Distributed e-Portfolios to Recognize Informal Learning

ED-MEDIA, July 4th, 2008, Vienna, Austria

Fridolin Wild1), Steinn E. Sigurðarson1), Thomas Sporer2), Johannes Metscher2) , Agnieszka Chrząszcz3),

1) Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria2) University of Augsburg, Germany3) AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland

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Structure of this Talk

Setting

>> Distributed Learning EnvironmentsConcept

>> E-Portfolios to Recognise Informal LearningTechnology

>> Distributed Feed NetworksCases

>> Intra-University and Inter-UniversityOutlook

>> Discussion

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Setting: Distributed LEs

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Personal Learning Environments

individualsuse subsets of

tools and servicesprovided

by institution

actors can choosefrom a growing

variety of options

gradually transcendinstitutional tool landscape

actors appear asemigrants or

immigrants

leave and joininstitutional tool landscape

for particular purposes

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Distributed Learning Environments

Individual LEs

Consisting of several tools, artefacts, other actors, ...

Networked = Provided with some degree of interoperability

To realize collaboration

e.g. student project group

e.g interaction with facilitators

Changing over time

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Concept: e-Portfolios to Recognize Informal Learning

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Recognising Informal Learning

E-Portfolios▪ Map prexisting knowledge, skills, abilities▪ Help to identify needs & goals▪ Enable learners to reflect▪ Capture the essence of learning and reflection

processes (both digital and non-digital)▪ Help to collect behavioural traces in a

distributed environment▪ Capture their context (!)▪ Document learning processes and outcomes

=> e-Portfolios can help to recognize (also) informal learning

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From Informal to Formal

(Sporer, 2007)

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Student Learning Communities in the Study Program “Problem-Solving Competencies”

Underlying Educational Architecture

Curricular organization of education based on knowledge transfer and dissemination

Extra-curricular organization of education based onknowledge construction and generation

Co-curricular organization of education based onknowledge acquisition and compilation

Assessment of learning

Assessment for learning

Scientific inquiry into problems in the disciplinarycontext of the formal curriculum (Theory)

Social software platform to bridge theory andpractice through a reflective practicum (Method)

Collaborative problem-solving through participationin informal learning communities (Practice)

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Distributed Blog Networks

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Blogging to Learn (1)

Blogosphere shows a bursty evolution (Kumar et al., 2003): in scale, community structures, and connectedness

57.5% of authors are pupils & students (Herring et al., 2004)

Key Motivations: community building and social networking (Nardi et al., 2005; Schiano et al.,2004)

70.4% personal journals, clearly less for filtering & knowledge sharing

Schmidt & Mayer (2007): todays k-loggers are workers, rarely pupils & students

BLOGS = THE COMING THING IN LEARNING?

HIGH POTENTIAL!

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Blogging to Learn: But… (2)

Notorious fragmentation of conversations

Long response times (advantage? disadvantage)

Low number of links: only 51.2% of all blogs link to other blogs, only 53.7% to other websites, 30.5% not at all

Low number of comments: 0.3 in average, majority none

Multimodality puzzles: comments as comment, comment in own blog, …

Fuzziness of the audience

Portability: blogs die when changing the social context

(De Moor & Efimova, 2004; Herring et al., 2004; Krause, 2004; Gurzick & Lutters, 2006)

EVIDENCE FOR INTEROPERABILITY

PROBLEMS

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Feed Standards

Date back as early as 1995

11 different standards in 30 versions(Wittenbrink, 2005)

Today: mainly three in use: RSS 1.0, RSS 2, ATOM▪ RSS 1.0: based on RDF (Swartz, 2000)▪ RSS 2: nearly XML (Winer, 1999)▪ ATOM: XML, namespaces (Nottingham & Sayre, 2007)

Similar expressiveness

Additionally: OPML for blogrolls(Winer, 2000)

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Interaction Standards

collaboration

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Standard Compliance

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Shortcomings

No support for active

networking & networked

collaboration

Lack of support for interaction

standards

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The Missing Link: FeedBack

1 OFFER

2REQUESTupdate notifications

3 NOTIFY

=> „Buffered Push“

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WordPress Plugin (1)

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WordPress Plugin (2)

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WordPress Plugin (3)

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A Blogofolio Architecture

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Cases: Intra/Inter-University

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Intra-University Case: University of Augsburg

PracticalScientific

social

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Inter-University Case: iCamp

Phase 1: Assemble & connect learning environment

Phase 2: regulation & knowledge work▪ Regulation through learning contracts in the blogs

(tagged postings, revisions…): e.g. project planning, discussion, review process

▪ Knowledge work documented in wiki, course paper, or similar

Phase 3: Evaluation of the final artefact along contract

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iCamp Trial Network

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Outlook & Discussion

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Outlook

New Tools needed, esp. coherence building tools▪ From tags to categories▪ Inspecting version histories▪ Analysing activity paths▪ Creating different views for different communities

FeedBack as an enabler▪ Allows pick & choose assembly of best-of-breed

learning tools▪ Quick uptake of innovative tools

More flexible mash-up PLEs needed

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… and my excuse, why this talk was so long, confused, etc.

(Maximilian: June 14th, 2008)

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//eof.

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A FeedBack Validator

Check Spec Compliance

Shoulds, Musts

Give Developer Support:

Warnings, Errors, …

for Debugging

Automatic Validation Service to decrease time to market

http://validator.icamp.eu/