Mapping web personal learning environments

A recent trend in web development is to build platforms which are carefully designed to host a plurality of software components (sometimes called widgets or plugins) which can be organized or combined (mashed-up) at user's convenience to create personalized environments. The same holds true for the web development of educational applications. The degree of personalization can depend on the role of users such as in traditional virtual learning environment, where the components are chosen by a teacher in the context of a course. Or, it can be more opened as in a so-called personalized learning environment (PLE). It now exists a wide array of available web platforms exhibiting different functionalities but all built on the same concept of aggregating components together to support different tasks and scenarios. There is now an overlap between the development of PLE and the more generic developments in web 2.0 applications such as social network sites. This article shows that 6 more or less independent dimensions allow to map the functionalities of these platforms: the screen dimensionmaps the visual integration, the data dimension maps the portability of data, the temporal dimension maps the coupling between participants, the social dimension maps the grouping of users, the activity dimension maps the structuring of end users–interactions with the environment, and the runtime dimensionmaps the flexibility in accessing the system from different end points. Finally these dimensions are used to compare 6 familiar Web platforms which could potentially be used in the construction of a PLE

D2.4. Building a Personal Learning Environment with Language-Technology-based Widgets: Services v2 - integrated thread

Hoisl, B., Haley, D., Wild, F., Anastasiou, L., Buelow, K., Koblische, R., Burek, G., Loiseau, M., Markus, T., Rebedea, T., Drachsler, H., Kometter, H., Westerhout, E., & Posea, V. (2010). D2.4. Building a Personal Learning Environment with Language-Technology-based Widgets: Services v2 - integrated thread. LTfLL-project.This deliverable reports on the results achieved by the LTfLL work packages in their efforts toward interoperability of the LTfLL tools and services. There are two aspects: one is the pedagogical utility of achieving interoperability; the other aspect involves the technical features. The technical basis of the interoperability is to use Wookie widgets in Elgg and is thoroughly described here. Finally, the deliverable provides details and screen shots of each widget for each LTfLL service embedded in the Elgg environment.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the LTfLL STREP that is funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme. Contract 212578 [http://www.ltfll-project.org

User-tailored Inter-Widget Communication:Extending the Shared Data Interface for the Apache Wookie Engine

Hoisl, B., Drachsler, H., & Waglecher, C. (2010). User-tailored Inter-Widget Communication. Extending the Shared Data Interface for the Apache Wookie Engine, International Conference on Interactive Computer Aided Learning 2010, Hasselt, Belgium.This paper presents a technical solution for an Inter-Widget Communication in Mash-up Personal Learning Environments enabling the possibility to model basic workflows. It explains the technical background of the widget concept and why Inter-Widget communication can be beneficial especially for e-learning. Related approaches towards an Inter-Widget communication are reviewed and delimited to the suggested approach. Finally, the detailed procedures of the Inter-Widget communication are presented on the basis of the Wookie widget engine.LTfL

Interactive Data Sharing Mechanism for Widget-based Microsites

Tänasel veebimaastikul on kasvavaks trendiks veebilehtede vaheline sisu jagamine. Staatilise sisu asemel kasutatakse üha enam vidinaid. Vidinad on taaskasutatavad veebikomponendid, mis sisaldavad mingit konkreetset funktsionaalsust. Lihtsamad vidinad on enamasti olekuta. Keerukamad vidinad oskavad veebirakenduses omavahel suhelda, näiteks saates üksteisele sõnumeid. Nii saavad vidinad üksteist mõjutada ja seeläbi olla mashup’i laadse veebirakenduse ehitusklotsideks, määratledes selle oleku. Kuna vidinad on nõrgalt sidestunud komponendid, ei ole nad võimelised veebirakenduse olekut salvestama. Antud magistritöö pakub välja lahenduse veebirakenduse sees olevate vidinate vahetatud sõnumite jäädvustamiseks ja taasesitamiseks, võimaldades seeläbi veebirakenduse olekut salvestada ja sõpradega jagada. Lahendus baseerub jaoturipõhisel sõnumivahetusel, kasutades tehnoloogiana OpenAjax Hub raamistikku. See tähendab, et kõik ühes veebirakenduses olevad vidinad on jaoturiga ühenduses. Sõnumite salvestamiseks kasutatakse Wookie nimelist vidinamootorit, mis võimaldab luua olekuga vidinaid ja seda olekut ka salvestada. Magistritöö raames realiseeritakse iseseisev vidin, mis „sillana“ ühendab neid kaht tehnoloogiat. Sellest tulenevalt on realiseeritud vidina nimeks Wookie-OpenAjax Hub Bridge. Loodud vidin kuulab kõiki jaoturisse saadetud sõnumeid ja salvestab need andmebaasi. Kui sama vidina isend hiljem taaselustada, siis see vidin taasesitab kõik andmebaasi salvestatud sõnumid jaoturisse. 39 Realiseeritud vidina kasutamiseks luuakse väike näidisportaal, mille sees olevad vidinad omavahel sõnumeid vahetavad. Näidisportaal demonstreerib saadetud sõnumite salvestamist ja taasesitamist, ning ka oleku jagamist suhtlusvõrgustikuga Facebook.Nowadays it is very common that modern web sites exchange content between each other by means of syndication and aggregation. This is enabled through APIs, protocols, tools and platforms. The recent trend in content processing is advancing towards more extensive use of widgets along with static content. Although web sites usually use widgets to provide added value to their users, simpler web sites like microsites can be built entirely from widgets. Such kinds of widgets are usually stateless, but not necessarily autonomous. In particular they may also be able to communicate with other components in the same web application, including microsites, which are the key focus of this thesis. Because of the loose coupling, the widgets themselves are not able to capture the state of the microsite, whereas the microsite itself usually does not have a mechanism for storing its state. However, messages exchanged during communication, determine the state of the microsite. This thesis describes a solution for storing and sharing the state of a microsite by record- and-replay mechanism for messages exchanged by widgets of microsites. Furthermore, the mechanism also allows sharing the stored state of a microsite between friends via social networks. The latter enables user-initiated inter-application content delivery and state exchange, which has been possible so far only between tightly integrated applications

A Component-based User Interface Approach for Smart TV

The fast growth and diversity of technological devices currently being produced is benefiting areas such as “ambient intelligence”. This area attempts to integrate information technology in any personal environment. However, to construct service/application software that adapts to different environments, there must be techniques available that favor this type of development. Component based software Engineering (CBSE) is a discipline of the software engineering that integrates (previously constructed) components to build new software systems. This paper presents a CBSE approach to build Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) at run-time. Both a component-based perspective of the user interface and a set of component relationships are presented in the paper. As a case study, this paper also describes an application built for an emerging computation environment, Smart TV. A running example is also presented through the paper putting some Web-based solutions to build User Interfaces together (e.g., Wookie, W3C Widgets, Node.js)

A Cloud Service for COTS component-based Architectures

The management of software architectures is an important subject, especially in component-based web user interfaces to enhance their accessibility, dynamism and management at run-time. The Cloud offers some favorable mechanisms for this kind of systems, since it allows us to manage the software remotely, guarantees high availability of the resources and enables us to perform mass storage. This article presents an infrastructure solution, based on the use of web services and cloud computing, for managing COTS-based architectures

Implementation and design of a service-based framework to integrate personal and institutional learning environments

The landscape of teaching and learning has changed in recent years because of the application of Information and Communications technology. Among the most representative innovations in this regard are Learning Management Systems. Despite of their popularity in institutional contexts and the wide set of tools and services that they provide to learners and teachers, they present several issues. Learning Management Systems are linked to an institution and a period of time, and are not adapted to learners' needs. In order to address these problems Personal Learning Environments are defined, but it is clear that these will not replace Learning Management Systems and other institutional contexts. Both types of environment should therefore coexist and interact. This paper presents a service-based framework to facilitate such interoperability. It supports the export of functionalities from the institutional to the personal environment and also the integration within the institution of learning outcomes from personal activities. In order to achieve this in a flexible, extensible and open way, web services and interoperability specifications are used. In addition some interoperability scenarios are posed. The framework has been tested in real learning contexts and the results show that interoperability is possible, and that it benefits learners, teachers and institutions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

ID3.27 Guidelines describing installation, configuration, maintenance and monitoring of the TENCompetence infrastructure

Alberts, J., Heyenrath, S., Lemmers, R., & Cherian, R. (2009). ID3.27 Guidelines describing installation, configuration, maintenance and monitoring of the TENCompetence infrastructure.Describes how to install and configure the tools of the TENCompetence infrastructure.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

End-user-oriented telco mashups: The OMELETTE approach

With the success of Web 2.0 we are witnessing a growing number of services and APIs exposed by Telecom, IT and content providers. Targeting the Web community and, in particular, Web application developers, service providers expose capabilities of their infrastructures and applications in order to open new markets and to reach new customer groups. However, due to the complexity of the underlying technologies, the last step, i.e., the consumption and integration of the offered services, is a non-trivial and timeconsuming task that is still a prerogative of expert developers. Although many approaches to lower the entry barriers for end users exist, little success has been achieved so far. In this paper, we introduce the OMELETTE1 project and show how it addresses end-user-oriented telco mashup development. We present the goals of the project, describe its contributions, summarize current results, and describe current and future work. Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2)