The university in a box

Fridolin Wild, Lucas Anastasiou, Alexander Mikroyannidis

KMi, The Open University

f.wild@open.ac.uk

This talk

• Part 1: Why are we doing this? The big picture

• Part 2:What are we doing?Project history and edukapp

… is developmentof competence.

(more or less planful)

21st century learning skills & Competences

“A competence is defined as the ability to successfully meet complex

demands in a particular context through the mobilization of psycho-social prerequisites (including both

cognitive and non-cognitive aspects)” (Rychen & Salganik, 2003b, p. 43)

Professionalbasic and specialized general knowledge, basic psychomotor and mechanical skills, and disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge (Jäger, 2001)

Methodologicalability to independently acquire, structure, critically evaluate, and exploit knowledge in a creative way (Kauffeld et al., 2003)

Personalconcerned with those attitudes and character attributes required to perceive and utilize one’s own competencies and to act in a reflective and self-reflective way (Erpenbeck, 2003)

Social“facilitate communicative and cooperative action that aim at identifying, managing and mastering conflicts” (Erpenbeck, 2003)

… takes place in a distributed

(eco-)system.

Tools that bring together people and content artefacts in activities that support in constructing and processing information and knowledge.

... PLEs have probably been around us ever since the ‚homo habilis‘ started to use more sophisticated stone tools at the beginning of the Pleistocene some two million years ago.

It’s not new, but it’s a fairly recent discovery :)

Creating a personal learning environment: capturing hunting experiences on the cave walls.

Personal Learning Environment

A network of people surrounding an individual with the persons in this network making use of artefacts and tools while they engage in isolated or collaborative activities of more or less planful (co-)construction of knowledge and information (Wild et al., 2011).

Actions modify this environment

Actions modify this environment

Aim: positively influence competence development (i.e. building up potential for future action)

Aim: positively influence competence development (i.e. building up potential for future action)

Ecosystem: lack of control of the individual, characteristics

of all agents moderate performance and behaviour

Ecosystem: lack of control of the individual, characteristics

of all agents moderate performance and behaviour

Methodical Culturalism

• Methodical culturalism is a form of (radically social) constructivism.

• Understanding is by nature social as it is grounded in human action (Janich, 1998; Hesse et al., 2009)

• Therefore: understanding is always constituted (and restricted) by a culture of shared understanding

Logical abstractor = a release mechanism.

Quality of a signal

(96dpi)

>> Meaning is SOCIAL

• Douglas Adams’ ‘meaning of liff’:

– Epping: The futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to attract the attention of waiters and barmen.

– Shoeburyness: The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat which is still warm from somebody else's bottom

… and so is knowledge.Learning = social interaction

Activity Theory

(Engestroem, 2008)

• A form of (socio-) constructivism. • Mediated action: Tools appropriate

collective experience and therefore mediate between subjects and objects.

In internalisation, “social interaction turns into mental activity” (Fjeld et al., 2002).

In objectification, individual’s mental processes result in the production of a new tool, which again can be involved in social interactions.

This is a ‘widget’This is a ‘widget’

A ‘widget’ is a use-case sized mini (web) application

A ‘widget’ is a use-case sized mini (web) application

When it was ‘easy to build’, we call it a mash-up ;)When it was ‘easy to build’, we call it a mash-up ;)

A widget-based environment is a flexible and harmonic arrangement of interoperable mini apps, that supports in a particular practice.

A widget-based environment is a flexible and harmonic arrangement of interoperable mini apps, that supports in a particular practice.

It’s personal, but we can share it.It’s personal, but we can share it.

PLE practices and the competences

motivated

#16

Planning competence refers to those skills, abilities, habits, attitudes, and knowledge that fix how goals, schedules, and paths are set.

Reflection is creative sense making of the past and enables planning.

Monitoring refers to how progress control is performed.

Last but not least, the pair acting and interacting group social & collaboration and information & tool competences.

Planning competence refers to those skills, abilities, habits, attitudes, and knowledge that fix how goals, schedules, and paths are set.

Reflection is creative sense making of the past and enables planning.

Monitoring refers to how progress control is performed.

Last but not least, the pair acting and interacting group social & collaboration and information & tool competences.

planreflect

monitor

actinteract

(Wild et al., 2009)

Qualitative Interviews: 15 persons in 5 sessions (each 40 min to 1 hour)

ENOUGH WITH THIS #?%£!WHAT ABOUT SOMETHING REAL?

… Part 2: Project history and edukapp

Mash-Up Personal Learning

Environment

using delicious

using piratepad.net/art1

using www.objectspot.org

share bookmarks

find papers

summarize papers

Recommendations: tools, activities, …

Recommendations:patterns

Analytics: Tracking:interactions & usage

Widgets &web applications

Sharing Practices

Users involve in use-cases.

Each case deploys widgets in support of the given task.

Widgets use infrastructure services & data (from within the PLE container or from a web 2.0).

A directory serves the management and deployment of the portfolio.

Interoperability standards secure the flexible recombination of widgets, services, and data.

#23

directoryservice

PLE runtime containerPLE runtime container

DPpedia

WP 6

fossa

RSS

transf

CONSPECT

http://augur.wu.ac.at/elgg

#24

Widget Arrangements

PenSum Conspect PolyCAFe

PenSumPenSum

PenSum

PolyCAFe

PolyCAFe

thread1

Web 2.0 Dimensions

#27

+

(Wild et al., 2009b; Wild et al., 2010)

< backpack

< widget overlay

Apache

The ROLE SDK

ROLE SDK – Download & Installation1) Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/role-project

2) Click download button

3) Unzip archive to local filesystem (${role-sdk})4) Start webserver (${role-sdk}/bin/start.sh)

ROLE SDK – Where to find what• SDK overview available at http://127.0.0.1:8073/role

How to use ROLE Reference Implementation

1) Go to http://127.0.0.1:8073

2) Sign in

3) Create a space

How to use ROLE Reference Implementation

ROLE Widget Enchantment

More information at:http://role-project.eu/WidgetCompetition

Join and Win!

Round 1 - Widget SpecificationRound 2 - Widget DevelopmentWinners of the first round will each receive a 500€ prize after the specifications are implemented.

IMPORTANT DATESSubmission Start: 03 FebruarySubmission Deadline (Widget Specifications): 02 MarchWinners Announcement (Round 1): 12 MarchSubmission Deadline (Widgets): 11 MayWinner Announcement (Round 2): 21 May

ROLE Widget Store• http://www.role-widgetstore.eu/

edukapp

EDUKApp

• Drawing from EU projects ROLE, iTEC, LTfLL …• A cross-university widget store to facilitate VLEs, PLEs

MUPPLEs– Social annotation / social driven development– Recommendation engine / usage tracking– Widget bundles / affordances

• Open Source (Apache License 2.0)

http://code.google.com/p/edukapphttp://widgets.open.ac.uk/

Edukapp components

• W3c widget renderer: apache wookie• Open social gadget renderer: apache shindig• Discovery service: apache solr• Edukapp binds these together and

complement with a store interface