E-learning and e-systems to facilitate learning from marked student work : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science at Massey University

Heinrich (2004a) first introduced the concept of 'electronic repositories of marked student work' and suggested an innovative approach of learning from marked student work. This research project further develops this e-learning approach. The learning approach was analyzed in the framework of modern educational theories, especially those relevant to formative assessment. Learning activities that mostly suit this new approach were identified. These activities show a large degree of variation in cognitive complexity and learning effectiveness, and according to their characteristics, can be associated with various learning styles. A range of factors that need to be considered in constructing learning processes based on these learning activities were investigated. The conceptualization of an e-learning environment to support the approach of learning from marked student work was developed. Three major objectives of developing such an e-learning environment were identified. Based on these objectives the general framework of e-learning from marked student work was outlined. There were very few applications of this approach in teaching practice and no study has been done on its effectiveness in the practical teaching before this research. An initial learning experiment using this approach was carried out. The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated and various aspects associated with this approach were investigated. To fully support this new learning approach, a web-based prototype system named E-Repositories of Marked Student Work, was developed. This research project developed opportunities for student learning and provided guidelines for teaching staff on how to reuse valuable learning resources in their teaching practice in the e-learning context

Facilitating constructivist e-learning by software agents

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Information Technology.E-learning is being taken as an important means to satisfy the increasing demands for learning in today’s information society. Although considerable research effort has been devoted to facilitating e-learning, very little has been done to support constructivist e-leaming. This research attempts to develop an online constructivist learning environment (CLE) and utilize software agents to provide supportive services for learners to facilitate and assist them to build knowledge by using constructivist ways. Constructivists assume knowledge is constructed by learners. Learners are knowledge-constructors whereas teachers are facilitators for the construction. Constructivist learning theory provides a framework to develop an online CLE. The important issues are concerned with what supportive services should be provided for learners and how to provide these services. The services identified in the work include: • providing access to appropriate learning resources and learning strategies; • fostering meaningful interactions with content, teachers, and fellow learners; • supporting personalized learning for individual learners; • facilitating collaborative learning among learners in groups; and • aiding to timely evaluate learning outcomes. An innovative strategy is adopted to organize these services. They are provided for learners in non-intrusive ways. Learners are not forced to accept any of the services. They can autonomously take control over their learning. Meanwhile, they are offered services through suggestion or advice. These spontaneous services help them solve various possible problems in learning and assist them to progress in the online learning process. All the supportive services are adapted to individual learners. Three key adaptations, service content, presentation manner, and intervention degree, are applied. Profiles are built to characterize individual learning characteristics, including knowledge constitution, cognition ability, and learning styles. All the services are dynamically generated based on actual learning scenes. A learning process specification language, built upon Koper’s EML, is developed to describe the learning activities and processes and the corresponding supportive services. A new type of agents, process agents, is developed to realize the services. Three classes of agents, personal assistant agent, planning agent, and managing agent, have been incorporated into the learning environment to provide support for learners. They work in the background, monitor and evaluate individual learner’s learning, and provide supportive services for learners whenever necessary. Together they play a role of ''constructivist teacher". To demonstrate the work, a system prototype has been developed and a number of services have been implemented. A preliminary evaluation has illustrated the agent-based approach can facilitate construction of knowledge by individual learners

Rich media content adaptation in e-learning systems

The wide use of e-technologies represents a great opportunity for underserved segments of the population, especially with the aim of reintegrating excluded individuals back into society through education. This is particularly true for people with different types of disabilities who may have difficulties while attending traditional on-site learning programs that are typically based on printed learning resources. The creation and provision of accessible e-learning contents may therefore become a key factor in enabling people with different access needs to enjoy quality learning experiences and services. Another e-learning challenge is represented by m-learning (which stands for mobile learning), which is emerging as a consequence of mobile terminals diffusion and provides the opportunity to browse didactical materials everywhere, outside places that are traditionally devoted to education. Both such situations share the need to access materials in limited conditions and collide with the growing use of rich media in didactical contents, which are designed to be enjoyed without any restriction. Nowadays, Web-based teaching makes great use of multimedia technologies, ranging from Flash animations to prerecorded video-lectures. Rich media in e-learning can offer significant potential in enhancing the learning environment, through helping to increase access to education, enhance the learning experience and support multiple learning styles. Moreover, they can often be used to improve the structure of Web-based courses. These highly variegated and structured contents may significantly improve the quality and the effectiveness of educational activities for learners. For example, rich media contents allow us to describe complex concepts and process flows. Audio and video elements may be utilized to add a “human touch” to distance-learning courses. Finally, real lectures may be recorded and distributed to integrate or enrich on line materials. A confirmation of the advantages of these approaches can be seen in the exponential growth of video-lecture availability on the net, due to the ease of recording and delivering activities which take place in a traditional classroom. Furthermore, the wide use of assistive technologies for learners with disabilities injects new life into e-learning systems. E-learning allows distance and flexible educational activities, thus helping disabled learners to access resources which would otherwise present significant barriers for them. For instance, students with visual impairments have difficulties in reading traditional visual materials, deaf learners have trouble in following traditional (spoken) lectures, people with motion disabilities have problems in attending on-site programs. As already mentioned, the use of wireless technologies and pervasive computing may really enhance the educational learner experience by offering mobile e-learning services that can be accessed by handheld devices. This new paradigm of educational content distribution maximizes the benefits for learners since it enables users to overcome constraints imposed by the surrounding environment. While certainly helpful for users without disabilities, we believe that the use of newmobile technologies may also become a fundamental tool for impaired learners, since it frees them from sitting in front of a PC. In this way, educational activities can be enjoyed by all the users, without hindrance, thus increasing the social inclusion of non-typical learners. While the provision of fully accessible and portable video-lectures may be extremely useful for students, it is widely recognized that structuring and managing rich media contents for mobile learning services are complex and expensive tasks. Indeed, major difficulties originate from the basic need to provide a textual equivalent for each media resource composing a rich media Learning Object (LO). Moreover, tests need to be carried out to establish whether a given LO is fully accessible to all kinds of learners. Unfortunately, both these tasks are truly time-consuming processes, depending on the type of contents the teacher is writing and on the authoring tool he/she is using. Due to these difficulties, online LOs are often distributed as partially accessible or totally inaccessible content. Bearing this in mind, this thesis aims to discuss the key issues of a system we have developed to deliver accessible, customized or nomadic learning experiences to learners with different access needs and skills. To reduce the risk of excluding users with particular access capabilities, our system exploits Learning Objects (LOs) which are dynamically adapted and transcoded based on the specific needs of non-typical users and on the barriers that they can encounter in the environment. The basic idea is to dynamically adapt contents, by selecting them from a set of media resources packaged in SCORM-compliant LOs and stored in a self-adapting format. The system schedules and orchestrates a set of transcoding processes based on specific learner needs, so as to produce a customized LO that can be fully enjoyed by any (impaired or mobile) student

Transformation of Education Processes and Preparation of Competencies for the Digital Economy

In this article, the problem of training specialists with digital competencies for the agricultural sector, as the main industry, necessary for the food security of the state. The analysis of the views of researchers on the issues of teaching youth in the context of global digitalization is presented. The analysis and generalization of information about modern technologies in the system of training personnel for the agro-industrial complex, taking into account the experience of the Omsk State Agrarian University, with the support of modern information and communication technologies. The idea is substantiated that digitalization of production and management processes in the agro-industrial complex is impossible without hard and soft skills with new competencies. The article summarizes new material based on the results of a survey of rural youth in Russia and Kazakhstan on the problem of professional self-determination. The characteristic features of modern students and their self-positioning in the conditions of a changing professional environment are highlighted and described. Special attention in the work of the authors is focused on the need to form an educational trajectory, which is based on the symbiosis of classical agricultural education, practice-oriented learning, project activities, concepts - technologies, e-learning and other digital educational resources. The conclusion reveals the authors' opinion on the forecast trends on the issue under study. Keywords: Youth, Professional self-determination, Training, Omsk State Agrarian University, Survey, Digital competencies

Providing E-learning model on teachers' satisfaction from learning in Ardabil Islamic Azad University

Background and Objective Implementing training and improving human resources allows people to effectively continue their activities and increase their efficiency in accordance with organizational and environmental changes. As a result of the increasing complexity and wast development of specializations in the last century, the traditional education has been criticized for cost-effectiveness, being time-consuming, being prescriptive, having ack of creativity and poor focus on education instead of business results. This type of training is not enough to meet the needs of employees and manage complex affairs in organizations. In this regard, organizations have taken advantage of e-learning to be able to keep their employees up-to-date and active in terms of knowledge and skills required in line with the development of technology. The purpose of this study was to provide an e-learning model on teachers' satisfaction of learning in branches of Ardabil Islamic Azad University. Methods: The study was conducted on the basis of Delphi and survey models of research. In the first stage, the participants of this study were the lecturers and faculty members, and in the second stage, they were the faculty members of Management in all branches of Ardabil Islamic Azad University. Samples of the first stage were 136 subjects and in the second stage 20 subjects. The sampling method in the first stage was random-stratified and in the second stage it was purposive sampling. Data collection instrument was an e-learning researcher-made questionnaire. For data analysis Structural Measurement Model (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) was used and for specifiying e-learning, Delphi three-staged method was used. Findings: Findings included 77 concrete variables and 8 basic concepts (IT infrastructures, quality of educational system, self-learning, learners' support, identifying and recording educational needs, management of values, educational materials, society-based learning). In the first stage, the appropriacy of the model was approved and showed that the structures were in a satisfactory level of validity, and in the second stage, the quality of educational system, IT infrastructures, self-learning and learners' support, were identified as the dimensions of e-learning. Conclusion: Based on the findings of the research, it is suggested that the officials of the units of the Islamic Azad University of Ardabil Province implemented e-learning with a consistent approach in line with the organization's strategy and instructors’ satisfaction. In this regard, the units of Islamic Azad University of Ardabil can form a specialized department of human resources in relation to e-learning of professors and faculty members in addition to identifying talents, building e-learning processes, structures and systems to promote their e-learning processes. Eventually, all systems cannot sustain functioning without evaluation. E-learning does not work in a static environment and must be formed in a dynamic or organized way. Therefore, the units of Islamic Azad University need to adjust the e-learning of their professors based on its characteristics and to establish feedback and evaluation systems (internal and external evaluation system).   ===================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS  ©2019 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.  ====================================================================================

A conceptual architecture for interactive educational multimedia

Learning is more than knowledge acquisition; it often involves the active participation of the learner in a variety of knowledge- and skills-based learning and training activities. Interactive multimedia technology can support the variety of interaction channels and languages required to facilitate interactive learning and teaching. A conceptual architecture for interactive educational multimedia can support the development of such multimedia systems. Such an architecture needs to embed multimedia technology into a coherent educational context. A framework based on an integrated interaction model is needed to capture learning and training activities in an online setting from an educational perspective, to describe them in the human-computer context, and to integrate them with mechanisms and principles of multimedia interaction

Content-driven design and architecture of E-learning applications

E-learning applications combine content with learning technology systems to support the creation of content and its delivery to the learner. In the future, we can expect the distinction between learning content and its supporting infrastructure to become blurred. Content objects will interact with infrastructure services as independent objects. Our solution to the development of e-learning applications – content-driven design and architecture – is based on content-centric ontological modelling and development of architectures. Knowledge and modelling will play an important role in the development of content and architectures. Our approach integrates content with interaction (in technical and educational terms) and services (the principle organization for a system architecture), based on techniques from different fields, including software engineering, learning design, and knowledge engineering

Software scaffolds to promote regulation during scientific inquiry learning

This research addresses issues in the design of online scaffolds for regulation within inquiry learning environments. The learning environment in this study included a physics simulation, data analysis tools, and a model editor for students to create runnable models. A regulative support tool called the Process Coordinator (PC) was designed to assist students in planning, monitoring, and evaluating their investigative efforts within this environment. In an empirical evaluation, 20 dyads received a “full” version of the PC with regulative assistance; dyads in the control group (n = 15) worked with an “empty” PC which contained minimal structures for regulative support. Results showed that both the frequency and duration of regulative tool use differed in favor of the PC+ dyads, who also wrote better lab reports. PC− dyads viewed the content helpfiles more often and produced better domain models. Implications of these differential effects are discussed and suggestions for future research are advanced

Інноваційні моделі навчання і підготовки кадрів для індустрії високих технологій в Україні

The problems of development of innovative learning environment of continuous education and training of skilled personnel for high-tech industry are described. Aspects of organization of ICT based learning environment of vocational and technical school on the basis of cloud computing and outsourcing are revealed. The three-stage conceptual model for perspective education and training of workers for high-tech industries is proposed. The model of cloud-based solution for design of learning environment for vocational education and training of skilled workers is introduced.У статті висвітлено проблеми розвитку інноваційного середовища навчання, неперервної освіти і підготовки кадрів для високотехнологічних галузей промисловості. Виявлено особливості організації інформаційно-освітнього середовища професійно-технічних навчальних закладів на основі технології хмарних обчислень і механізму аутсорсингу. Запропонована триступенева концептуальна модель навчання та підготовки кадрів для високотехнологічних галузей виробництва. Обґрунтовано моделі хмарних рішень для проектування середовища навчання для професійної освіти і підготовки високо кваліфікованих робітникі

Data mining technology for the evaluation of learning content interaction

Interactivity is central for the success of learning. In e-learning and other educational multimedia environments, the evaluation of interaction and behaviour is particularly crucial. Data mining – a non-intrusive, objective analysis technology – shall be proposed as the central evaluation technology for the analysis of the usage of computer-based educational environments and in particular of the interaction with educational content. Basic mining techniques are reviewed and their application in a Web-based third-level course environment is illustrated. Analytic models capturing interaction aspects from the application domain (learning) and the software infrastructure (interactive multimedia) are required for the meaningful interpretation of mining results