Informing the Design of Collaborative Activities in MOOCs using Actionable Predictions

With the aim of supporting instructional designers in setting up collaborative learning activities in MOOCs, this paper derives prediction models for student participation in group discussions. The salient feature of these models is that they are built using only data prior to the learning activity, and can thus provide actionable predictions, as opposed to post-hoc approaches common in the MOOC literature. Some learning design scenarios that make use of this actionable information are illustrated

A Tailorable Collaborative Learning System That Combines OGSA Grid Services and IMS-LD Scripting

This paper presents Gridcole, a new collaborative learning system that can be easily tailored by educators in order to support their own CSCL scenarios, using computing services provided by third parties in the form of OGSA grid services. Educators employ scripts in order to describe the sequence of learning activities and required tools, with standard IMS-LD notation. Thus, through the integration of coarse-grained tools, that may even offer supercomputing capabilities or use specific hardware resources, educators do not depend on software developers to easily configure a suitable environment in order to support a broad range of collaborative scenarios. An example of a learning scenario for a Computer Architecture course is described to illustrate the capabilities of Gridcole

System Orchestration Support for a Collaborative Blended Learning Flow

Portable and interactive technologies are changing the nature of collaborative learning practices and open up new possibilities for Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). Now, activities occurring in and beyond the classroom can be combined and integrated leading to a new type of complex collaborative blended learning scenarios. However, to organize and structure these scenarios is challenging and represent a workload for practitioners, which hinder the adoption of these technology-enhanced practices. As an approach to alleviate this workload, this paper proposes a proof of concept of a technological solution to overcome the limitations detected in an analysis of an actual collaborative blended learning experiment carried out in a previous study. The solution consists on a Unit of Learning suitable to be instantiated with IMS Learning Design and complemented by a GenericService Integration system. This chapter also discusses to which extent the proposed solution covers the limitations detected in the previous study and how useful could be for reducing the orchestration effort in future experiences.This work has been partially funded by the Project Learn3 (TIN2008- 05163/TSI) from the Plan Nacional I+D+I and "Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías para el e-Learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” funded by the Madrid Regional Government under grant No. S2009/TIC-1650

Reusing IMS-LD formalized best practices in collaborative learning structuring

Designs of CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) activities should be flexible, effective and customizable to particular learning situations. On the other hand, structured designs aim to create favourable conditions for learning. Thus, this paper proposes the collection of representative and broadly accepted (best practices) structuring techniques in collaborative learning. With the aim of establishing a conceptual common ground among collaborative learning practitioners and software developers, and reusing the expertise that best practices represent, the paper also proposes the formulation of these techniques as patterns: the so-called CLFPs (Collaborative Learning Flow Patterns). To formalize these patterns, we have chosen the educational modelling language IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD). IMS-LD has the capability to specify many of the collaborative characteristics of the CLFPs. Nevertheless, the language bears limited capability for describing the services that mediate interactions within a learning activity and the specification of temporal or rotated roles. This analysis is discussed in the paper, as well as our approaches towards the development of a system capable of integrating tools using IMSLD scripts and a CLFP-based Learning Design authoring tool

Towards reusability and tailorability in collaborative learning systems using IMS-LD and grid services

CSCL applications are complex distributed systems that pose/nspecial requirements towards achieving success in educational/nsettings. Flexible and efficient design of collaborative activities/nby educators is a key precondition in order to provide CSCL tailorable systems, capable of adapting to the needs of each/nparticular learning environment. Furthermore, some parts of/nthose CSCL systems should be reused as often as possible in/norder to reduce development costs. In addition, it may be necessary to employ special hardware devices, computational resources that reside in other organizations, or even exceed the/npossibilities of one specific organization. Therefore, the/nproposal of this paper is twofold: collecting collaborative/nlearning designs (scripting) provided by educators, based on/nwell-known best practices (collaborative learning flow patterns) in a standard way (IMS-LD) in order to guide the tailoring of CSCL systems by selecting and integrating reusable CSCL software units; and, implementing those units in the form of grid services offered by third party providers. More specifically, this paper outlines a grid-based CSCL system having these features and illustrates its potential scope and applicability by means of a sample collaborative learning scenario