A Social Learning Space Grid for MOOCs: Exploring a FutureLearn Case

Collaborative and social engagement promote active learning through knowledge intensive interactions. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are dynamic and diversified learning spaces with varying factors like flexible time frames, student count, demographics requiring higher engagement and motivation to continue learning and for designers to implement novel pedagogies including collaborative learning activities. This paper looks into available and potential collaborative and social learning spaces within MOOCs and proposes a social learning space grid that can aid MOOC designers to implement such spaces, considering the related requirements. Furthermore, it describes a MOOC case study incorporating three collaborative and social learning spaces and discusses challenges faced. Interesting lessons learned from the case give an insight on which spaces to be implemented and the scenarios and factors to be considered

Group formation in learning flow activities across virtual and physical spaces

Proceedings of: Across Spaces11 Workshop in conjunction with the EC-TEL2011, Palermo, Italy, September 21, 2011One of the main challenges in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning is group formation according to different types of polices that depend on the pedagogical method or/and the students' profiles, and the communication of the resulting group formation to the students and the flow engines that orchestrate the collaborative learning processes. This challenge is even more demanding when the learning flows are not only supported by computers but they also integrate activities taking place in physical spaces without the assistance of computing devices. In this extended abstract we propose to combine previous contributions towards the development of an integrated solution for supporting group management across IMS Learning Design compliant virtual learning environments and activities in the physical space, such as the classroom or the playground.This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Learn 3 project (TIN2008-05163/TSI).Publicad

Lecciones aprendidas trabajando hacia la calidad e innovación docente

Jornada de Innovación Docente: resultados y estrategias, celebrada el 29 de junio de 2017 en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, donde se presentan algunos de los proyectos de innovación docente del curso 2016-2017

Herramientas basadas en rúbricas para el control y la evaluación de los Proyectos Final de Grado

[ES]El papel del Trabajo Fin de Grado (TFG) en Ingeniería es crítico dado que ofrece la oportunidad al estudiantado de integrar y aplicar las competencias, tanto específicas como transversales, desarrolladas a lo largo del grado. Sin embargo, dadas sus características académicas (personalizado de acuerdo con los intereses del estudiante, el número de profesorado implicado, la evaluación mediante un tribunal, etc.), la sistematización de la evaluación formativa y sumativa del BFP es un elemento considerado tan necesario como complejo. Para abordar la complejidad de ambos procesos hay múltiples iniciativas recientemente reportadas a la literatura que proponen el uso de rúbricas como herramienta para asesorar y monitorizar tanto el proceso como el producto. En este artículo analizamos la experiencia de la Escuela Superior Politécnica de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) basada en la aplicación de rúbricas como parte de una guía de evaluación (con apoyo de una herramienta web) para los TFG. Esta guía fue evaluada cuantitativa y cualitativamente tanto antes, como durante y después del uso de las rúbricas y los resultados obtenidos nos permitieron conocer su valoración en términos de utilidad, pertenencia, usabilidad y precisión. Los resultados nos llevaron a realizar cambios para aportar nuevas prestaciones a la herramienta web dirigidos a la integración de la evaluación de competencias transversales y específicas, así como el diseño de una versión de la rúbrica resumida para su uso a través de dispositivos móviles

The art and science of learning design: Editoral

Editorial for the "art and science of learning design" supplement. Introduces the learning design approach, considers some of the grand challenges associated with it, and presents the papers in this supplement

m-AssIST: Interaction and scaffolding matters in authentic assessment

Authentic assessment is important in formal and informal learning. Technology has the potential to be used to support the assessment of higher order skills particularly with respect to real life tasks. In particular, the use of mobile devices allows the learner to increase her interactions with physical objects, various environments (indoors and outdoors spaces), augmented digital information and with peers. Those interactions can be monitored and automatically assessed in a way that is similar to traditional objective tests. However, in order to facilitate a meaningful interaction with formative purposes, we propose that the assessment process can be assisted through scaffolding mechanisms that transform the mobile system into a ‘more capable peer’. In this context, this paper presents the m-AssIST model which captures the necessary emergent properties to design and analyse m-assessment activities. The model is used to analyse the benefits and limitations of existing m-test based systems. This paper discusses the importance of meaningful interactions, and the provision of scaffolding mechanisms to support formative and authentic assessment

Learning analytics support to teachers' design and orchestrating tasks

Background: Data-driven educational technology solutions have the potential to support teachers in different tasks, such as the designing and orchestration of collaborative learning activities. When designing, such solutions can improve teacher understanding of how learning designs impact student learning and behaviour; and guide them to refine and redesign future learning designs. When orchestrating educational scenarios, data-driven solutions can support teacher awareness of learner participation and progress and enhance real time classroom management. Objectives: The use of learning analytics (LA) can be considered a suitable approach to tackle both problems. However, it is unclear if the same LA indicators are able to satisfactorily support both the designing and orchestration of activities. This study aims to investigate the use of the same LA indicators for supporting multiple teacher tasks, that is, design, redesign and orchestration, as a gap in the existing literature that requires further exploration. Methods: In this study, first we refer to the previous work to study the use of different LA to support both tasks. Then we analyse the nature of the two tasks focusing on a case study that uses the same collaborative learning tool with LA to support both tasks. Implications: The study findings led to derive design considerations on LA support for teachers’ design and orchestrating tasks

Análisis de la perspectiva de género en los estudios de ingeniería de la UPF

Este trabajo recoge resultados obtenidos a partir del análisis realizado en Unidad de Coordinación Académica de Ingenierías y TIC de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra en clave de perspectiva de género. El estudio tiene base documental y de datos. La especificidad del estudio y su contexto han requerido el diseño de instrumentos y la explotación de datos e informaciones disponibles a nivel institucional UPF como recopiladas a nivel más interno del propio centro. Precisamente un elemento clave a considerar es el propio contexto en el que se desarrolla dicho estudio y su histórico en cuanto a aspectos de género, dado que, como es sabido, la presencia actual de mujeres en estudios de ingenie-ría en el ámbito de las TIC es baja. Los datos incluidos en el estudio son referentes a profesora-do/personal investigador y estudiantado de los cuatro grados de Ingenierías en TIC y Biomédica ofrecidos en el curso 2015-2016, máster y doctora-do, consiguiendo así una fotografía completa de la relación y distribución de hombres y mujeres desde diversos puntos de vista. Se incluyen también las acciones que el centro está llevando a cabo para promover el interés y presencia de mujeres en estudios técnicos.This work collects results obtained from an analysis in terms of gender mainstreaming in the context of the Engineering & ICT academic unit at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. The study is based on a document revision and data collection and analysis. The specificity of the study and its context have required the design of instruments and the exploitation of data and information both at the UPF institutional level and collected at the internal level of the center. Particularly, a key element to consider is the context in which the study is developed and its history in terms of gender aspects, given that, as it is known, the current presence of women in engineering studies in the field of ICT is low. The data included in the study are related to teaching staff/researchers and students from Master, Doctor-al studies and the four engineering degrees (TIC and Biomedical Engineering) offered in the 2015-2016 academic course. This global analysis has provided a global picture about the distribution of men and women from different points of view. The paper includes the centre's action-plan in order to promote the interest and presence of women in our studies

Augmenting reality and formality of informal and non-formal settings to enhance blended learning

Visits to museums and city tours have been part of higher and secondary education curriculum activities for many years. However these activities are typically considered "less formal" when compared to those carried out in the classroom, mainly because they take place in informal or non-formal settings. Augmented Reality (AR) technologies and smartphones can transform such informal and non-formal settings into digitally augmented learning settings by superimposing "digital" layers of information over physical objects or spaces. At the same time, the formality of these settings increases when connected to formal settings through these digital layers. The right combination of AR and mobile technologies with computer-based educational tools such as Learning Management Systems (LMSs) drives this digital connection, leading to articulated blended learning activities across formal, non-formal and informal settings. This paper contributes to the TEL field with: (1) three blended learning activities illustrating the idea of augmented informal/non-formal settings; (2) results from the cross-analysis of these activities that evidence the impact of technology to enhance blended learning; and (3) a set of lessons learned about the possibilities of NFC/GPS AR technologies and LMSs for blended learning. This work provides insights for the design and implementation of similar technology-enhanced blended learning activities. © 2008-2011 IEEE

Representing CSCL macro-scripts using IMS LD lessons learned

Extended version of Hernández-Leo, D., Burgos, D., Tattersall, C., Koper, R. Representing Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning macro-scripts using IMS Learning Design Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, EC-TEL'07, Crete, Greece, September 2007.This paper analyses how CSCL (Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning) macro-scripts can be implemented using IMS Learning Design (LD). CSCL macro-scripts are machine-readable collaboration scripts that structure the activities making up a learning process. In order to support a systematic analysis of the problem, we point out the requirements of CSCL macro-scripts for their representation using LD. These requirements include common collaborative learning mechanisms (group composition, role and resource distribution and coordination) and flexibility demands (such as flexible group composition). Each of these needs is described and illustrated by means of two examples proposed in the literature and which reflect the identified requirements well: Universanté and ArgueGraph Scripts. These scripts are used in the article to expose and exemplify the realization of the requirements using LD. The problem is approached from two angles – that of the LD notation itself and also from related tools and specifications. The paper positions related work and discusses the possibility of generalizing the lessons learned to the representation of CSCL micro-scripts