Transforming pedagogy using mobile Web 2.0

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing on student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning tool, facilitating engaging learning environments that bridge multiple contexts. Today’s dual 3G and wifi-enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit, upload, and share user generated Web 2.0 content. This article outlines how a Product Design course has moved from a traditional face-to-face, studio-based learning environment to one using mobile Web 2.0 technologies to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning paradigm. Keywords: m-learning; Web 2.0; pedagogy 2.0; social constructivism; product desig

Theory of mind and decision science: Towards a typology of tasks and computational models

The ability to form a Theory of Mind (ToM), i.e., to theorize about others’ mental states to explain and predict behavior in relation to attributed intentional states, constitutes a hallmark of human cognition. These abilities are multi-faceted and include a variety of different cognitive sub-functions. Here, we focus on decision processes in social contexts and review a number of experimental and computational modeling approaches in this field. We provide an overview of experimental accounts and formal computational models with respect to two dimensions: interactivity and uncertainty. Thereby, we aim at capturing the nuances of ToM functions in the context of social decision processes. We suggest there to be an increase in ToM engagement and multiplexing as social cognitive decision-making tasks become more interactive and uncertain. We propose that representing others as intentional and goal directed agents who perform consequential actions is elicited only at the edges of these two dimensions. Further, we argue that computational models of valuation and beliefs follow these dimensions to best allow researchers to effectively model sophisticated ToM-processes. Finally, we relate this typology to neuroimaging findings in neurotypical (NT) humans, studies of persons with autism spectrum (AS), and studies of nonhuman primates

The nature and evaluation of commercial expert system building tools, revision 1

This memorandum reviews the factors that constitute an Expert System Building Tool (ESBT) and evaluates current tools in terms of these factors. Evaluation of these tools is based on their structure and their alternative forms of knowledge representation, inference mechanisms and developer end-user interfaces. Next, functional capabilities, such as diagnosis and design, are related to alternative forms of mechanization. The characteristics and capabilities of existing commercial tools are then reviewed in terms of these criteria

Crossing the Rubicon: A Generic Intelligent Advisor

Recommender systems (RS) are being used by an increasing number of e-commerce sites to help consumers find the personally best products. We define here the criteria that a RS should satisfy, drawing on concepts from behavioral science, computational intelligence, and data mining. We present our conclusions from building the WiseUncle RS and give its general description. Rather than being an advisor for a particular application, WiseUncle is a generic RS, a platform for generating application-specific advisors