Special Interest Groups

The research field of AIED combines the potential of advanced computing methods with practical application for educational purposes. The SIG provides a specific community function to establish joint research intitiatives and projects: It supports the creation of focused short-term research in form of JEIRPs and strives to establish sustainable research teams based on the JEIRP outcomes. It also helps to integrate the focused content-based activities with Kaleidoscopes backbone activities in coordinating efforts of AIED related research activities. (read more...)

The CSCL SIG 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 analysing and supporting learning activities. The CSCL SIG pulls together individual KAL 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 cognitive approach, the computational approach and approaches related to language science. During the 4 year KAL period, the CSCL SIG has the primary goal to structure the European Research Area of Computer Support for Collaborative Learning and to ensure its sustainability. (read more...)

The SIG aims to bring together expertise in self-directed inquiry learning and the design of inquiry learning environments. The goals of the SIG are: To chart inquiry, modelling, and collaboration processes in science domains; To understand the problems learners at different levels of education have in these processes; To understand the factors influencing inquiry learning; To investigate learner modelling techniques for inquiry learning; To design assessment techniques for the evaluation of inquiry processes and learning outcomes; To chart the curriculum requirements for a successful integration of inquiry in the curriculum; To investigate methods as issued by publishers to see how they can be extended with inquiry learning facilities. (read more...)

Grid technologies are capable to provide the right answers to the needs rising from the emerging ubiquitous learning solutions. The purpose of the SIG is to contribute to the definition of open, distributed and pervasive environments for effective human learning where learning is a social activity consumed in dynamic Virtual Communities based on communication and collaboration and learners, through direct experiences, create and share their knowledge in a contextualized and personalized way. (read more...)

Mobile and contextual learning is a thriving research field. Europe has led the way through the MOBIlearn and Mobile Learning Framework 5 projects and the Kaleidoscope mobile learning initiative. The Mobile Learning SIG offers an opportunity to share new findings and technology, to develop joint methods and initiatives, and to reconceive learning for the mobile age. It will collate an extensive resource of news, documents, projects and provide forum for researchers with an interest in research into mobile, contextual and ambient learning across Europe and beyond. (read more...)

Narrative has always been used for learning both in school and in informal contexts. Only recently, however, the literature in education has witnessed a growing interest in narrative. Originally confined to the framework of literary critics, narrative is now also the object of research concerning learning and understanding, including the research area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) which has begun to focus on the use of narrative as a tool to support learning. The term “narrative learning environment” refers to a variety of different applications making use of narrative in different ways, as concerns the role of the user within the environment, the educational approach and the technology means adopted.
Focusing on narrative and ICT in the context of learning, some basic questions are currently object of research:
- Is there an added value in using technology to realize narrative learning experiences?
- What are the advantages of embedding narrative in technology-based learning environments?
- In either case, under what conditions?
The SIG provides a forum for researchers from varied backgrounds - who traditionally work separate from one another – to discuss the open research questions within this field and better understand the impact on learning of technology-mediated narrative activities.
(read more...)

This philosophy of technology-enhanced learning SIG is concerned with making explicit the way in which concepts such as knowledge and learning are used in the development of e-learning. This involves a focus on the mediated-mind, rethinking representation, mobile learning, knowledge and context. (read more...)