Anytime-Anywhere: Personalised Time Management in Networking for e-Learning

Personalisation in the provision of higher education (HE) has gained traction driven by socio-economic, demographic, and employment changes in the student population.  Concomitant with these changes is the evolving capability and ubiquity of mobile technologies.  These developments have resulted in interest in e-learning to accommodate the diverse student population and leverage the power of mobile technologies.  To address the changing educational demands ‘anytime-anywhere' personalised e-learning utilising mobile technologies is becoming ubiquitous in the domain of HE, and increasingly e-learning is embracing Web 2.0 technologies to provide networking functionality at both a pedagogic and personal level.  Personalisation requires the creation of an individual's profile (termed a context), a context defining and describing a user's current state.  This article considers personalised e-learning in a university domain with consideration of networking (in a collaborative and social networking sense).  Following consideration of the factors driving the interest in and take-up of e-Learning (in a mobile context) Web 2.0 technologies will be considered.  The nature of context and context and related research is considered followed by a brief overview of the proposed approach which is designed to enable effective personalisation with constraint satisfaction and predictable decision support.  The article closes with final observations and conclusions

A literature review of personalized learning and the Cloud

In order to provide effective application of the Cloud in education it is essential to know how the learning should and could – if needed – be adapted. In this respect the concept of ‘personalising learning’ is frequently used. But what exactly is personalising learning. And how can it be implemented in using the cloud? The aim of WG3 i-Learner of the School on the Cloud network is to investigate this from the point of view of the learner, whereas WG2 i-Teacher looks on the role of the educators, and WG4 i-Future on the technology. The document has two parts: - The first part starts with an evaluation and synthesis of the definitions of personalized learning (Ch. 3), followed by an analysis of how this is implemented in learning style (e-learning vs. i-learning, m-learning and u-learning, Ch. 4) and learning approach (Ch. 5). To implement this an appropriate pedagogy (Ch. 6) is needed. - The second part is an attempt on how to implement this onto the learner of the future (Ch. 7), as well to the learning process and to the learning place. Recommendations are made in Ch. 8

Beyond Personalization: Embracing Democratic Learning Within Artificially Intelligent Systems

This essay explains how, from the theoretical perspective of Basil Bernstein's three “conditions for democracy,” the current pedagogy of artificially intelligent personalized learning seems inadequate. Building on Bernstein's comprehensive work and more recent research concerned with personalized education, Natalia Kucirkova and Sandra Leaton Gray suggest three principles for advancing personalized education and artificial intelligence (AI). They argue that if AI is to reach its full potential in terms of promoting children's identity as democratic citizens, its pedagogy must go beyond monitoring the technological progression of personalized provision of knowledge. It needs to pay more careful attention to the democratic impact of data‐driven systems. Kucirkova and Leaton Gray propose a framework to distinguish the value of personalized learning in relation to pluralization and to guide educational researchers and practitioners in its application to socially just classrooms

Inquiry-Based Learning on the Cloud

Cloud Learning Environments (CLEs) have recently emerged as a novel approach to learning, putting learners in the spotlight and providing them with the cloud-based tools for building their own learning environments according to their specific learning needs and aspirations. Although CLEs bring significant benefits to educators and learners, there is still little evidence of CLEs being actively and effectively used in the teaching and learning process. This chapter addresses this issue by introducing a European initiative called weSPOT (Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry-based Learning) for supporting and enhancing inquiry-based learning in STEM education via a cloud-based inquiry toolkit. The chapter presents evidence of using this toolkit within a case study that investigates how a secondary education community of students / co-learners selects information sources on the web and identifies factors associated with the reliability of information sources during their collaborative inquiry (co-inquiry) project in online environments

Research Evidence on the Use of Learning Analytics: Implications for Education Policy

The evidence shows that the use of learning analytics to improve and to innovate learning and teaching in Europe is still in its infancy. The high expectations have not yet been realised. Though early adopters are already taking a lead in research and development, the evidence on practice and successful implementation is still scarce. Furthermore, though the work across Europe on learning analytics is promising, it is currently fragmented. This underlines the need for a careful build-up of research and experimentation, with both practice and policies that have a unified European vision. Therefore, the study suggests that work is needed to make links between learning analytics, the beliefs and values that underpin this field, and European priority areas for education and training 2020. As a way of guiding the discussion about further development in this area, the Action List for Learning Analytics is proposed. The Action List for Learning Analytics focuses on seven areas of activity. It outlines a set of actions for educators, researchers, developers and policymakers in which learning analytics are used to drive work in Europe’s priority areas for education and training. Strategic work should take place to ensure that each area is covered, that there is no duplication of effort, that teams are working on all actions and that their work proceeds in parallel. Policy leadership and governance practices •Develop common visions of learning analytics that address strategic objectives and priorities •Develop a roadmap for learning analytics within Europe •Align learning analytics work with different sectors of education •Develop frameworks that enable the development of analytics •Assign responsibility for the development of learning analytics within Europe •Continuously work on reaching common understanding and developing new priorities Institutional leadership and governance practices •Create organisational structures to support the use of learning analytics and help educational leaders to implement these changes •Develop practices that are appropriate to different contexts •Develop and employ ethical standards, including data protection Collaboration and networking •Identify and build on work in related areas and other countries •Engage stakeholders throughout the process to create learning analytics that have useful features •Support collaboration with commercial organisations Teaching and learning practices •Develop learning analytics that makes good use of pedagogy •Align analytics with assessment practices Quality assessment and assurance practices •Develop a robust quality assurance process to ensure the validity and reliability of tools •Develop evaluation checklists for learning analytics tools Capacity building •Identify the skills required in different areas •Train and support researchers and developers to work in this field •Train and support educators to use analytics to support achievement Infrastructure •Develop technologies that enable development of analytics •Adapt and employ interoperability standard

A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education

This review focuses on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. It provides a synthesis of the research literature in the field and a series of illustrative examples of how these tools are being used in learning and teaching. It draws out the perceived benefits that these new technologies appear to offer, and highlights some of the challenges and issues surrounding their use. The review forms the basis for a HE Academy funded project, ‘Peals in the Cloud’, which is exploring how Web 2.0 tools can be used to support evidence-based practices in learning and teaching. The project has also produced two in-depth case studies, which are reported elsewhere (Galley et al., 2010, Alevizou et al., 2010). The case studies focus on evaluation of a recently developed site for learning and teaching, Cloudworks, which harnesses Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate the sharing and discussion of educational practice. The case studies aim to explore to what extent the Web 2.0 affordances of the site are successfully promoting the sharing of ideas, as well as scholarly reflections, on learning and teaching

Pedagogic approaches to using technology for learning: literature review

This literature review is intended to address and support teaching qualifications and CPD through identifying new and emerging pedagogies; "determining what constitutes effective use of technology in teaching and learning; looking at new developments in teacher training qualifications to ensure that they are at the cutting edge of learning theory and classroom practice and making suggestions as to how teachers can continually update their skills." - Page 4

Careering through the Web: the potential of Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies for career development and career support services

This paper examines the environment that the web provides for career exploration. Career practitioners have long seen value in engaging in technology and the opportunities offered by the internet, and this interest continues. However, this paper suggests that the online environment for career exploration is far broader than that provided by public-sector careers services. In addition to these services, there is a wide range of other players including private-sector career consultants, employers, recruitment companies and learning providers who are all contributing to a potentially rich career exploration environment.UKCE

Personalising the learning of young children with the use of ICT : an action research case in a Greek primary school

This thesis is an account of an action research project undertaken in a Greek primary private school. The project aimed at personalising the students’ learning with the use of ICT. The project ran for three consecutive school years and involved students (twenty-six in year 1, sixteen in year 2, and fifty-one in year 3) and, their parents (in years 1 and 2). The students were eight-years old when the project started. The focus of the innovation concerned the teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language. The project was an attempt to create a partnership with students and to offer opportunities for students to make choices in their learning. In year 1 teaching methods, including argumentative processes, learning task design and assessment processes, were re-designed and students were encouraged to engage in collaborative learning. All these changes were sustained in year 2 and the use of ICT, including online discussion, was introduced to enhance and extend collaboration and learning. The use of on line ‘chat’ was extended to parents as a way of communication with school. All these innovations were sustained in year 3 and further exploration of students’ and parents’ perceptions of learning with technology carried out. Action research is employed as a methodological approach in this study. In particular, the study reports on cycles of implementation and reflection carried out over three years. A variety of methods were used. Diaries were selected to record situations, questionnaires to access the perceptions of the children and parents, and chat logs and interviews used to explore these perceptions in greater depth. The mix of methods enabled comparison and contrast not just between data derived by different methods but by different sources as well, i.e. parents and children. The main theoretical concepts explored in this thesis are Personalised Learning, ICT use, and Collaboration. This research project sees Personalised Learning as the ‘focal innovation’ and ICT use as embedded within personalisation. Collaboration is considered a fundamental construct in both personalisation and the embedded use of ICT. This thesis asks whether personalisation is a coherent concept and whether it can be sustained with the use of ICT. It finds that personalised learning can offer a coherent organising principle for pedagogic reform, and can be defined by its concern for collective co-production of knowledge, student voice, assessment for learning, learning-to-learn strategies, and student centeredness. Personalised learning and ICT are recognised as a good match and personalised learning is seen to need ICT in order to be sustained. However, innovation requires time and evaluation of outcomes is value laden. The thesis finds action research to be an appropriate methodology for curriculum reform