A conceptual model of personalized virtual learning environments

The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is one of the fastest growing areas in educational technology research and development. In order to achieve learning effectiveness, ideal VLEs should be able to identify learning needs and customize solutions, with or without an instructor to supplement instruction. They are called Personalized VLEs (PVLEs). In order to achieve PVLEs success, comprehensive conceptual models corresponding to PVLEs are essential. Such conceptual modeling development is important because it facilitates early detection and correction of system development errors. Therefore, in order to capture the PVLEs knowledge explicitly, this paper focuses on the development of conceptual models for PVLEs, including models of knowledge primitives in terms of learner, curriculum, and situational models, models of VLEs in general pedagogical bases, and particularly, the definition of the ontology of PVLEs on the constructivist pedagogical principle. Based on those comprehensive conceptual models, a prototyped multiagent-based PVLE has been implemented. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the learning achievements by comparing personalized and non-personalized systems. The result indicates that the PVLE we developed under our comprehensive ontology successfully provides significant learning achievements. These comprehensive models also provide a solid knowledge representation framework for PVLEs development practice, guiding the analysis, design, and development of PVLEs. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Digital anthropology and educational eGames: learning through behavioural patterns in digital, game-based contexts

The selected publications are focused on the relations between users, eGames and the educational context, and how they interact together, so that both learning and user performance are improved through feedback provision. A key part of this analysis is the identification of behavioural, anthropological patterns, so that users can be clustered based on their actions, and the steps taken in the system (e.g. social network, online community, or virtual campus). In doing so, we can analyse large data sets of information made by a broad user sample,which will provide more accurate statistical reports and readings. Furthermore, this research is focused on how users can be clustered based on individual and group behaviour, so that a personalized support through feedback is provided, and the personal learning process is improved as well as the group interaction. We take inputs from every person and from the group they belong to, cluster the contributions, find behavioural patterns and provide personalized feedback to the individual and the group, based on personal and group findings. And we do all this in the context of educational games integrated in learning communities and learning management systems. To carry out this research we design a set of research questions along the 10-year published work presented in this thesis. We ask if the users can be clustered together based on the inputs provided by them and their groups; if and how these data are useful to improve the learner performance and the group interaction; if and how feedback becomes a useful tool for such pedagogical goal; if and how eGames become a powerful context to deploy the pedagogical methodology and the various research methods and activities that make use of that feedback to encourage learning and interaction; if and how a game design and a learning design must be defined and implemented to achieve these objectives, and to facilitate the productive authoring and integration of eGames in pedagogical contexts and frameworks. We conclude that educational games are a resourceful tool to provide a user experience towards a better personalized learning performance and an enhance group interaction along the way. To do so, eGames, while integrated in an educational context, must follow a specific set of user and technical requirements, so that the playful context supports the pedagogical model underneath. We also conclude that, while playing, users can be clustered based on their personal behaviour and interaction with others, thanks to the pattern identification. Based on this information, a set of recommendations are provided Digital Anthropology and educational eGames 6 /216 to the user and the group in the form of personalized feedback, timely managed for an optimum impact on learning performance and group interaction level. In this research, Digital Anthropology is introduced as a concept at a late stage to provide a backbone across various academic fields including: Social Science, Cognitive Science, Behavioural Science, Educational games and, of course, Technology-enhance learning. Although just recently described as an evolution of traditional anthropology, this approach to digital behaviour and social structure facilitates the understanding amongst fields and a comprehensive view towards a combined approach. This research takes forward the already existing work and published research onusers and eGames for learning, and turns the focus onto the next step — the clustering of users based on their behaviour and offering proper, personalized feedback to the user based on that clustering, rather than just on isolated inputs from every user. Indeed, this pattern recognition in the described context of eGames in educational contexts, and towards the presented aim of personalized counselling to the user and the group through feedback, is something that has not been accomplished before.

Systemic racism: the hidden barrier to educational success for Indigenous school students

Explanations for poor educational experiences and results for Australian Indigenous school students have, to a great extent, focused on intended or conscious acts or omissions. This paper adopts an analysis based on the legislation prohibiting indirect racial discrimination. Using the elements of the legislation and case law it argues that apparently benign and race-neutral policies and practices may unwittingly be having an adverse impact on Indigenous students' education. These practices or policies include the building blocks of learning, a Eurocentric school culture. Standard English as the language of assessment, legislation to limit schools' legal liability, and teachers' promotions.

A new educational technology for media and communication studies : mapping media in Australia and Sweden

This chapter reports on Australian and Swedish experiences in the iterative design, development, and ongoing use of interactive educational systems we call ‘Media Maps.’ Like maps in general, Media Maps are usefully understood as complex cultural technologies; that is, they are not only physical objects, tools and artefacts, but also information creation and distribution technologies, the use and development of which are embedded in systems of knowledge and social meaning. Drawing upon Australian and Swedish experiences with one Media Map technology, this paper illustrates this three-layered approach to the development of media mapping. It shows how media mapping is being used to create authentic learning experiences for students preparing for work in the rapidly evolving media and communication industries. We also contextualise media mapping as a response to various challenges for curriculum and learning design in Media and Communication Studies that arise from shifts in tertiary education policy in a global knowledge economy.

Enhancing students' self-concepts and related constructs: A critical longitudinal analysis capitalising on and combining promising enhancement techniques for educational settings

Enhancing children's self-concepts is widely accepted as a critical educational outcome of schooling and is postulated as a mediating variable that facilitates the attainment of other desired outcomes such as improved academic achievement. Despite considerable advances in self-concept research, there has been limited progress in devising teacher-administered enhancement interventions. This is unfortunate as teachers are crucial change agents during important developmental periods when self-concept is formed. The primary aim of the present investigation is to build on the promising features of previous self-concept enhancement studies by: (a) combining two exciting research directions developed by Burnett and Craven to develop a potentially powerful cognitive-based intervention; (b) incorporating recent developments in theory and measurement to ensure that the multidimensionality of self-concept is accounted for in the research design; (c) fully investigating the effects of a potentially strong cognitive intervention on reading, mathematics, school and learning self-concepts by using a large sample size and a sophisticated research design; (d) evaluating the effects of the intervention on affective and cognitive subcomponents of reading, mathematics, school and learning self-concepts over time to test for differential effects of the intervention; (e) modifying and extending current procedures to maximise the successful implementation of a teacher-mediated intervention in a naturalistic setting by incorporating sophisticated teacher training as suggested by Hattie (1992) and including an assessment of the efficacy of implementation; and (f) examining the durability of effects associated with the intervention.

Inward exporting of professional services : lessons from an exploratory study of Australian educational firms

Inward export activities for services companies have been largely neglected in the literature. Little is known about how professional service firms export to overseas consumers who travel to the domestic market of the firm. This study utilizes a resource-based perspective (RBV) to explore the main barriers and drivers of export performance for professional education services. A case study of Australia’s education industry, as well as interviews with executives from four Australian education institutions, was conducted. Findings show that inward exporters confront most barriers in the domestic market where the service is provided, and drivers of export performance combine firm- and country-specific resources.

The appeal of the International Baccalaureate in Australia’s educational market: A curriculum of choice for mobile futures

In Australia there is growing interest in a national curriculum to replace the variety of matriculation credentials managed by State Education departments, ostensibly to address increasing population mobility. Meanwhile, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is attracting increasing interest and enrolments in State and private schools in Australia, and has been considered as one possible model for a proposed Australian Certificate of Education. This paper will review the construction of this curriculum in Australian public discourse as an alternative frame for producing citizens, and ask why this design appeals now, to whom, and how the phenomenon of its growing appeal might inform national curricular debates. The IB’s emergence is understood with reference to the larger context of neo-liberal marketization policies, neo-conservative claims on the curriculum and middle class strategy. The paper draws on public domain documents from the IB Organisation and newspaper reportage to demonstrate how the IB is constructed for public consumption in Australia.

Apples, oranges and fruit salad : a Delphi study of the IMC educational mix

Once, we thought that comparing advertising and public relations was a bit like comparing apples and oranges. But with integration the new flavour, many academics are trying to cut and combine and create a fruit salad that will entice their customers and satisfy their stakeholders. While this has produced some culinary triumphs, it has also produced heartburn in equal quantity. This paper seeks the perfect recipe for integrated marketing communication (IMC) education by asking a Delphi panel of IMC champions questions relating to the place of IMC in the university setting; the teaching, research and curriculum development issues and the future for IMC education. The panel draws a chaotic picture of IMC education and identifies some important obstacles to curriculum development. It also predicts a number of key challenges for the future, including turf wars; the lack of faculty experience and enthusiasm to embrace IMC and the desperate need to grow the IMC brand. But perhaps the greatest challenge is how to create a generalist education in a culture of pecialisation that exists both in the university and in the workplace.

The quality of interface design for educational courseware development in Malaysian educational context

Interactive educational courseware has been adopted in diverse education sectors such as primary, secondary, tertiary education, vocational and professional training. In Malaysian educational context, the ministry of education has implemented Smart School Project that aims to increase high level of academic achievement in primary and secondary schools by using interactive educational courseware. However, many researchers have reported that many coursewares fail to accommodate the learner and teacher needs. In particular, the interface design is not appropriately designed in terms of quality of learning. This paper reviews educational courseware development process in terms of defining quality of interface design and suggests a conceptual model of interface design through the integration of design components and interactive learning experience into the development process. As a result, it defines the concept of interactive learning experience in a more practical approach in order to implement each stage of the development process in a seamless and integrated way.