Collaborative Learning Special Interest Group (CSCL) - Technical aspects of the CSCL in tools and installations and papers

The Computer Support for Collaborative Learning Special Interest Group recognises the multidisciplinary nature of the field of CSCL including the design of learning environments, the design and implementation of technological artefacts, and methodologies and theoretical frameworks for evaluation of learning activities. The CSCL SIG pulls together individual Kaleidoscope researchers with diverse interests to focus on understanding collaborative learning in different types for environments. The theoretical framing for understanding the relation between learning, artefacts and tasks will be various traditions in the socio-cultural approach, the computational approach and approaches related to language science.

Website: http://cscl.noe-kaleidoscope.org

Narrative and Learning Environments (NLE)

Narrative can be effectively used to support understanding and sense making at all ages. Narrative Learning Environments (NLEs) make students engage in technology-mediated activities where stories and narrations play a central role to support learning. The SIG NLE aims to contribute to develop:

1. a widely accepted characterization of NLEs;
2. a sound approach to analyse and design them;
3. a better understanding of their educational potential;
4. a wider and more conscious diffusion of their use in education.

Computer-Supported Scripting of Interaction in Collaborative Learning Environments (CoSSICLE)

The CoSSICLE team will distribute their work and associated reports on this stand and will also demonstrate their scripts and the graphical modelling tool on this stand.

Website: http://cossicle.noe-kaleidoscope.org/

Images of CoSSICLE project:

Designing for Technology Enhanced Learning in Museums (MUSTEL)

The MUSTEL stand will provide an overview of the activities of the interdisciplinary MUSTEL team examining how new technologies are being used in Museum environments, with a view to providing a better conceptual foundation for this work. Our focus is on demonstrating how an activity-based conceptual approach that focuses on supporting visitor activities, and envisioning the implicit activities surrounding use of the presented artefacts, can enhance the learning environment.

Website: http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/mustel

Tel and medical learning

The research works, of the Learning in the medical sector kaleidoscope group, are focus on:

• Methodology for design learning systems in medicine: activity analysis (example in orthopaedic surgery) and user centred design (example in spinal anesthesia).
• Analysis of collaborative scripts for the observation phase (which is too passive) in order to improve communication skills and team work skills.
• Research result about learning laparoscopy in the 3D system.

Mobile Learning SIG

The Mobile Learning Special Interest Group within the Kaleidoscope network offers an opportunity to share new findings and innovative technology, to develop joint methods and initiatives, and to reconceive learning for the mobile age. It hosts an extensive resource of news, documents, projects and provides a forum for researchers with an interest in research into mobile, contextual and ambient learning across Europe and beyond.

Website: http://mlearning.noe-kaleidoscope.org

Efficient Context-Aware Collaborative Learning (Coll@ware)

The initiative's aim is to take next steps in technology enhanced learning andopen up new avenues for collaborative learning and working by exploring howcontext-aware technologies for mobile use can enhance efficient collaboration. There will be two posters at the stand, one for the research agenda and theother one for describing the main idea, present work and outcomes. There´s also a slideshow running on a laptop computer.

Website: http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/collaware

Integrated Digital Language Learning (IDILL)

Information on major issues and cutting-edge applications in the field of Technology-enhanced Language Learning, among which the following:

• mobile learning- language games
• automatically generated web-based exercises
• automatic lexical analysis
• online practice environment for language learning
• adaptive language testing
• error detection, analysis and feedback

Website: http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/idill

TRAILS

Our stand presents our jointly edited book 'TRAILS in Education:Technologies that Support Navigational Learning', which was published this spring by Sense publishers. The book is an offspring from the Kaleidoscope TRAILS project. Visitors of our stand can have a look at the book and talk to some of the editors/contributors; we will also show some examples of how the Trails project has affected the research at our institutions.

Website:http://www.sensepublishers.com/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=36 & http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/trails

Self-regulated Learning in Technology Enhanced Learning Environments

• Dr. Karl Steffens, University of Cologne, Germany
• Patris van Boxel, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Dr. Paul Lefrere, University of Tampere, Finland

The objective of the KALEIDOSCOPE initiative "Self-regulated Learning in Technology Enhanced Learning Environments" (SRL in TELEs) is to:

1. Integrate research findings on SRL in TELES at a European level;
2. Create a framework for further research on this topic with special emphasis on the effect of TELEs on SRL and learning outcome;
3. Elicit the collaboration of European researchers in studying SRL in TELEs, preferably in a new project under the 7th Framework Programme.

Website:http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/pub/network/group/SRL & http://www.lmi.ub.es/taconet/

Learning Grid demos

• Nicola Capuano, Dept. of Information Engineering and Applied Mathematics, University of Salerno, Italy
• Marcello Rosciano, Research Centre in Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of Salerno, Italy

Grid technologies are capable of providing the right answers to the needs rising from the emerging ubiquitous learning solutions. This demo will show two different systems: a state-of-the-art e-learning system named IWT (Intelligent Web Teacher) and its prototype evolution based on Grid Technologies named IWT-GA (IWT Grid Aware). The comparison between the two systems will demonstrate the added value of Grid-based e-learning solutions.

Website: http://grid.noe-kaleidoscope.org

Kaleidoscope's Inventory of Research Objects (KAL-IRO)

Kaleidoscope has gathered and partially generated an important collection of "research objects" materialised as software tools. Typically, these research objects have the potential to be applied and used in innovative educational practices. IRO contains a relevant collection of research objects from KAL members and selective examples from outside. We will show how expressions of thematic interests in IRO may help to find relations for envisaged projects.

Website: http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/iro

Methodology and Tools for Experimentation Scenario (MATES)

About Methodology and Tools for Experimentation Scenario
For developing a learning experiment in an ecological context, we have to describe the experiment by its learning scenario and its context, to translate it in a Learning Design language, then to implement it on a learning platform. This kind of scenario can be viewed as "planned trails" of the experiment. During the experiment, "effected trails" of the actors activities are collected. These effected trails provide a history of their travels through the different interactions planned by the scenario. Trails are created as actors learn, and they are becoming increasingly important in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning for the purposes of personalisation, evaluation and knowledge construction. Our group seeks to integrate and build upon various trails-related research generated by the Network, ultimately providing a platform upon which to set up pedagogical experiments, collect generated trails, and develop a methodology for analysing this data.

Issues this activity addresses
We will provide tools and methodologies for implementing learning situations and collecting research results; ultimately, this will improve learning for end-users.

Contributions to the field
We will create a shared experimentation platform, called LearningLab, for implementing learning scenarios and collecting trails, as well as develop a methodology for setting up a pedagogical experiment, and describing some ways for analysing the trails that have been generated.

Website: http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/mates

Centralised data repository

Our Kaleidoscope Initiative project, called the "Centralised Data Repository," is focused on the problem of how researchers can share educational data and compare empirical results. Every learning science project tends to have its own, idiosyncratic data and data format, sometimes taking a high-level perspective, sometimes a low-level perspective. This is highly problematic when researchers later decide to compare results, share data, and collaborate more closely with one another. For instance, how can researchers retrieve comparable objects from different databases? How can two or more researchers unify their work without totally rewriting one (or more) databases? Our objective in this project was to explore ways in which we could overcome these problems, proposing a way to make educational data common and accessible to a wide variety of educational researchers.

We propose to tackle the problem by developing a software mediator (see Figure 1), that accesses a common ontology (see Figure 2), representing a wide range of possible learning objects. The mediator's role is to map the common ontology to the individual ontologies specific to each of project and to provide common access to all data. In other words, we would like to provide one "portal" or query language that can be used to access the data in a range of projects. To design such a solution, we have teamed with a variety of researchers both within and outside of the Kaleidoscope network, including:
 • Jean-Michel Adam, CLIPS, Fédération Grenoble, Université Joseph Fourier;
 • Andreas Harrer, Dept. of Computer Science, Universität Duisburg;
 • Alejandra Martínez Monés, Departamento de Informática, Universidad de Valladolid;
 • Ton de Jong, Faculty of Behavioral Sciences, University of Twente;
 • Ryan Baker, Carnegie Mellon University.

The approach we took was to obtain data from the educational technology systems developed and used by the above researchers and create a common ontology that could be mapped to all of the individual ontologies. We also reused and extended an architecture developed on our own ActiveMath project as the basis for the mediator design proposed in the project.

As part of our Kaleidoscope Symposium presentation we will:
  • Introduce and discuss the problem of variable educational data;
  • Describe the general mediator architecture we propose to address the problem;
  • Present the general ontology we have devised, including examples of how the general ontology maps to specific project ontologies;
  • Discuss how this approach could be realized and implemented in a full-scale project;
  • Discuss the benefits we eventually hope to achieve through this effort.

Website: http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/datarep

Graduate Student Resource Hub in Design Research in Education

An increasing number of doctoral students are using a framework of design research for their studies. Researchers developing materials, tasks, software or other products as part of their research may find such an approach to be relevant.

However, they may feel unsure about what it means to do design research. This website has collected materials and ideas that may offer them some insight into this type of research. They will find, for example, videos about the theory and the practice, a bibliography, reviews, a study guide and a glossary. We encourage them to join the design research community and contribute directly to this evolving website.
The site aims to promote and facilitate:

• Continued networking activity between academics within the participating institutions.
• New connections between doctoral students with compatible interests within the those institutions.
• Digital resources based on the seminars and case studies, with supporting materials, developed for the workshops for doctoral students interested in using a Design Research methodology.
• The start of a community of European researchers with the common interest of design research.

Website: http://lkl.ac.uk/projects/designresearch

The cycle of design-based research

TeLearn: Bringing worldwide visibility to your TEL research

TeLearn is the first international multi-disciplinary Open Archive in Technology Enhanced Learning. TeLearn takes research results from across Europe drawn from diverse and converging disciplines such as computer, social and education sciences and makes them available from a unique gateway. Launched by Kaleidoscope in May 2006, it offers to authors and readers the open access to a set of repositories which includes research reports, video records of keynotes and other scientific talks, and software. TeLearn is already rich of 720 publications, 103 videos and 18 software.

Website: http://www.telearn.org