Call for workshop position statements and abstracts - Learning activities across physical and virtual spaces (AcrossSpaces2011), to be held in conjunction with EC-TEL 2011, Palermo (Italy). September 20 or 21, 2011
This workshop seeks to foster discussions regarding new educational scenarios
and technological solutions that exploit an integrated transfer from physical
spaces, such as the classroom or the playground, to virtual spaces, such as
virtual learning environments or 3D worlds. This workshop aims at bringing
together both educational researchers, technologists and open public working
and interested in this topic in order to identify the possibilities and
challenges involved in the design and implementation of learning activities
across physical and virtual spaces.
Workshop background and aim
Nowadays education does not happen exclusively face-to-face, in the physical
space. Neither does it happen exclusively through online tools in the virtual
space, like Virtual Learning Environments, blogs or wikis. There is a
continuous transfer from one space to another: certain activities are done in
the classroom, some are accessed on a web virtual learning environment or a 3D
world, then the students perform the activities and collaborate ubiquitously
either physically or digitally.
This is
what has been traditionally understood under the heading of blended learning,
but recent technological advances have opened broad opportunities to link these
spaces more profoundly, thus enabling the realization of learning activities
across spaces that incorporate and coordinate objects from them all. Examples
are: the use of augmented reality, that superimposes a digital layer on top of
the physical space, providing extra information or linking objects; the use of
3D virtual spaces mirroring the physical space (e.g. showing an image from the
physical world coming from a camera); sensors or RFID technology in the
physical space that can provide information such as identity or location to digital
applications; or tangible computing devices that enable the manipulation of
objects in the physical space that have impact on the digital space...
The main different spaces that can be linked to
support innovative activities include virtual learning environments, 3D virtual
worlds, physical classrooms and open learning spaces that can be integrated
with virtual spaces through roomware, mobile and location-aware technologies.
The main question to explore with workshop contributions is How to design and technologically
support innovative learning scenarios across physical and virtual spaces?
Associated research questions include: What are the opportunities and
challenges that learning scenarios across spaces pose to the learners'
assessment? Can educational technology specifications offer interoperability
solutions to facilitate the transfer between spaces? How can educators
orchestrate, adapt, monitor and evaluate the learning process occurring across
different virtual and physical spaces?
Workshop topics
Educational scenarios, technological solutions and evaluation studies focused
on learning activities happening across spaces, which can include, but are not
limited to:
* Virtual Learning Environments
* 3D Virtual Worlds
* Roomware and other pervasive devices for the
classroom
* Mobile and location-aware technologies for
open learning space
Transversal topics include, but are not limited
to:
* Architectures, frameworks, models
* Design of activities, assessment
* Interoperability, educational technology
specifications, data flow, linked data
* Orchestration, adaptation, monitoring,
evaluation
Related topics include also:
* Augmented reality
* Augmented virtuality
* Mediated reality
All
submitted position statements and extended abstracts will be peer-reviewed by
at least two members of the program committee. Selected contributions will be
invited for extension and submission to a special issue of the Journal of
Universal Computer Science.
Important dates
Deadline for papers: 12 July 2011 (extended)
Notification of acceptance: 29 July 2011
Deadline camera-ready: 01 September 2011
Dates of the workshop: 20 or 21 September 2011
Organizers
Davinia Hernández-Leo, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain); Contact: davinia.hernadez@upf.edu
Carlos
Delgado-Kloos, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)
Juan I.
Asensio-Pérez, Universidad de Valladolid (Spain)
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