Search results

The aim is to explore the role of personal learning environments in an already ICT‐dense context and in combination with some educational approaches in the field of technology enhanced education. The paper seeks to analyze how personal learning environments are not a device but a learning strategy that threatens the way educational institutions and their functions are understood, by contributing to enable a borderless learning society.

The research begins by revisiting Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development and assesses the role of educators and educational institutions as the actual more knowledgeable others in scaffolding learners' learning paths. This role is put in relationship with different learning scenarios (formal, non‐formal, informal and autodidactic) according to their inner structure (or lack of) and degree (or absence) of planning. The research then puts PLEs in relationship with other “physical” spaces (VLEs and LMSs), the digitization of content (open educational resources), records and assessments (e‐Portfolios) and the possibility to flip some traditional tasks or processes that enabled regaining the social component in the classroom (Education 2.0).

It is suggested that PLEs have come to close the circle of ICTs in education with a highly transformative power: the power to blur the boundaries between formal teaching and informal learning. Indeed, the traditionally difficult transition from one learning scenario to a different one has been made smoother by the appearance of OER and, especially, social media constructs that can be used for learning purposes, especially within a PLE‐based strategy.

It is stated that institutions should embrace and even foster the possibility that learners could easily and intensively switch educational resources, just like they could shift among different registers and learning scenarios, as a newly enabled way to tear down the artificial divisions that formal learning edified.

Mashups have been studied extensively in the literature; nevertheless, the large body of work in this area focuses on service/data level integration and leaves UI level integration, hence UI mashups, almost unexplored. The latter generates digital environments in which participating sources exist as individual entities; member applications and data sources share the same graphical space particularly in the form of widgets. However, the true integration can only be realized through enabling widgets to be responsive to the events happening in each other. The authors call such an integration “widget orchestration” and the resulting application “mashup by orchestration”. This article aims to explore and address challenges regarding the realization of widget‐based UI mashups and UI level integration, prominently in terms of widget orchestration, and to assess their suitability for building web‐based personal environments.

The authors provide a holistic view on mashups and a theoretical grounding for widget‐based personal environments. The authors identify the following challenges: widget interoperability, end‐user data mobility as a basis for manual widget orchestration, user behavior mining – for extracting behavioral patterns – as a basis for automated widget orchestration, and infrastructure. The authors introduce functional widget interfaces for application interoperability, exploit semantic web technologies for data interoperability, and realize end‐user data mobility on top of this interoperability framework. The authors employ semantically enhanced workflow/process mining techniques, along with Petri nets as a formal ground, for user behavior mining. The authors outline a reference platform and architecture that is compliant with the authors' strategies, and extend W3C widget specification respectively – prominently with a communication channel – to foster standardization. The authors evaluate their solution approaches regarding interoperability and infrastructure through a qualitative comparison with respect to existing literature, and provide a computational evaluation of the behavior mining approach. The authors realize a prototype for a widget‐based personal learning environment for foreign language learning to demonstrate the feasibility of their solution strategies. The prototype is also used as a basis for the end‐user assessment of widget‐based personal environments and widget orchestration.

The evaluation results suggest that the interoperability framework, platform, and architecture have certain advantages over existing approaches, and the proposed behavior mining techniques are adequate for the extraction of behavioral patterns. User assessments show that widget‐based UI mashups with orchestration (i.e. mashups by orchestration) are promising for the creation of personal environments as well as for an enhanced user experience.

This article provides an extensive exploration of mashups by orchestration and their role in the creation of personal environments. Key challenges are described, along with novel solution strategies to meet them.

There is a need for research that examines how digital networks can support all learners in open access to people, resources and experiences that were previously inaccessible in K-12 learning contexts. This study aims to examine the potential of open education theories and open practices in high school learning environments.

Using a design-based research approach, this study used the open learning design intervention framework to examine the experiences of a researcher, a teacher and Grade 10 students who expanded their learning from formal to informal learning environments by integrating open educational practices (OEP). The research occurred through three specific phases with iterative cycles that were responsive to research participants and data analysis at each phase.

The key findings suggest that open learning in high school is dependent upon opportunities for learners to co-design personally relevant learning pathways. The emerging design framework highlighted the need to emphasize the complexity of the students’ lived experiences in connection with the curriculum (formal learning environments) to promote a diversity of perspectives and shared connections (in informal learning environments). Second, learners need the opportunity to share their learning experiences collaboratively and individually by transparently demonstrating their learning processes in relevant ways and open practices provide the digital and community spaces to share knowledge. Finally, open learning occurs through stages and continuums and is a personal learning experience that transcends the boundaries of formal learning environments.

This study expands the current conceptual framework of open learning design by contributing a K-12 lens from which to consider the potential of OEP to promote personal learning pathways. Although the research considered a K-12 context, the OLDI Framework can be extended upon and used in any open learning design context including higher education.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of the users concerning the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in enhancing personal learning profile (PLP), personal learning network (PLN) and personal learning environment (PLE) and their effect on the perceived ease of use, perceived effectiveness and perceived usefulness for enhancing the overall attitude and satisfaction of the e-learning.

The data were collected from students and professionals who have ever used the e-learning module, and smart partial least square-structural equational modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to see relations between the different variables.

It was seen that the PLE is affecting both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The research has shown that perceived ease of use showed a mediating effect between PLE and attitude and satisfaction. Further satisfaction mediates between perceived ease of use and intention. PLP has come out to significantly impacting perceived effectiveness. The multigroup analysis also showed that the attitude and satisfaction level affecting intention to use the e-learning module differ across the two groups of learners, i.e. gender and type of learners.

The data are collected from students and professionals who have ever used the e-learning module and wholly based on their perceptions, leading to self-perception bias.

The current research is trying to integrate the user perception of PLP, PLN, PLE into the framework of the technology acceptance model and see how they impact the overall attitude and satisfaction of the learners. AI can be used to improve them and make e-learning more adherent to the users. AI can play an essential role in generating the right environment by matching the profile of the learner.

This paper aims to describe a conceptual design of Personal Learning Environment & Network (PLE&N) and a learning model developed in support of peer-based social and lifelong learning in higher education, which collaborate with classroom learning.

The model consists of students, instructors and external parties interacting synergistically in learning in PLE&N-enabled courses based on the collaborative designs of instructor-led pedagogical approach and external parties-assisted lifelong learning “first-mover” development. The research constructs, tests and assesses this model in courses of 12 subjects in nearly two years.

The practicality of the designs is evidenced in post-course surveys and reflected by students’ ability in productively using collaborative resources over the internet to create an ever-expanding personal learning space stretching from home to campus and beyond, oriented toward individuality, universality, ubiquity, interactivity and connectivity.

The research contributes to PLE&N, social and lifelong learning seamless integration in theory and practice to dramatically enhance students’ virtual learning skills.

The purpose of this paper is to explore student perceptions of the internationalised learning environment across a particular university's home and offshore campuses. It addresses three research questions namely: what constitutes the internationalised learning environment for students? Can a university offer an internationalised learning environment that is equitable for students across its home and offshore campuses? And what differences exist in the internationalised learning environment for students in a university's home and offshore campuses?

In total, 484 completed responses were collected from the university's six campuses in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Findings suggested significant differences in the way students perceived of teaching reputation, context-specific curriculum, resources, student-support staff interaction and their attitude towards their university.

These insights could help a university's teaching staff and administrators to focus on specific attributes in marketing the internationalised learning environments of each of its campuses. This could give the university better opportunity for improving the learning process and its outcomes for students.

This paper sets out to define the parameters of the internationalised learning environment and conducts an audit of this environment from the student perspective. Findings suggested significant differences in the way students perceived of teaching reputation, context-specific curriculum, resources, student-support staff interaction and their attitude towards their university. In the market of fierce competition for international students, it is crucial that these positive attributes be part of the marketing messages in any promotion campaigns for universities.

The purpose of this paper is to present an e-learning system that integrates the use of concepts of virtual learning environments, personal learning environments, and social network sites. The system is based on a learning model which comprises and integrates three learning contexts for the adult learner: the formal, instructional context, the personal context for learning management, and the social peer context. The paper outlines how the Open University of the Netherlands (OUN) implemented this model in the OpenU system and has piloted this system within the field of a MSc Program in the learning sciences.

The paper describes the design and development of an integrated e-learning system following an ADDIE-based strategy and shows how the resulting system has been piloted.

The result of the design and development process is an integrated e-learning system that was piloted with the OUN.

The limitations of the paper are that the paper reports only on the learner perspective. The paper does not report on the implication for faculty and staff. Additionally, a key question that needs further research is how the integrated approach will affect learner dropout rates.

The value of the paper is that it provides an integrated e-learning approach, bringing together the personal, formal as well as informal context into one system.

The impact of Ubiquitous Computing on Learning is not confined within technical dimension. Besides its technical facilitation, this new computing paradigm also challenges human’s belief on learning, and compels us to rethink on the design of learning resources and environments. The paper explores the concept of Ubiquitous Learning, and proposes a conceptual framework for a Ubiquitous Learning Environment (ULE) design and implementation. A ULE is established on the combination between Real World and Virtual Space, Personal Space and Shared Space. Learning in a ULE is conducted in the interactions among three essential communicative elements: Social Human, Object in real world, and Artifact in virtual space. A learning process is a social transfer process between tacit and explicit knowledge. Context‐Awareness is indispensable to all kinds of interactions in a ULE. In particular, this paper gives a discussion to context‐awareness supported Interoperability and Adaptability in a ULE, and suggests a five‐dimensional (Who, What, How, When, Where) representation approach for modeling context and providing context‐awareness information. In the practical dimension, this paper presents a design framework for a ULE implementation by integrating the applications of present affordable learning devices, such as networked PCs (Personal Computer), PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant), mobile phones, sensors, and RFIDs. A basic learning system architecture in a ULE and a prototype ubiquitous language learning system are also addressed in this paper.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for busy practitioners, library science students and those wishing to learn about information literacy in other contexts.

This article annotates 424 English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and information literacy published in 2021. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat, published in 2021 that included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction,” or “information fluency” in the title, abstract or keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations summarize the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was categorized into one of seven pre-determined categories: K-12 Education, Children and Adolescents; Academic and Professional Programs; Everyday Life, Community, and the Workplace; Libraries and Health Information Literacy; Multiple Library Types; and Other Information Literacy Research and Theory.

The paper provides a brief description of 424 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy within 2021.

Today, pedagogy does not innovate by proposing new methods but by creating learning conditions conducive to the autonomy of learners. During training, students learn to set goals for acquiring knowledge, control their activity and persevere in the face of difficulties. Innovative teachers favour an integrative approach to human activity to jointly develop the relationship with the learning environment or work environment, the socio-cognitive characteristics of learners and their sense of responsibility for the consequences of action and metacognitive management of the activity.

Learners thus evolve in a learning ecosystem that includes the learner himself and his physical and social environment: his tools available (notepad, tablet, etc.), his resources (procedures, methods, instructions, course materials, notes, documentation, etc.) and his partners who also have some knowledge (pair, teachers, expert network, colleagues, etc.). This ecosystem can be seen as a virtual learning space in which technologies that contribute to learning (hardware, software and network) are used with the aim of fostering interactions between stakeholder and content communities. The knowledge is distributed and accessible through the memory of the learner himself or through his tools, resources or partners. It is therefore in the elaboration of the learning mechanism mobilising all the actors to meet the needs of the learners that the innovation can be efficient and effective.

Within this frame of reference, we propose some reflections from pedagogical practice that can develop the learners’ power to act – Which IT environments are needed for specified actions? What pedagogies need to be implemented using these IT environments? What collaborative and reflective tools are needed for professional and university training? Which methods energise learners’ agentivity in the digital age? Three case studies focussing on these questions will offer some recommendations for innovation in pedagogy.