Optimizing the role of language in Technology-Enhanced Learning
A two-day expert workshop on the role of language in Technology-Enhanced Learning was held at the University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) on October 4th-5th 2007. The workshops title was:
Optimizing the role of language in Technology Enhanced Learning.
The primary objective of the IDILL workshop was to bring together academic experts and industrial companies who carry out cutting-edge research in the fields of Natural Language Processing, Applied corpus linguistics, and Computer
Fossil Fondue
To understand how fossils are formed, students model the process of fossilization by making fossils using small toy figures and melted chocolate. They extend their knowledge to the many ways that engineers aid in the study of fossils, including the development of tools and technologies for determining the physical and chemical properties of fossilized organisms, and how those properties tell a story of our changing world.
Elaborating new arguments through a CSCL scenario
The CSCL community faces two main challenges with respect to learning and argumentation. The scientific challenge is to understand how argumentation produces learning, that is to discover which cognitive mechanisms, triggered by argumentative interactions, generate new knowledge and in which conditions. The engineering challenge is to determine how to trigger productive argumentation among students. These two challenges are often investigated in parallel, but this contribution focuses on the lat
Designing and evaluating collaboration in a virtual game environment for vocational learning
Especially in vocational education, attention should be paid not only to the use of new technological solutions but also to collaborative learning and cooperative working methods in order to develop students skills for their future jobs. This study involves a design experiment including the design process of a new game environment, description of the script developed for this game, as well as the empirical study with multiple data collection methods, data analysis, results and conclusions for
Modeling and simulation in inquiry learning: Checking solutions and giving intelligent advice
Inquiry learning is a didactic approach in which students acquire knowledge and skills through processes of theory building and experimentation. Computer modeling and simulation can play a prominent role within this approach. Students construct representations of physical systems using modeling. Using simulation, they execute these representations to study the phenomena or systems modeled. However, the modeling task is complex, and students can fail to create adequate models, which prevents effe
Mixing Human and Software Agents: A Case Study
This paper describes a multi agent approach of the organisation of a collective activity within a pedagogical context. We consider pedagogical situations where students have to explicitly define the articulation of their collective work and then achieve the different tasks they have defined. Our objective is to support these students by taking some of these tasks in charge whilst making them work out such organisation features. For this purpose, we propose to consider that the group of students
Cowos: A Model of Collective Work Situations to Support Modelling and Simulation Based Approaches of
This paper describes an operational model of collective work situations. This model is rooted in the CHAT theory. It allows creating multi-agent simulations where the agents behaviour is defined in terms that make salient organization issues, and allows building learning situations that focus on making students consider explicitly these issues.
Calculus III, Fall 2006
This course is an introduction to the calculus of functions of several variables. It begins with studying the basic objects of multidimensional geometry: vectors and vector operations, lines, planes, cylinders, quadric surfaces, and various coordinate systems. It continues with the elementary differential geometry of vector functions and space curves. After this, it extends the basic tools of differential calculus - limits, continuity, derivatives, linearization, and optimization - to multidimen
When less is sometimes more: Optimal learning conditions are required for schema acquisition from mu
While it is usually claimed that multiple examples for the illustration of problem categories are a necessary prerequisite for schema acquisition, there is a lack of conclusive empirical evidence supporting this claim. Moreover, there are findings indicating that carefully designed one-example conditions may allow for profitable processes of example comparison as well. In line with this reasoning, we present an experiment that builds up on a series of studies conducted by Quilici and Mayer (1
Using e-mail to support reflective narration
This article presents an exploratory study of e-mail use for reflective narration. Narration is viewed from three perspectives: the narrating act, the narrative statement, and the story. These perspectives are used to characterize the 69 e-mails that were exchanged between 13 groups of children from three primary schools. The findings show that e-mail narration has monologic and dialogic qualities, and leads to cognitive and personal reflections on the learning task. We conclude that e-mail can
Gridcole: a tailorable grid service based system that supports scripted collaborative learning
This paper introduces Gridcole, a new system that can be easily tailored by educators in order to support the realization of scripted collaborative learning situations. To do so, educators can provide a script specifying the sequence of activities to be performed by learners as well as the tools and documents required to support them. Gridcole can then search for these tools in a service-oriented grid in order to integrate them so that they are available for users during the realization of the s
Exploratory Test of an Automated Knowledge Elicitation and Organization Tool
his paper combines the contents of two papers that were presented at the ITS 98 conference one focusing on knowledge representation (Shute, 1998) and the other describing a knowledge elicitation tool (Shute, Torreano, & Willis, 1998). There are three main purposes of this paper. First, as a means to stress instructional and assessment implications of different knowledge types, we will briefly overview knowledge representations. Second, we describe a novel cognitive tool designed to aid in knowle
Intelligent support for discovery learning
Using opportunistic learner modeling and heuristics to support simulation based discovery learning.,Doctoral dissertation, University of Twente. Enschede, The Netherlands: Twente University Press.
Antarctica as an Educational Resource
As an educational resource, Antarctica is extremely broad in scope with the potential to contribute to a number of study areas, from the sciences to history, sociology, and politics. Authored by molecular biologist Clive Evans at the University of Auckland, this Web site provides a convenient resource for introducing Antarctica into the classroom and could be adapted for a range of grade levels. Luckily for life science educators, the site focuses primarily on Antarctic biology, adaptation, huma
Stagecast Creator and Webct: An integrated use of computer programming and a virtual learning en
This paper reports on an effort to use Stagecast Creator as a means for developing modelling skills among undergraduate students taking an introductory course in science that took place in a virtual learning environment (WebCT). An inquiry-based curriculum was implemented, which guided students working in small groups to collect and study moon observations and construct a series of successive models of the moon phases using Stagecast Creator. Students reflective journals and reports of s
Meanings for Fraction as Number - Measure by Exploring the Number Line
Construction of meanings for fraction as number-measure is studied during the implementation of exploratory tasks concerning comparison and ordering of fractions as well as operations with fractions. 12-year-old students were working collaboratively in groups of two with software that combines graphical and symbolic notation of fractions represented as points on the number line. Fractions as points and segments, ordering fractions as part of kinesthetic activities and abstracting the scaling of
Designing integrative scripts
Scripts structure the collaborative learning process by constraining interactions, defining a sequence of activities and specifying individual roles. Scripts aim at increasing the probability that collaboration triggers knowledge generative interactions such as conflict resolution, explanation or mutual regulation. Integrative scripts are not bound to collaboration in small groups but include individual activities and class-wide activities. These pre- and poststructuring activities form the dida
Collaboration Load
Does collaboration increase or decrease cognitive load during learning? On one hand, collaboration enables some degree of division of labour that may reduce cognitive load. On the other hand since interacting, expressing thoughts, monitoring anothers understanding, grounding, etc., are mechanisms inducing some extraneous cognitive load, they may create cognitive overload and impede learning mechanisms. However this additional load may explain why collaboration sometimes leads to knowledge cons
Internet Scout Project
Developed by the University of Toronto Libraries, the Anatomia website offers a collection of about 4,500 plates and images of human anatomy from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library ranging in date from 1522 to 1867. Visitors can search the plates by entire plate description, artist, subject words, and/or plate title or can browse the plates by artist, title, or subject. By selecting the Anatomia highlights link, users can view images of importance due to their contributions to the advancement o
Decentralized Service Deployment for Collaborative Environments
In this paper we present the design of a system which allows service deployment in a small-sized group of computers distributed through the Internet. These groups are formed by users who share a common interest, and voluntarily yield their own resources for the achievement of the collaborative activities of the group. Having enough resources contributed by the members of the group, our system guarantees service availability and the fact that the deployment and execution of the services is carrie
