Adaptaciones de unidades de aprendizaje en tiempo de ejecución

La presente tesis doctoral se enmarca dentro del conjunto de trabajos relacionados con procesos de aprendizaje asistido por ordenador en los cuales es necesaria la figura de un tutor o instructor que supervise el proceso. Si bien, a día de hoy, en algunos tipos de procesos esta figura puede ser reemplazada por algún tipo de agente inteligente o algún otro mecanismo, en otros casos sigue siendo aún necesario y conveniente que el control y supervisión del proceso esté en manos de un tutor real. El objetivo general de esta tesis es incrementar las posibilidades de adaptación de los diseños de procesos de enseñanza supervisados por instructor especificados mediante lenguajes de modelado educativo (EML). Dicho objetivo surgió al tratar de implementar procesos de estas características y detectar las limitaciones en los sistemas existentes. Con tal objeto, se planteó el desarrollo de una extensión al modelo de información de un EML que permitiese a los instructores de procesos de aprendizaje de las características antes mencionadas, la aplicación de adaptaciones análogas a las que llevarían a cabo en un entorno de enseñanza tradicional. Con este propósito, y utilizando un proceso iterativo de desarrollo y validación, se construyó, partiendo de la especificación de un EML ya existente, un modelo de adaptación que permitiese su extensión y posibilitase la descripción de modificaciones tanto sobre la definición de los diseños de procesos desarrollados empleando dicha especificación, como sobre su comportamiento en ejecución. Dado que para detectar la necesidad de adaptar y conocer el tipo y características de la adaptación requerida, es necesario que el instructor pueda evaluar y monitorizar el desarrollo del proceso, así como conocer el grado de éxito alcanzado por las adaptaciones introducidas, el modelo de adaptación fue ampliado para incluir los elementos necesarios para proporcionar soporte al desarrollo de estas funciones. Con el fin de organizar el desarrollo de todas estas tareas se definió un método de diseño iterativo de procesos de aprendizaje que permite capturar dentro del propio diseño la experiencia obtenida de sus ejecuciones previas. Finalmente, se diseñó un mecanismo para la implantación del modelo que permite mantener la lógica de las adaptaciones separada de la información original de la unidad de aprendizaje de tal forma que puedan definirse y aplicarse en tiempo de ejecución adaptaciones no previstas con anterioridad al comienzo de la misma. La factibilidad técnica de la solución ha sido probada mediante el desarrollo de un caso de estudio consistente en la aplicación del modelo y mecanismo de adaptación a un caso concreto de EML, el IMS Learning Design. Dada su flexibilidad para permitir implementar distintos enfoques pedagógicos y a su amplia aceptación, esta especificación ha sido la escogida como guía para el desarrollo y validación de la solución. La adecuación del método propuesto al desarrollo de procesos de aprendizaje reales, y la capacidad expresiva del modelo para permitir la descripción de las distintas adaptaciones del diseño del proceso, han sido constatadas en tres escenarios de aprendizaje distintos, a lo largo de cuyo desarrollo fue posible traducir las adaptaciones que se introdujeron sobre la descripción del proceso implementado en la plataforma utilizada en un entorno real, a adaptaciones sobre una versión del proceso en forma de UoL. ____________________________________________The frame of this work is the computer supported learning process supervised by human tutors. Although nowadays the instructor figure can be replaced by intelligent agents or other mechanisms in some occasions, other times it is still necessary and convenient to rely on the control and supervision of a real tutor. This work aims at increasing the adaptation capabilities of learning process designs supervised by an instructor and specified by means of an educational modelling language (EML). The support provided to the instructor of the above mentioned characteristic process revealed to be insuficient and to overcome this limitations an extension of an existing EML information model was arranged. It should allow instructors to introduce adaptations analogous to the ones they perform on traditional learning environment. For this purpose and taking as a base an existing EML specification, an adaptation model was produced following an iterative process of development and validation. The model should allow the instructor to describe the variations of the learning process design as well as to modify its runtime behaviour. On the other hand an instructor should be able to evaluate and monitor the process progress. This allows to perceive the necessity to adapt the process and to establish the characteristics of the required adaptation. Furthermore, she also should be able to measure the introduced adaptation success. For those reasons the adaptation model was extended with the necessary elements to provide support for these tasks. A method for the iterative design of learning process was produced with the aim to organize the performance of these functions and to capture the experience gained from prior executions in the process definition. Finally, a mechanism for the model implementation was designed. This mechanism maintains the adaptation information and the original unit of learning definition separated, and permits the definition and application of unforeseen adaptations during execution time. The technical feasibility of the solution has been proved through a case study consisting on the application of the model and adaptation mechanism to the most outstanding EML proposal: the IMS Learning Design specification. As this is the most widely accepted EML, it also has been chosen as a guide for the development and validation of the proposed solution. The suitability of the presented method for the development of real learning processes has been stated by its application on three di erent scenarios. All the adaptations applied on the real process implementation has been translated into adaptations of UoL versions of the processes. This way, the expressivity of the adaptation model has also been shown

Engaging educators in the ideation of scenarios for cross-reality game-based learning experiences

Cross-reality media technology creates alternate reality experiences in which the physical and the virtual world are interconnected and influence each other through a network of sensors and actuators. Despite technological advances, the landscape of cross-reality technology as an enabler of alternate reality educational experiences has not been explored yet. The technical expertise required to set up and program such mixed environments is too high to engage the problem owners (i.e. educational experts) in the design process and, hence, user-driven innovation remains challenging. In this paper we explore the co-creation of cross-reality experiences for educational games. We created a no-programming toolkit that provides a visual language and interface abstractions to quickly build prototypes of cross-reality interactions. The toolkit supports experience prototyping and allows designers to coproduce, with educational experts, meaningful scenarios while they create, try out and reconfigure their prototypes. We report on a workshop with 36 educators where the toolkit was used to ideate cross-reality games for education. We discuss use cases of game-based learning applications developed by the participants that follow different pedagogical strategies and combine different physical and virtual spaces and times. We outline implications for the design of cross-reality interactions in educational settings that trigger further research and technological developments.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature (Funding for APC: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - Read & Publish Agreement CRUE-CSIC 2022). This work is supported by the projects CROSS-COLAB (PGC2018–101884-B-I00) and Sense2makeSense (PID2019-109388GB-I00) funded by the Spanish State Research Agency

Designing and implementing interactive and realistic augmented reality experiences

In this paper, we propose an approach for supporting the design and implementation of interactive and realistic Augmented Reality (AR). Despite the advances in AR technology, most software applications still fail to support AR experiences where virtual objects appear as merged into the real setting. To alleviate this situation, we propose to combine the use of model-based AR techniques with the advantages of current game engines to develop AR scenes in which the virtual objects collide, are occluded, project shadows and, in general, are integrated into the augmented environment more realistically. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach, we extended an existing game platform named GREP to enhance it with AR capacities. The realism of the AR experiences produced with the software was assessed in an event in which more than 100 people played two AR games simultaneously.This work is supported by the project CREAx and PACE funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (TIN2014-56534-R and TIN2016-77690-R)

Comparing visual representations of collaborative map interfaces for immersive virtual environments

Virtual reality offers unique benefits to support remote collaboration. However, the way of representing the scenario and interacting within the team can influence the effectiveness of a collaborative task. In this context, this research explores the benefits and limitations of two different visual representations of the collaboration space, shared experience and shared workspace, in the specific case of map-based collaboration. Shared experience aims at reproducing face-to-face collaboration in a realistic way whilst shared workspace translates to the virtual world the functionalities of 2D collaborative spaces. The goal is to understand whether sophisticated interfaces with realistic avatars are necessary, or if simpler solutions might be enough to support efficient collaboration. We performed a user study ( n=24 , 12 pairs) through a collaborative task with two roles in a emergency crisis intervention scenario that typically uses map-based interfaces. Despite that a shared experience scenario might provide a better personal experience to the user in terms of realism, our study provides insights that suggest that a shared workspace could be a more effective way to represent the scenario and improve the collaboration.This work was supported by the Spanish State Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigación - AEI) under Grant Sense2makeSense PID2019-109388GB-I00 and Grant CrossColab PGC2018-101884-B-I100. Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid -Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M in the line of Excellence of University Professors (EPUC3M17), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation)

An augmented lecture feedback system to support learner and teacher communication

The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.comIn this paper it is advocated that the feedback loop between students and lecturer could be improved by making use of Augmented Reality (AR) techniques. The bidirectional communication teacher-students is sometimes hampered by students’ fear of showing themselves up in front of their classmates. In order to overcome this problem a system is proposed whereby lecturers receive immediate and private feedback both individualised for each student as well as aggregated for the whole class. With that purpose the lecturer, who is equipped with a head mounted AR display, can visualize symbols that student select to represent their status in relation to the lecture content. In order to explore the possibilities of this approach an experience was conducted in a lecture on a university course. The results are encouraging and suggest that as this technology matures and less intrusive AR display models become available, it could provide effective support to communication and interaction during lectures.Publicad

A Meta-modeling based Approach for the Multi-Disciplinary Design of Web Educational Systems

Multi-disciplinary teams might provide a multi-faceted perspective of web educational systems that integrates experience from different fields. Each expert has a view of the system and she uses domain specific languages in order to express solutions to the problems she is concerned with. In this way, the final system can be seen as a combination of a number of complementary views, each of which focuses on problems of a different nature. However, such views are expressed with different specification tools so that they have to be integrated to produce a common design that is complete and consistent. Creating a common language encompassing multi-disciplinary design views is a challenging endeavor but it might impose a cognitive overload to each member of the group who is exposed to unfamiliar concepts of other disciplines in her design view. Alternatively, this paper describes an approach called MODUWEB that consists of letting each designer use the tool she is proficient in for her design tasks and then complementary design perspectives are integrated using meta-modeling techniques. MODUWEB also includes a number of constraints and semantic rules that guarantee the completeness and consistency of the resulting model

An empirical comparison of interaction styles for map interfaces in immersive virtual environments

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can be visualized using immersive technologies like Virtual Reality (VR). Before using this kind of technologies it is required to explore which interactions are affordable, efficient and satisfactory from the users' point of view. The purpose of this work is to provide insight on how to design efficient and natural interaction on GIS VR interfaces. This study presents a within-subjects comparative study that assesses the usability and performance of two popular interaction strategies: body-based interaction and device based interaction. In body-based interaction, participants use their hands and head orientation to control the VR map. In the second case, users interact with the Oculus Touch controller. Thirty two users participated in an experiment whose results suggest that interacting with the controller improves performance of the selection task, in terms of time spent and error rate. Also, the results show a preference of users for the controller in terms of perceived usability.This work is supported by the project PACE funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (TIN2016-77690-R

DEI Lab (Interactive Systems Group), UC3M

Se presenta el grupo de investigación DEI (Interactive System Group), de la UC3M. Sus líneas principales de investigación son los sistemas hipermedia para la educación, la ingeniería de la Web e hipermedia y los nuevos paradigmas de interacción hombre-máquina (HCI).The DEI group (Interactive System Group) from UC3M is presented. The main research lines of DEI are hypermedia systems for education, Web Engineering and hypermedia and the new Human- Computer Interaction (HCI) paradigms

Investigación en TIC y educación en el grupo de Sistemas Interactivos DEI-Lab

Since it was created in 1995, the research group “Sistemas Interactivos DEI-Lab” focused its applied research on analyzing the possibilities that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) offer to enhance the learning and teaching experiences. In particular, the research developed in this area can be categorized in two broad areas: studying the learning affordances of emerging technologies and envisioning tools and technologies to ease the active participation of end users in the design and development of interactive learning technologies. In this paper we look back and review the main contributions the members of DEI-Lab did in these two areas, involving technologies such as electronic books, mobile computing, ubiquitous computing, virtual/Augmented/mixed reality, and the development of end-user tools enabling non-technical users to ideate and Prototype their own interactive learning experiences.Desde sus inicios en 1995, el grupo de investigación en Sistemas Interactivos DEI-Lab centró parte de su investigación aplicada en el estudio de las capacidades que las Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (TICs) ofrecían para mejorar los procesos de aprendizaje y enseñanza. En concreto, dos tipos de investigación han guiado nuestros trabajos en este ámbito: el estudio de las posibilidades ofrecidas por tecnologías emergentes y la definición de herramientas y tecnologías que faciliten la participación de los usuarios finales en el diseño y desarrollo de tecnologías interactivas educativas. En este artículo repasamos algunos de las contribuciones realizadas en estos dos ámbitos, desde el uso de tecnologías como los libros electrónicos hasta la computación móvil y ubicua, la realidad virtual, aumentada o mixta, al desarrollo de modelos y herramientas que capaciten a usuarios sin conocimientos técnicos a idear y prototipar sus propias experiencias interactiva

Do low cost virtual reality devices support learning acquisition?: A comparative study of two different VR devices

Virtual Reality (VR) can support engaging and effective learning and current VR devices commercially available are opening up opportunities and expectations in higher education. An open research question is determining whether the fidelity of the VR device (e.g. resolution, framerate, etc.) impacts learning. This work aims to address this question by conducting a study wherein the quality of the experience and the knowledge acquired using a high fidelity (and high priced) VR headset is compared against a lower fidelity (and lower priced) VR headset. The results of the study do not reveal significant difference in spatial and experiential learning. The user satisfaction and experience are also similar regardless of the headset used.This work is supported by the project PACE grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (TIN2016-77690-R)