandes, 2008b:134), também nós nos questionamos se esta
ferramenta nem sequer vai conseguir transpor “a fase de final de entusiasmo,
e tornar-se uma ferramenta de minorias e de usos ocasionais?” (Fernandes,
Op. cit.:133).The beginning of Internet and of the Web, in the nineties, along with the
introduction and development of new ICT and, as a consequence, the
emergence of the Information and Knowledge Society, implied a profound
change in the ways o of the teaching and learning processes, not any longer
according to a single cognitivist prism, but, now, also social, i.e., according to
the constructivist perspective(s). Simultaneously it becomes imperative that , so
as to become future success workers, that is, knowledge workers (Gates,
1999), learners have to be effectively educated/prepared for the Information
and Knowledge Society and, as much as possible, through lifelong
education/training (Moore e Thompson, 1997; Chute, Thompson e Hancock,
1999). However, according to Jorge Reis Lima and Zélia Capitão, one cannot
consider this change of paradigm as a revolution but rather as an evolution, or,
more precisely yet, a “conciliation of cognitive and social perspectives” (Reis
Lima and Capitão, 2003:53). Therefore, it is up to the teaching/training
institutions to fulfil the task of preparing students for the new competences of
the digital era, promoting “the learning of the principles of knowledge that will
sustain the learning throughout life” (Reis Lima and Capitão, Ibidem:54), that is,
“learning to know”, “learning to do”, “learning to live in common”, and
“Learning to be” (Equipa de Missão para a Sociedade da Informação,
1997:39; bold and underlines in the original).
For other, the Internet, affirming itself as an ubiquitous technology, more and
more accessible and of high potential, “has been revolutionising the
management of information, the functioning of the market of capitals, the
chains and networks of value, the world commerce, the relationships between
governments and citizens, the modes of working and of communicating,
entertainment, the intercultural contact, life styles, the notions of time and
distance. The great question at present resides in knowing whether the
Internet can provoke fundamental changes in the ways of learning and
teaching” (Carneiro, 2002:17-18; highlights in the original). We face, therefore,
as Armando Rocha Trindade (2004:10) argues, the recognition that “The
compulsory requisites for effective learning to be thus assured are: prior
availability of educational or training materials of high pedagogical and didactic
quality, as far as possible self sufficient in terms of theoretical and applied
content, as well as the provision of mechanisms capable of assuring,
permanently, a minimum of interactivity between teachers and learners,
whenever any difficulty is manifested”.
This issue is also equated by Engineer Arnaldo Santos, from PT Inovação,
when he considers that, as it happens in the “majority of countries, distance
education in Internet and Intranet environments, generally labelled e-Learning,
is presented as a pedagogical alternative in overt expansion. Portugal is
awakening for this new reality. There are various national public and private
sector institutions that use e-Learning as a tool or means to train their people”
(Santos, 2002:26). Fernando Ramos also adds that the systems of
education/training that contemplate non face-to-face components “that is, that
potentiate spatial flexibility, have been resorting to the most varied technologies
of communication to allow interaction amongst participants, namely between
teachers and students. A little throughout the world, and also in Portugal, have
implanted systems (habitually known as distance learning systems), resorting
the most diverse telecommunications technologies, of which the systems of
education by TV or the tutoring systems by radio or telephone are well known
examples” (Ramos, 2002b:138-139).
Now, our study is rooted precisely on the analysis of a system or technological
platform for the management of learning (Learning Management System -
LMS), MOODLE, seeking, therefore, to find answers for the recognition that “it
is urgent to study the real and pedagogical use of the platform” (Carvalho,
2007:27). On the other hand, not setting aside the array of questions from other
researchers on the use of MOODLE, nor taking for granted the more sceptical
views that include the premonition of its “death” (Fernandes, 2008b:134), we
also question whether this tool will be able to overcome “the final phase of
enthusiasm, and become a tool of the minorities and of occasional use”
(Fernandes, Op. cit.:133)