Enhancing K-12 science education through a multi-device web tool to facilitate content integration and e-infrastructure access

An effective K-12 science education is essential to succeed in future phases of the curriculum and the e-Infrastructures for education provide new opportunities to enhance it. This paper presents ViSH Viewer, an innovative web tool to consume educational content which aims to facilitate e-Science infrastructures access through a next generation learning object called "Virtual Excursion". Virtual Excursions provide a new way to explore science in class by taking advantage of e-Infrastructure resources and their integration with other educational contents, resulting in the creation of a reusable, interoperable and granular learning object. In order to better understand how this tool can allow teachers and students a joyful exploration of e-Science, we also present three Virtual Excursion examples. Details about the design, development and the tool itself are explained in this paper as well as the concept, structure and metadata of the new learning object.

OER Development and Promotion. Outcomes of an International Research Project on the OpenCourseWare Model

In this paper, we describe the successful results of an international research project focused on the use of Web technology in the educational context. The article explains how this international project, funded by public organizations and developed over the last two academic years, focuses on the area of open educational resources (OER) and particularly the educational content of the OpenCourseWare (OCW) model. This initiative has been developed by a research group composed of researchers from three countries. The project was enabled by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid OCW Office�s leadership of the Consortium of Latin American Universities and the distance education know-how of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL, Ecuador). We give a full account of the project, methodology, main outcomes and validation. The project results have further consolidated the group, and increased the maturity of group members and networking with other groups in the area. The group is now participating in other research projects that continue the lines developed here

Virtual Excursions: a new way to explore science in class

The educational platform Virtual Science Hub (ViSH) has been developed as part of the GLOBAL excursion European project. ViSH (http://vishub.org/) is a portal where teachers and scientist interact to create virtual excursions to science infrastructures. The main motivation behind the project was to connect teachers - and in consequence their students - to scientific institutions and their wide amount of infrastructures and resources they are working with. Thus the idea of a hub was born that would allow the two worlds of scientists and teachers to connect and to innovate science teaching. The core of the ViSH?s concept design is based on virtual excursions, which allow for a number of pedagogical models to be applied. According to our internal definition a virtual excursion is a tour through some digital context by teachers and pupils on a given topic that is attractive and has an educational purpose. Inquiry-based learning, project-based and problem-based learning are the most prominent approaches that a virtual excursion may serve. The domain specific resources and scientific infrastructures currently available on the ViSH are focusing on life sciences, nano-technology, biotechnology, grid and volunteer computing. The virtual excursion approach allows an easy combination of these resources into interdisciplinary teaching scenarios. In addition, social networking features support the users in collaborating and communicating in relation to these excursions and thus create a community of interest for innovative science teaching. The design and development phases were performed following a participatory design approach. An important aspect in this process was to create design partnerships amongst all actors involved, researchers, developers, infrastructure providers, teachers, social scientists, and pedagogical experts early in the project. A joint sense of ownership was created and important changes during the conceptual phase were implemented in the ViSH due to early user feedback. Technology-wise the ViSH is based on the latest web technologies in order to make it cross-platform compatible so that it works on several operative systems such as Windows, Mac or Linux and multi-device accessible, such as desktop, tablet and mobile devices. The platform has been developed in HTML5, the latest standard for web development, assuring that it can run on any modern browser. In addition to social networking features a core element on the ViSH is the virtual excursions editor. It is a web tool that allows teachers and scientists to create rich mash-ups of learning resources provided by the e-Infrastructures (i.e. remote laboratories and live webcams). These rich mash-ups can be presented in either slides or flashcards format. Taking advantage of the web architecture supported, additional powerful components have been integrated like a recommendation engine to provide personalized suggestions about educational content or interesting users and a videoconference tool to enhance real-time collaboration like MashMeTV (http://www.mashme.tv/).

Integration of SCORM packages into web games

This paper presents a model that enables the integration of SCORM packages into web games. It is based on the fact that SCORM packages are prepared to be integrated into Learning Management Systems and to communicate with them. Hence in a similar way they can also be integrated into web games. The application of this model results in the linkage between the Learning Objects inside the package and specific actions or conditions in the game. The educational content will be shown to the players when they perform these actions or the conditions are met. For example, when they need a special weapon they will have to consume the Learning Object to get it. Based on this model we have developed an open source web platform which main aim is to facilitate teachers the creation of educational games. They can select existing SCORM packages or upload their own ones and then select a game template in which the Learning Objects will be integrated. The resulting educational game will be available online. Details about the model and the developed platform are explained in this paper. Also links to the platform and an example of a generated game will be provided.

CRYPT4YOU y la utilidad de los MOOCs en la formación online en lengua española.

En los últimos dos años la formación online ha experimentado un auge significativo gracias al paradigma de formación denominado MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Un MOOC simplifica la formación a distancia gracias a sus características de abierto, colaborativo, masivo y gratuito. Por desgracia en lengua española la utilización de este tipo de recurso formativo todavía es minoritaria. La presente investigación recoge una experiencia de innovación educativa en la que se destaca el diseño, implementación y difusión del primer MOOC en lengua española dedicado a la seguridad de la información por parte de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Esta experiencia aborda las ventajas e inconvenientes de este tipo de recurso formativo, debatiendo aspectos vitales para la elaboración prolongada de cursos tipo MOOC, como son la interactividad y retroalimentación con los usuarios del curso o la forma más adecuada de representar el contenido docente. Todas estas cuestiones reciben respuesta en el MOOC Crypt4you, que con más de 10 meses de vida permite vislumbrar un gran éxito de este tipo de cursos en la formación, al menos en lengua española, de hispanohablantes. ABSTRACT In the last two years, online training has boomed thanks to significant training paradigm called MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). A MOOC simplifies remote training thanks to its open, collaborativend free mass features. Unfortunately, the use of this kind of learning resource in Spanish teaching is still a minority. This research includes an educational experience which emphasizes the design, implementation and dissemination of the first Spanish-language MOOC devoted to information security by the Technical University of Madrid. This experiment addresses the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of learning resource discussing critical issues for developing type MOOC prolonged courses, such as interactivity and feedback from users of the course or the most appropriate way of representing the educational content. All these questions are answered in the MOOC Crypt4you which, over its 10 months of life, can glimpse a great success of this type of training course, at least in Spanish, Spanish-speakers.

Web based interactive educational software introducing semiconductor laser dynamics: Sound Of Lasers (SOL)

In this work, educational software for intuitive understanding of the basic dynamic processes of semiconductor lasers is presented. The proposed tool is addressed to the students of optical communication courses, encouraging self consolidation of the subjects learned in lectures. The semiconductor laser model is based on the well known rate equations for the carrier density, photon density and optical phase. The direct modulation of the laser is considered with input parameters which can be selected by the user. Different options for the waveform, amplitude and frequency of thpoint. Simulation results are plotted for carrier density and output power versus time. Instantaneous frequency variations of the laser output are numerically shifted to the audible frequency range and sent to the computer loudspeakers. This results in an intuitive description of the “chirp” phenomenon due to amplitude-phase coupling, typical of directly modulated semiconductor lasers. In this way, the student can actually listen to the time resolved spectral content of the laser output. By changing the laser parameters and/or the modulation parameters,consequent variation of the laser output can be appreciated in intuitive manner. The proposed educational tool has been previously implemented by the same authors with locally executable software. In the present manuscript, we extend our previous work to a web based platform, offering improved distribution and allowing its use to the wide audience of the web.

Educational activities for a gamified system

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze, design, and implement an activity module for a larger educational platform with the use of gamification techniques with the purpose to improve learning, pass rates, and feedback. The project investigates how to better incentivize student learning. A software requirement specification was delineated to establish the system guidelines and behavior. Following, a definition of the activities in the module was created. This definition encompassed a detailed description of each activity, together with elements that compose it, available customizations and the involved formulas. The activity high-level design process includes the design of the defined activities by use of the software methodology UWE (UML-based Web Engineering) for their future implementation, modeling requirements, content, navigation and presentation. The low-level design is composed of the database schema and types and the relating EER (Enhanced Entity-Relationship) diagram. After this, the implementation of the designed module began, together with testing in the later stages. We expect that by using the implemented activity module, students will become more interested in learning, as well as more engaged in the process, resulting in a continuous progress during the course.---RESUMEN---El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar, diseñar e implementar un módulo de actividades didácticas que formará parte de una plataforma educativa, haciendo uso de técnicas de gamificación con la finalidad de mejorar el aprendizaje, ratio de aprobados y retroalimentación para los alumnos. El proyecto investiga como incentivar mejor el aprendizaje estudiantil. Se trazó una especificación de requisitos de software para establecer las pautas del sistema y su comportamiento. A continuación, se definieron las actividades del módulo. Esta definición abarca una descripción detallada de cada actividad, junto a los elementos que la componen, las configuraciones disponibles y las formulas involucradas. El proceso de diseño de alto nivel incluye el diseño de las actividades definidas usando la metodología de software UWE (UML-based Web Engineering) para su futura implementación, requisitos de modelaje, contenido, navegación y presentación. El diseño de bajo nivel está compuesto por el esquema y tipos de la base de datos y el diagrama de entidad-relación correspondiente. Tras esto se realizó la implementación y pruebas de parte del sistema. Se espera que usando el módulo de actividades implementado, los estudiantes muestren un mayor interés por aprender, así como estar más involucrados en el proceso, resultando en un progreso más continuo durante el curso.