Towards an eLearning 2.0 provisioning strategy for universities

Oskar Casquero (oskar.casquero@ehu.es) University of the Basque Country

PLE conference 2010 Barcelona, July 08

Nothing will replace VLEs, but…

  We need sth else that is able to:

  Favour mobility

  Recognize non-formal learning

  Consider the autonomy of the learner

  Exploit social nature of learning

  Support life-long learning

  Strengthen links with society

  Educational institutions should be aware of the benefits they can obtain by embracing eLearning 2.0

eLearning 2.0: Web 2.0 patterns adapted to learning needs

  eLearning 2.0 for “learner-centered proactive process”

  Patterns:

  Web 2.0: distributed model for sw and data allocation

  eLearning 2.0: access sw and data inside and outside institution

  Web 2.0: community-centred model for data processing

  eLearning 2.0: collective intelligence from personal networks

  Web 2.0: user-centred model for action management

  eLearning 2.0: give learners the ownership of technology

PLEs for eLearning 2.0

  Our vision of PLE

  open, flexible, distributed and learner-centred environment

  it embeds every service, resource, evidence and person involved in the digital part of the learning process

  Problems when introducing “naked” PLEs within institutions

  no notion of classroom

  difficult to discover and access web services

  difficult to track learner’s activity

Why iPLE (institutionally “powered” PLE) ?

  Because institutions should guide a part of the learning process

  Because institutions create an important social capital that must be combined with personal networks of its users

  Because institutions should gather individual knowledge and return them with added value to its members and to society

  Because it extends the relation between graduates and institutions

  Because many learners can not build their PLE from scratch

  … and because it is ethically secure !

  data and the use of the data are declared on public agencies for data protection

  autonomy and will of university members is considered

eLearning 2.0 provisioning strategy

Step 1: expose institutional services within iWidgets

  Pull live content or functionality that university offers

* iEcosystem is the cloud of web services offered by the university

* own-configured PLE can be a web site, a starting page, a widget-enabled email account like Gmail

Step 2: merge both personal and institutional spheres by providing iPLEs

  pre-configured PLEs by the institution

  minimum base which learners can start working with

  they are provided but they can be customized

  gives access to every service and data that is relevant for the user’s learning process

Step 3: gain wider visibility regarding society using iRepositories

  Institutional accounts in the most suitable repositories

* We consider three kinds of Content Management Systems from the institution (iCMS): VLEs, Blogs and Wikis

Step 4: retain learning contents and evidences (Learn-Streaming)

Step 5: create a collective intelligence

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PLN (Personal Learning Network) = iSN (institutional SN) + uSN (user-defined SN)

Step 5: create a collective intelligence

  The grid of iPLEs is a iPLE Network

  learning units cooperating to share learning resources

  Social Network Analysis over iPLE Network

  good chance to discover interesting social findings (e.g: relations, positions, temporal patterns)

  improve their awareness of learning context structure (e.g: social capital discovery, information disclosure)

  iPLE Network as a “Net Mirror”

  give feedback and recommendations

iPLE case study

iPLE case study: settings

  2 distance learning undergraduate courses

  more than 140 students (from 9 universities)

  workgroups of 5/6 members

  problem-solving activities based on the usage of digital resources

  within each subject:

  Control group: half of the students in Moodle

  Experimental group: the other half in iPLE

  iGoogle: we gave students a tab with widgets for the subject

  FriendFeed: we dumped the iSN of the group on it

iPLE case study: settings

  SNA over iPLE Network   objective: take into account the structure of the social

network of the course when creating the workgroups   process:

  data collection during the first individual activities   customized data processing to find affinities

  result: automatic creation of workgroups in the iPLE environment, as well as the suggestion of the work topics

  Moodle groups were created randomly

Future Work

  The iPLE network architecture for the presented strategy is described in:

  Casquero, O., J. Portillo, R. Ovelar, M. Benito, and J. Romo. Forthcoming. iPLE Network: an integrated eLearning 2.0 strategy from University's perspective. Interactive Learning Environments 18, no. 3.

  In the short term: work on the dataset from iPLE case study   H1: interventions that take into account the structure of social networks are more

efficient than those do not   H2: giving feedback positively affects learning outcomes

  In the mid term: apply SNA to datasets obtained from a prototype of the iPLE network. This work will be developed within projects:

  UPV/EHU project: Social Networks for enhancing lifelong learning (until 2012)

  MICINN project: “Mining, Data Analysis and Visualization based on Social models in E-Learning”

  In the long term: longitudinal analysis…