Constructing a user experience user experience-based mobile learning environment

Mobile learning, in the past defined as learning with mobile devices, now refers to any type of learning-on-the-go or learning that takes advantage of mobile technologies. This new definition shifted its focus from the mobility of technology to the mobility of the learner (O'Malley and Stanton 2002; Sharples, Arnedillo-Sanchez et al. 2009). Placing emphasis on the mobile learner’s perspective requires studying “how the mobility of learners augmented by personal and public technology can contribute to the process of gaining new knowledge, skills, and experience” (Sharples, Arnedillo-Sanchez et al. 2009). The demands of an increasingly knowledge based society and the advances in mobile phone technology are combining to spur the growth of mobile learning. Around the world, mobile learning is predicted to be the future of online learning, and is slowly entering the mainstream education. However, for mobile learning to attain its full potential, it is essential to develop more advanced technologies that are tailored to the needs of this new learning environment. A research field that allows putting the development of such technologies onto a solid basis is user experience design, which addresses how to improve usability and therefore user acceptance of a system. Although there is no consensus definition of user experience, simply stated it focuses on how a person feels about using a product, system or service. It is generally agreed that user experience adds subjective attributes and social aspects to a space that has previously concerned itself mainly with ease-of-use. In addition, it can include users’ perceptions of usability and system efficiency. Recent advances in mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies further underline the importance of human-computer interaction and user experience (feelings, motivations, and values) with a system. Today, there are plenty of reports on the limitations of mobile technologies for learning (e.g., small screen size, slow connection), but there is a lack of research on user experience with mobile technologies. This dissertation will fill in this gap by a new approach in building a user experience-based mobile learning environment. The optimized user experience we suggest integrates three priorities, namely a) content, by improving the quality of delivered learning materials, b) the teaching and learning process, by enabling live and synchronous learning, and c) the learners themselves, by enabling a timely detection of their emotional state during mobile learning. In detail, the contributions of this thesis are as follows: • A video codec optimized for screencast videos which achieves an unprecedented compression rate while maintaining a very high video quality, and a novel UI layout for video lectures, which together enable truly mobile access to live lectures. • A new approach in HTTP-based multimedia delivery that exploits the characteristics of live lectures in a mobile context and enables a significantly improved user experience for mobile live lectures. • A non-invasive affective learning model based on multi-modal emotion detection with very high recognition rates, which enables real-time emotion detection and subsequent adaption of the learning environment on mobile devices. The technology resulting from the research presented in this thesis is in daily use at the School of Continuing Education of Shanghai Jiaotong University (SOCE), a blended-learning institution with 35.000 students.

Online Distance Education: Towards a Research Agenda

Online Distance Education: Towards a Research Agenda offers a systematic overview of the major issues, trends, and areas of priority in online distance education research. In each chapter, an international expert or team of experts provides an overview of one timely issue in online distance education, summarizing major research on the topic, discussing theoretical insights that guide the research, posing questions and directions for future research, and discussing the implications for distance education practice as a whole. Intended as a primary reference and guide for distance educators, researchers, and policymakers, Online Distance Education addresses aspects of distance education practice that have often been marginalized, including issues of cost and economics, concerns surrounding social justice, cultural bias, the need for faculty professional development, and the management and growth of learner communities. At once soundly empirical and thoughtfully reflective, yet also forward-looking and open to new approaches to online and distance teaching, this text is a solid resource for researchers in a rapidly expanding discipline.

Learning Analytics: Challenges and Future Research Directions

In recent years, learning analytics (LA) has attracted a great deal of attention in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) research as practitioners, institutions, and researchers are increasingly seeing the potential that LA has to shape the future TEL landscape. Generally, LA deals with the development of methods that harness educational data sets to support the learning process. This paper provides a foundation for future research in LA. It provides a systematic overview on this emerging field and its key concepts through a reference model for LA based on four dimensions, namely data, environments, context (what?), stakeholders (who?), objectives (why?), and methods (how?). It further identifies various challenges and research opportunities in the area of LA in relation to each dimension.

E-Learning Systems, Environments and Approaches

The volume consists of twenty-five chapters selected from among peer-reviewed papers presented at the CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) 2013 Conference held in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, in October 2013 and also from world class scholars in e-learning systems, environments and approaches. The following sub-topics are included: Exploratory Learning Technologies (Part I), e-Learning social web design (Part II), Learner communities through e-Learning implementations (Part III), Collaborative and student-centered e-Learning design (Part IV). E-Learning has been, since its initial stages, a synonym for flexibility. While this dynamic nature has mainly been associated with time and space it is safe to argue that currently it embraces other aspects such as the learners’ profile, the scope of subjects that can be taught electronically and the technology it employs. New technologies also widen the range of activities and skills developed in e-Learning. Electronic learning environments have evolved past the exclusive delivery of knowledge. Technology has endowed e-Learning with the possibility of remotely fomenting problem solving skills, critical thinking and team work, by investing in information exchange, collaboration, personalisation and community building.

Learning in Virtual Worlds: Research and Applications

Three-dimensional (3D) immersive virtual worlds have been touted as being capable of facilitating highly interactive, engaging, multimodal learning experiences. Much of the evidence gathered to support these claims has been anecdotal but the potential that these environments hold to solve traditional problems in online and technology-mediated education—primarily learner isolation and student disengagement—has resulted in considerable investments in virtual world platforms like Second Life, OpenSimulator, and Open Wonderland by both professors and institutions. To justify this ongoing and sustained investment, institutions and proponents of simulated learning environments must assemble a robust body of evidence that illustrates the most effective use of this powerful learning tool. In this authoritative collection, a team of international experts outline the emerging trends and developments in the use of 3D virtual worlds for teaching and learning. They explore aspects of learner interaction with virtual worlds, such as user wayfinding in Second Life, communication modes and perceived presence, and accessibility issues for elderly or disabled learners. They also examine advanced technologies that hold potential for the enhancement of learner immersion and discuss best practices in the design and implementation of virtual world-based learning interventions and tasks. By evaluating and documenting different methods, approaches, and strategies, the contributors to Learning in Virtual Worlds offer important information and insight to both scholars and practitioners in the field. AU Press is an open access publisher and the book is available for free in PDF format as well as for purchase on our website: http://bit.ly/1W4yTRA

Modified Team-based Learning (TBL) as a tool in Problem-based learning (PBL); Observations and Lessons from Year One

Both TBL and PBL attempt to maximally engage the learner and both are designed to encourage interactive teaching / learning. PBL is student centered. TBL, in contrast, is typically instructor centered. The PBL Executive Committee of the UTHSC-Houston Medical School, in an attempt to capture the pedagogical advantages of PBL and of TBL, implemented a unique PBL experience into the ICE/PBL course during the final block of PBL instruction in year 2. PBL cases provided the content knowledge for focused learning. The subsequent, related TBL exercises fostered integration / critical thinking about each of these cases. [See PDF for complete abstract]

COGNITIVE IMPACT OF INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA

Technology has been gradually introduced in heath education. One of the most attractive features of this technology-based education is the use of multimedia. In this article we explore the research evidence about the role that multimedia is playing in education. From that analysis we describe the most relevant features of this technology to prepare a common ground of discussion about the evaluation of its impact on educational outcomes. As part of this analysis, we organize current research evidence on the use of technology in medical education, distinguishing diverse variables involved in the process, like knowledge (declarative, procedural), learner characteristics, curricular scenario, etc. This article presents an overview of the Distributed Representations theory and its relationship with research on educational outcomes and multimedia. Next we discuss the relationship between media and diverse learning theories, proposing a theory based taxonomy for educational multimedia.

Randomized comparisons among health informatics students identify hypertutorial features as improving web-based instruction.

Hypertutorials optimize five features - presentation, learner control, practice, feedback, and elaborative learning resources. Previous research showed graduate students significantly and overwhelmingly preferred Web-based hypertutorials to conventional "Book-on-the-Web" statistics or research design lessons. The current report shows that the source of hypertutorials' superiority in student evaluations of instruction lies in their hypertutorial features. Randomized comparisons between the two methodologies were conducted in two successive iterations of a graduate level health informatics research design and evaluation course. The two versions contained the same text and graphics, but differed in the presence or absence of hypertutorial features: Elaborative learning resources, practice, feedback, and amount of learner control. Students gave high evaluations to both Web-based methodologies, but consistently rated the hypertutorial lessons as superior. Significant differences localized in the hypertutorial subscale that measured student responses to hypertutorial features.

Projecting a relevant "next": Instruction sequences in driving lessons

Car interaction and the organisation of multi-activity in cars have become a fertile topic of research within CA and EM (Laurier 2005, Haddington & Keisanen 2009). While previous research has focused exclusively on everyday car rides, in this paper we will analyse a specific kind of car interaction, namely driving lessons. In addition to"driving" and"talking", as the two main parallel activities in everyday car rides (Mondada in press), in driving lessons a central activity is"instructing", that we understand to be a collaborative accomplishment (Sanchez Svensson et al. 2009). Drawing on a corpus of 7 video-recorded driving lessons, we will analyse the sequential organisation of"instruction sequences", i.e. of those actions that are initiated by the driving instructor with a turn projecting the next relevant action to be executed by the learner. Learners carry out next actions in two different ways: a) as"single" actions (e.g. using the indicator); b) as a complex series of overlapping or parallel actions. We will show that"single" actions occur as responses to instructions concerning the learner's command of the car, while complex actions occur when the instructors formulate direction indications. The aims of our analyses are twofold. Firstly, we will analyse how instruction sequences are fitted to the emerging contingencies of the car ride (movement in space, changing environment): we will show that a) the turn format of the instruction initiation displays the degree of"urgency" of the requested action; b) learners have the possibility to start the relevant"next" before the instruction initiation comes to completion. Secondly, we will focus on those"seconds" that the driving instructor treats as problematic by initiating a repair sequence (e.g. an improper use of the indicator). Our research contributes to the discussion about the multimodal resources that participants can employ to fulfil a projected action. In addition, it offers insights in a hitherto scarcely investigated topic, namely the organisation of instructions and the ecology of apprenticeship. References HADDINGTON, P. & KEISANEN, T. (2009) Location, mobility and the body as resources in selecting a route. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (10), 1938-1961. LAURIER, Eric (2005): Searching for a parking space. Intellectica 41-42/2-3: 101-116. MONDADA, Lorenza (in press). Talking and driving: multi-activity in the car. Semiotica. SANCHEZ SVENSSON, M. et al. (2009) "Embedding instruction in practice: contingency and collaboration during surgical training", Sociology of Health & Illness, 31/6: 889-906.

Individual Video Training iVT - Development of a National Infrastructure for Video-Supported Learning

Introduction: Video‐Supported Learning is particularly effective when it comes to skills and behaviors. Video registration of patient‐physician interviews, class room instruction or practical skills allow it to learners themselves, their peers, and their tutors to assess the quality of the learner's performance, to give specific feedback, and to make suggestions for improvement. Methods: In Switzerland, four pedagogical universities and two medical faculties joined to initiate the development of a national infrastructure for Video Supported Learning. The goal was to have a system that is simple to use, has most steps automated, provides the videos over the Internet, and has a sophisticated access control. Together with SWITCH, the national IT‐Support‐Organisation for Swiss Universities, the program iVT (Individual Video Training) was developed by integrating two preexisting technologies. The first technology is SWITCHcast, a podcast system. With SWITCHcast, videos are automatically uploaded to a server as soon as the registration is over. There the videos are processed and converted to different formats. The second technology is the national Single Logon System AAI (Authentification and Authorization Infrastructure) that enables iVT to link each video with the corresponding learner. The learner starts the registration with his Single Logon. Thus, the video can unambiguously be assigned. Via his institution's Learning Management System (LMS), the learner can access his video and give access to his video to peers and tutors. Results: iVT is now used at all involved institutions. The system works flawlessly. In Bern, we use iVT for the communications skills training in the forth and sixth year. Since students meet with patient actors alone, iVT is also used to certify attendance. Students are encouraged to watch the videos of the interview and the feedback of the patient actor. The offer to discuss a video with a tutor was not used by the students. Discussion: We plan to expand the use of iVT by making peer assessment compulsory. To support this, annotation capabilities are currently added to iVT. We also want to use iVT in training of practical skills, again for self as well as for peer assessment.  At present, we use iVT for quality control of patient actor's performance.

Decision Support Models for Composing and Navigating through e-Learning Objects

Libraries of learning objects may serve as basis for deriving course offerings that are customized to the needs of different learning communities or even individuals. Several ways of organizing this course composition process are discussed. Course composition needs a clear understanding of the dependencies between the learning objects. Therefore we discuss the metadata for object relationships proposed in different standardization projects and especially those suggested in the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Based on these metadata we construct adjacency matrices and graphs. We show how Gozinto-type computations can be used to determine direct and indirect prerequisites for certain learning objects. The metadata may also be used to define integer programming models which can be applied to support the instructor in formulating his specifications for selecting objects or which allow a computer agent to automatically select learning objects. Such decision models could also be helpful for a learner navigating through a library of learning objects. We also sketch a graph-based procedure for manual or automatic sequencing of the learning objects.

From Concrete to Abstract: Teaching for Transfer of Learning when Using Manipulatives

One of the most important uses of manipulatives in a classroom is to aid a learner to make connection from tangible concrete object to its abstraction. In this paper we discuss how teacher educators can foster deeper understanding of how manipulatives facilitate student learning of math concepts by emphasizing the connection between concrete objects and math symbolization with, preservice elementary teachers, the future implementers of knowledge. We provide an example and a model, with specific steps of how teacher educators can effectively demonstrate connections between concrete objects and abstract math concepts.

Endemic tuberculosis, the homeless, and public transportation: A merging of geographical information systems surveillance and the Houston Tuberculosis Initiative Surveillance project

To reach the goals established by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) STOP TB USA, measures must be taken to curtail a future peak in Tuberculosis (TB) incidence and speed the currently stagnant rate of TB elimination. Both efforts will require, at minimum, the consideration and understanding of the third dimension of TB transmission: the location-based spread of an airborne pathogen among persons known and unknown to each other. This consideration will require an elucidation of the areas within the U.S. that have endemic TB. The Houston Tuberculosis Initiative (HTI) was a population-based active surveillance of confirmed Houston/Harris County TB cases from 1995–2004. Strengths in this dataset include the molecular characterization of laboratory confirmed cases, the collection of geographic locations (including home addresses) frequented by cases, and the HTI time period that parallels a decline in TB incidence in the United States (U.S.). The HTI dataset was used in this secondary data analysis to implement a GIS analysis of TB cases, the locations frequented by cases, and their association with risk factors associated with TB transmission. ^ This study reports, for the first time, the incidence of TB among the homeless in Houston, Texas. The homeless are an at-risk population for TB disease, yet they are also a population whose TB incidence has been unknown and unreported due to their non-enumeration. The first section of this dissertation identifies local areas in Houston with endemic TB disease. Many Houston TB cases who reported living in these endemic areas also share the TB risk factor of current or recent homelessness. Merging the 2004–2005 Houston enumeration of the homeless with historical HTI surveillance data of TB cases in Houston enabled this first-time report of TB risk among the homeless in Houston. The homeless were more likely to be US-born, belong to a genotypic cluster, and belong to a cluster of a larger size. The calculated average incidence among homeless persons was 411/100,000, compared to 9.5/100,000 among housed. These alarming rates are not driven by a co-infection but by social determinants. The unsheltered persons were hospitalized more days and required more follow-up time by staff than those who reported a steady housing situation. The homeless are a specific example of the increased targeting of prevention dollars that could occur if TB rates were reported for specific areas with known health disparities rather than as a generalized rate normalized over a diverse population. ^ It has been estimated that 27% of Houstonians use public transportation. The city layout allows bus routes to run like veins connecting even the most diverse of populations within the metropolitan area. Secondary data analysis of frequent bus use (defined as riding a route weekly) among TB cases was assessed for its relationship with known TB risk factors. The spatial distribution of genotypic clusters associated with bus use was assessed, along with the reported routes and epidemiologic-links among cases belonging to the identified clusters. ^ TB cases who reported frequent bus use were more likely to have demographic and social risk factors associated with poverty, immune suppression and health disparities. An equal proportion of bus riders and non-bus riders were cultured for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, yet 75% of bus riders were genotypically clustered, indicating recent transmission, compared to 56% of non-bus riders (OR=2.4, 95%CI(2.0, 2.8), p<0.001). Bus riders had a mean cluster size of 50.14 vs. 28.9 (p<0.001). Second order spatial analysis of clustered fingerprint 2 (n=122), a Beijing family cluster, revealed geographic clustering among cases based on their report of bus use. Univariate and multivariate analysis of routes reported by cases belonging to these clusters found that 10 of the 14 clusters were associated with use. Individual Metro routes, including one route servicing the local hospitals, were found to be risk factors for belonging to a cluster shown to be endemic in Houston. The routes themselves geographically connect the census tracts previously identified as having endemic TB. 78% (15/23) of Houston Metro routes investigated had one or more print groups reporting frequent use for every HTI study year. We present data on three specific but clonally related print groups and show that bus-use is clustered in time by route and is the only known link between cases in one of the three prints: print 22. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)^

Educación pública universitaria : República Argentina 1998-2008

La educación en la Argentina está articulada bajo criterios sociales establecidos pero que son básicamente arbitrarios y sustentados en supuestos no demostrados que afirman que el conocimiento se construye a partir de ciertos contenidos y no de otros. Dichos criterios no han variado mayormente durante las últimas décadas y siguen utilizándose como plataforma inicial a partir de los cuales se articula la educación posterior del educando. Los sistemas de educación superior en América Latina sufren una crisis a raíz de la creciente internacionalización de las nuevas tecnologías de comunicación e información y de los reclamos de inclusión social de los sectores marginados, entre otras razones. Las tecnologías de compresión digital dan origen a un modelo educativo "en red" caracterizado por un funcionamiento no presencial, mediante el cual se produce la transformación del rol de la Universidad, como centro de descubrimiento y posesión del conocimiento, para convertirse en apenas una intermediaria en la búsqueda del saber y la información. Esta nueva modalidad de educación crece en la medida en que puede cubrir una demanda social de educación superior insatisfecha, conformada básicamente por adultos que trabajan, estudiantes de zonas alejadas de los centros educativos, extranjeros que carecen de opciones educativas y alumnos globalizados. Por ello, la educación virtual nace como una nueva respuesta a viejas demandas. La construcción de una sociedad planetaria y la convivencia del multiculturalismo, además de representar la expresión de sociedades abiertas, que quizás no dispongan de bases comunes de cohesión nacional, debe ser parte de un nuevo proyecto de solidaridad y confraternidad mundial.Resulta sumamente importante que las Universidades de América Latina defiendan su participación como tales en los mercados regionales mediante la adquisición de mayor flexibilidad, actualización y excelencia, para erigirse de esta manera como una opción comparativamente válida. Asimismo, creemos que la educación, entendida como todo el corpus del conocimiento que tiene una persona, no se construye de manera arbitraria sino, por el contrario, de manera selectiva de acuerdo a las posibilidades del educando; y es precisamente sobre la base de esta pormenorizada elección el sustento sobre el cual el alumno llega posteriormente a desarrollos intelectuales superiores. El objetivo del presente trabajo se centra en mostrar la importancia de índole social y política que tienen la flexibilización y la personalización en el currículum de estudios universitarios, al momento de observar el resultado final del ejercicio profesional del graduado. Desde este punto de vista, es fundamental que la elección de los contenidos del plan de estudios de la carrera universitaria estén a cargo del educando, con la dirección de una unidad académica, especialmente en relación con lo que hoy se conoce como "aprendizaje justo a tiempo". Dicho en otras palabras, solamente cuando el educando trasciende ese fundamento institucional e inicial de conocimientos para abrevar en otras fuentes, como las Artes, la Religión, la Filosofía, etc., puede relacionar y comparar conocimientos diferentes entre sí, pero cuya elección obedece fundamentalmente a criterios personales y no meramente institucionales

Educación pública universitaria : República Argentina 1998-2008

La educación en la Argentina está articulada bajo criterios sociales establecidos pero que son básicamente arbitrarios y sustentados en supuestos no demostrados que afirman que el conocimiento se construye a partir de ciertos contenidos y no de otros. Dichos criterios no han variado mayormente durante las últimas décadas y siguen utilizándose como plataforma inicial a partir de los cuales se articula la educación posterior del educando. Los sistemas de educación superior en América Latina sufren una crisis a raíz de la creciente internacionalización de las nuevas tecnologías de comunicación e información y de los reclamos de inclusión social de los sectores marginados, entre otras razones. Las tecnologías de compresión digital dan origen a un modelo educativo "en red" caracterizado por un funcionamiento no presencial, mediante el cual se produce la transformación del rol de la Universidad, como centro de descubrimiento y posesión del conocimiento, para convertirse en apenas una intermediaria en la búsqueda del saber y la información. Esta nueva modalidad de educación crece en la medida en que puede cubrir una demanda social de educación superior insatisfecha, conformada básicamente por adultos que trabajan, estudiantes de zonas alejadas de los centros educativos, extranjeros que carecen de opciones educativas y alumnos globalizados. Por ello, la educación virtual nace como una nueva respuesta a viejas demandas. La construcción de una sociedad planetaria y la convivencia del multiculturalismo, además de representar la expresión de sociedades abiertas, que quizás no dispongan de bases comunes de cohesión nacional, debe ser parte de un nuevo proyecto de solidaridad y confraternidad mundial.Resulta sumamente importante que las Universidades de América Latina defiendan su participación como tales en los mercados regionales mediante la adquisición de mayor flexibilidad, actualización y excelencia, para erigirse de esta manera como una opción comparativamente válida. Asimismo, creemos que la educación, entendida como todo el corpus del conocimiento que tiene una persona, no se construye de manera arbitraria sino, por el contrario, de manera selectiva de acuerdo a las posibilidades del educando; y es precisamente sobre la base de esta pormenorizada elección el sustento sobre el cual el alumno llega posteriormente a desarrollos intelectuales superiores. El objetivo del presente trabajo se centra en mostrar la importancia de índole social y política que tienen la flexibilización y la personalización en el currículum de estudios universitarios, al momento de observar el resultado final del ejercicio profesional del graduado. Desde este punto de vista, es fundamental que la elección de los contenidos del plan de estudios de la carrera universitaria estén a cargo del educando, con la dirección de una unidad académica, especialmente en relación con lo que hoy se conoce como "aprendizaje justo a tiempo". Dicho en otras palabras, solamente cuando el educando trasciende ese fundamento institucional e inicial de conocimientos para abrevar en otras fuentes, como las Artes, la Religión, la Filosofía, etc., puede relacionar y comparar conocimientos diferentes entre sí, pero cuya elección obedece fundamentalmente a criterios personales y no meramente institucionales