A case study for measuring informal learning in PLEs

The technological support for learning and teaching processes is constantly changing. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) applied to education, cause changes that affect the way in which people learn. This application introduces new software systems and solutions to carry out teaching and learning activities. Connected to ICT application, the emergence of Web 2.0 and its use in learning contexts enables an online implementation of the student-centred learning paradigm. In addition, 2.0 trends provide “new” ways to exchange, making easier for informal learning to become patent. Given this context, open and user-centered learning environments are needed to integrate such kinds of tools and trends and are commonly described as Personal Learning Environments. Such environments coexist with the institutional learning management systems and they should interact and exchange information between them. This interaction would allow the assessment of what happens in the personal environment from the institutional side. This article describes a solution to make the interoperability possible between these systems. It is based on a set of interoperability scenarios and some components and communication channels. In order to test the solution it is implemented as a proof of concept and the scenarios are validated through several pilot experiences. In this article one of such scenarios and its evaluation experiment is described to conclude that functionalities from the institutional environments and the personal ones can be combined and it is possible to assess what happens in the activities based on them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Knowledge Management and decision making based on informal learning activities in business

The application of the Information and Communication Technologies to everyday life activities facilitates the availability of lots of information and knowledge which can be used for multiple purposes. One of them is learning processes within organizations. However, there are two questions which must be addressed: first, that people do not only learn in organizational contexts; and second, that not all the data gathered from learning systems is useful. This makes it necessary to find a way to gather information about informal learning activities in the workplace and to facilitate visibility of what employees learn outside the organization so that such knowledge may be accessed from within the organization and be used for decision making. In order to do so this study proposes a methodology based on the identification of informal learning instances by the employee and their ecognition by the organization. The methodology is supported by a technological framework based on a Personal Learning Network, a Portfolio, a Catalog of Competences and an institutional system which includes tools for optimization of decision making. The methodology has been implemented and evaluated in the context of a pan-European project. The main findings from this study suggest that, although decision making from informal learning instances is possible, both the methodology and tools used should be flexible enough to satisfy the needs of the organization

LMS openness perception in educational and technological areas

The application of the Information and Communications Technology implies changes in the means that support learning. This leads to the emergence of lot of tools that aim to improve students’ learning. One of the most relevant tools are learning management systems. However these tools are on the one hand, mostly focused on the institution and the course and not too much on the learner, and on the other they are very monolithic and closed environments. It is necessary to facilitate the evolution and openness of these platforms in a way they can fulfil students’ needs, and to do this a service-based framework is proposed. It has been validated through experiences in educational and technological areas and they were compared with each other. This allow to check that opening learning platforms is possible and not only in technological context but in other areas.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Moodle HEODAR implementation and its implantation in an academic context.

[EN]One of the most important aspects of a 'continuously in change’ society is to improve everything everywhere. In order to obtain the best products, they should be periodically evaluated and reengineered. So the evaluation task and of course, the adequate results interpretation, can make all the difference between competitors. E-learning is similar to these products. Different issues can be evaluated to make learning process getting better and better, such as tutors, platform software and contents. In this last issue, it can be included the minimum knowledge unit: the learning object (LO) (De Marcos et al., 2008). There exist different models and methods for LO evaluation. What is pretended with this work is to choose one model and implement a singular tool, in order to automatically evaluate these LOs and produce a set of information, that can be used to improve those LOs. In this case, it is implemented in the evaluation model called HEODAR (Morales et al., 2008a) and after that the model is implanted in Studium, the Moodle campus of Salamanca University

Current trends in robotics in education and computational thinking

Computational thinking-related issues have had a specific track on TEEM Conference since 2016. This is the sixth edition of this track within the 2021 TEEM Conference edition. This year the papers are centered on programming and robotics, but the artificial intelligence topics increase their presence in the track.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Application of Business Process Model Notation to describe a Methodology for the Recognition, Tagging and Acknowledge of Informal Learning Activities

[EN] Learning is a process that takes place anywhere and at any moment of our life. That means that not all learning happens linked to an institution. However, that kind of learning, known as informal learning, is usually invisible for people in charge of organizations. This is because either the learner is not aware of having learned something or because he/she is not able to show or make visible this type of learning to other. In order to facilitate the exploitation of this knowledge, TRAILER project poses a methodology supported by a technological ecosystem. This methodology is quite complex; it involves different stakeholders and components. For defining the methodology, a flexible and understandable notation was used, Business Process Model Notation. It helps in the designing and implementation of the solution and it also has been used to guide experts during the methodology testing