Progressor: Personalized visual access to programming problems

This paper presents Progressor, a visualization of open student models intended to increase the student's motivation to progress on educational content. The system visualizes not only the user's own model, but also the peers' models. It allows sorting the peers' models using a number of criteria, including the overall progress and the progress on a specific topic. Also, in this paper we present results of a classroom study confirming our hypothesis that by showing a student the peers' models and ranking them by progress it is possible to increase the student's motivation to compete and progress in e-learning systems. © 2011 IEEE

Assessment of Knowledge and Competencies in 3D Virtual Worlds: A Proposal

Proceedings of: Key Competencies in the Knowledge Society World Computer Congress (KCKS 2010). Brisbane, Australia, September 20-23, 2010.Digital natives demand a more active approach to learning. Moreover, the acquisition and assessment of competencies, rather than the mere transmission of information, is becoming more relevant in the Knowledge Society. 3D virtual worlds are a promising environment to meet both of these requirements. In a 3D virtual world, learners are immersed in a rich environment that allows them to have an active experience through their avatars and interaction devices. The learning process in traditional learning management systems has been widely studied, but there is relatively little literature about the use of 3D virtual worlds for learning, although the expectations are high and the possibilities opened immense. This paper focuses on an important part of the teaching and learning process: the assessment. Our aim is to present a set of techniques adapted to this novel 3D medium that allows assessing knowledge, skills, and competencies by using the elements inherent to 3D virtual worlds (avatars, synthetic characters, smart objects) and take advantage of the new dimension introduced.This research is supported by the following projects: The Spanish project “Learn3: Towards Learning of the Third Kind” (TIN2008-05163/TSI) within the Spanish “Plan Nacional de I+D+I”, the Madrid regional project “eMadrid: Investigación y Desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” (S2009/TIC-1650), the European eContentPlus Project “iCoper: Interoperable Content for Performance in a Competency-driven Society” (PPI-2008-A-12).Publicad

Un concurso de cortos para el refuerzo pedagógico y la mejora de la participación del alumnado

[Resumen] En la asignatura de Redes del Grado en Ingeniería Informática de la Universidade da Coruña se explican los fundamentos de la comunicación a través de una red de computadores. Para incentivar la participación del alumnado e incrementar su motivación se ha propuesto un concurso de cortometrajes. Se busca que el alumno sea un protagonista activo del aprendizaje, en clara sintonía con el propósito de la reforma educativa actual. El objetivo de la actividad es que el alumno cree un vídeo de un máximo de 3 minutos de duración en el que explique un concepto. Posteriormente, se realiza una evaluación en base a una rúbrica. Varios alumnos y profesores juzgan cada vídeo de tal manera que los evaluados no conocen a sus evaluadores. El beneficio de la actividad es doble: los estudiantes que preparan los vídeos deben estudiar el material, y los estudiantes que ven los vídeos aprenden de un modo más informal y divertido. Para conseguir más retroalimentación, se han proporcionado encuestas a los alumnos, y los resultados han sido muy positivos. Además, se han conseguido vídeos de buena calidad, que se pueden utilizar como material docente.[Abstract] In the subject of Networks of the Degree in Computer Engineering of the University of A Coruna, the fundamentals of communication through a network of computers are explained. A short film contest has been proposed in order to foster the participation and increase the motivation of the students. It is intended that the student is the protagonist, in clear harmony with the purpose of the current educational reform. The aim of this activity is to explain a concept in a video 3 minutes long as maximum. Then, the videos are evaluated by several students and teachers using a rubric according to a blind evaluation. The benefits of this activity are two: students who prepare the videos must understand the concepts, and students who watch the videos learn in a more informal and funny way. A survey has been provided to the students and the results have been very positive. Moreover, good-quality videos have been obtained, so they can be employed as teaching material

Enhancing Acquisition and Distribution of Knowledge in Professional Environments using 3D Virtual Worlds

Proceedings of: 2nd Sig-ProTEL Workshop on the Analysis of Requirements of Professional Learning from Multiple Stakeholder Perspective. Barcelona, 28 September 2010In this paper we explore how the use of 3D Virtual Worlds can help to teach specific competencies useful in a professional environment. Concretely, we present a pattern for practicing and learning the competency of acquisition and distribution of knowledge. A number of features available on 3D Virtual Worlds make this approach particularly interesting, as an alternative to face-to-face collaboration.This research has been partially supported by the following projects: the Spanish project “Learn3: Towards Learning of the Third Kind” (TIN2008-05163/TSI), the Madrid regional project “eMadrid: Investigación y Desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” (S2009/TIC-1650), and the European eContentPlus project “iCoper: Interoperable Content for Performance in a Competency-driven Society” (PPI-2008-A-12).Publicad

Analyzing groups’ problem-solving process to characterize collaboration within groups

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) tools to improve computational thinking skills

The common and easy access to technological devices has led to the rapid inclusion of technology into the learning process. The development of technical skills, as well as the increasing confidence in computer attitudes, seems to be obvious. We therefore propose to go beyond and advocate the use of TEL to provide specific leadership, multi-tasking and other organizational skills, known as computational thinking, as precisely the main contributions provided by TEL. To support this hypothesis, we present two different experiences. The first, based on high-school students, to introduce young people to technology at the same time as they acquire other demanding skills. The second, with undergraduate Computer Science students, is focused on technology itself to enhance and improve computational thinking skills. A comparison is also made between two populations with different digital profiles in their user skills (general in the first case and engineering biased in the second).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Open social student modeling: Visualizing student models with parallel introspectiveviews

This paper explores a social extension of open student modeling that we call open social student modeling. We present a specific implementation of this approach that uses parallel IntrospectiveViews to visualize models representing student progress with QuizJET parameterized self-assessment questions for Java programming. The interface allows visualizing not only the student's own model, but also displaying parallel views on the models of their peers and the cumulative model of the entire class or group. The system was evaluated in a semester-long classroom study. While the use of the system was non-mandatory, the parallel IntrospectiveViews interface caused an increase in all of the usage parameters in comparison to a regular portal-based access, which allowed the student to achieve a higher success rate in answering the questions. The collected data offer some evidence that a combination of traditional personalized guidance with social guidance was more effective than personalized guidance alone. © 2011 Springer-Verlag

¿Puede un videojuego ayudarnos a predecir los resultados de aprendizaje?

Comunicación presentada en CoSECiVi 2014, I Congreso de la Sociedad Española para las Ciencias del Videojuego, Barcelona, 24 de junio de 2014.Los videojuegos educativos tienen características (inmediatez, motivación, diversión, interacción…), que permiten mejorar el aprendizaje. Además, la acción del juego genera una gran cantidad de datos que pueden ayudarnos a conocer el progreso en el aprendizaje y a predecir sus resultados. Presentamos CoIn, un videojuego educativo en el que el jugador se convierte en un intérprete que debe completar las traducciones al español de varios discursos en inglés. CoIn, además, recoge multitud de datos durante el desarrollo del juego, que luego se utilizan en un sistema de predicción basado en técnicas de data mining. En particular, se propone una red neuronal cuya entrada es este conjunto de datos y cuya salida es un rango de notas finales en las actividades docentes de la asignatura. A pesar de la limitada cantidad de datos disponible, los resultados son prometedores y nos permiten aventurar que es posible medir el progreso y predecir el aprendizaje