Responsive open learning environments (ROLEs) are characterized through their openness for new configurations, new contents and new users, and through their responsiveness to learners’ activities in respect to learning goals. Openness specifically encompasses the ability to include new learning material and new learning services. These can be combined either in a static fashion or dynamically, therefore allowing learners to create their own learning environments. Consequently, throughout the lifetime of a ROLE, new configurations will be created by learners, usually adapted to their needs, requirements and ideas. In this paper, we will describe first experiences using ROLEs for a course on foreign language learning at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Results of our trials are two-fold: on the one hand, widget, container and other enabling technologies are insufficiently mature to allow large-scale deployment. On the other hand, the results are encouraging as students which learn how to use ROLEs clearly benefit from their use.
Nowadays Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are described as the use of different social software tools for learning and teaching. The use of common web browsers often is a precondition to fulfil the requirements of social software tools. In this publication a new perspective as well as a couple of prototypes is presented to allow a more independent solution in this context. Using the new JavaFX technology so called widgets are implemented which can be used on different devices as well as different operating systems. Furthermore also the web browser can be replaced by a browser instance. It can be summarized that through the use of widgets the learning environment of the future can be more individualized and personalized.
There are plenty of projects aimed at incorporating semantic information into present day document processing. The main problem is their real-world usability. E-learning is one of the areas which can take advantage of the semantically described documents. In this paper we would like to introduce a framework of cooperating tools which can help extract, store, visualize semantics in this area.
This contribution introduces a placement web-service which has been developed in the context of the TENCompetence Integrated Project. The web-service uses Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to calculate similarity between documents in learner portfolios and content in the current learning network of the learner. In the first part of the paper the placement problem in learning networks is introduced. Next we discuss the architecture of the current web-service prototype and describe our evaluation approach. Several limitations and future developments are discussed at the end of the paper.
In resource based learning settings learners have to cope with a multitude of resources. One big challenge for learners is managing the knowledge contained in these resources appropriately. We discuss some existing knowledge modeling methods and related tools with regard to learning scenarios. This paper focuses on presenting a knowledge modeling approach based on personal knowledge networks. Aggregation and mapping of these personal networks can form a community network supporting exchange of knowledge. Furthermore a proof-of-concept is described.
This paper presents extensions that have been programmed by the Department Social Learning (DSL) at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) for a blogosphere used at TU Graz called TU Graz LearnLand (TUGLL) on base of the open source software ELGG. These extensions are useful upgrades to the system following the demands of the pedagogical strategy of the TU Graz. A description of the extensions and didactical considerations are discussed.