Integration of e-portfolios in learning management systems

The LMS plays a decisive role in most eLearning environments. Although they integrate many useful tools for managing eLearning activities, they must also be effectively integrated with other specialized systems typically found in an educational environment such as Repositories of Learning Objects or ePortfolio Systems. Both types of systems evolved separately but in recent years the trend is to combine them, allowing the LMS to benefit from using the ePortfolio assessment features. This paper details the most common strategies for integrating an ePortfolio system into an LMS: the data, the API and the tool integration strategies. It presents a comparative study of strategies based on the technical skills, degree of coupling, security features, batch integration, development effort, status and standardization. This study is validated through the integration of two of the most representative systems on each category - respectively Mahara and Moodle.

Programming exercises evaluation systems: an interoperability survey

Learning computer programming requires solving programming exercises. In computer programming courses teachers need to assess and give feedback to a large number of exercises. These tasks are time consuming and error-prone since there are many aspects relating to good programming that should be considered. In this context automatic assessment tools can play an important role helping teachers in grading tasks as well to assist students with automatic feedback. In spite of its usefulness, these tools lack integration mechanisms with other eLearning systems such as Learning Management Systems, Learning Objects Repositories or Integrated Development Environments. In this paper we provide a survey on programming evaluation systems. The survey gathers information on interoperability features of these systems, categorizing and comparing them regarding content and communication standardization. This work may prove useful to instructors and computer science educators when they have to choose an assessment system to be integrated in their e-Learning environment.

PETCHA: a Programming Exercises Teaching Assistant

This paper presents a tool called Petcha that acts as an automated Teaching Assistant in computer programming courses. The ultimate objective of Petcha is to increase the number of programming exercises effectively solved by students. Petcha meets this objective by helping both teachers to author programming exercises and students to solve them. It also coordinates a network of heterogeneous systems, integrating automatic program evaluators, learning management systems, learning object repositories and integrated programming environments. This paper presents the concept and the design of Petcha and sets this tool in a service oriented architecture for managing learning processes based on the automatic evaluation of programming exercises. The paper presents also a case study that validates the use of Petcha and of the proposed architecture.

Bridging between programming exercises formats with BabeLO

Assessment plays a vital role in learning. This is certainly the case with assessment of computer programs, both in curricular and competitive learning. The lack of a standard – or at least a widely used format – creates a modern Ba- bel tower made of Learning Objects, of assessment items that cannot be shared among automatic assessment systems. These systems whose interoperability is hindered by the lack of a common format include contest management systems, evaluation engines, repositories of learning objects and authoring tools. A prag- matical approach to remedy this problem is to create a service to convert among existing formats. A kind of translation service specialized in programming prob- lems formats. To convert programming exercises on-the-fly among the most used formats is the purpose of the BabeLO – a service to cope with the existing Babel of Learning Object formats for programming exercises. BabeLO was designed as a service to act as a middleware in a network of systems typically used in auto- matic assessment of programs. It provides support for multiple exercise formats and can be used by: evaluation engines to assess exercises regardless of its format; repositories to import exercises from various sources; authoring systems to create exercises in multiple formats or based on exercises from other sources. This paper analyses several of existing formats to highlight both their differ- ences and their similar features. Based on this analysis it presents an approach to extensible format conversion. It presents also the features of PExIL, the pivotal format in which the conversion is based; and the function definitions of the proposed service – BabeLO. Details on the design and implementation of BabeLO, including the service API and the interfaces required to extend the conversion to a new format, are also provided. To evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of this approach this paper reports on two actual uses of BabeLO: to relocate exercises to a different repository; and to use an evaluation engine in a network of heterogeneous systems.

Problemática associada à utilização de diferentes tipos de mochila para transporte de material escolar

O transporte de cargas é uma tarefa comum para crianças, adolescentes e adultos, pela necessidade de transferência diária de objetos pessoais, livros e artigos de papelaria para os locais de trabalho ou escolas. Diversos autores apontam que o peso carregado durante transporte de material é o principal responsável pelo aparecimento de dor lombar. Deste modo é importante o constante estudo da temática para a definição recomendações e limites. O presente estudo teve como principais objetivos a caraterização da problemática associada à utilização de mochilas e a determinação do Peso Máximo Aceitável (PMA) e do Índice de Esforço Percebido (IEP) para a tarefa de transporte de mochilas, através da abordagem psicofísica. O estudo foi desenvolvido com estudantes do 7º, 8º e 9º ano de escolaridade e, foi dividido em duas fases. Na 1ª fase foram aplicados questionários para a análise da problemática associada à utilização de diferentes tipos de mochilas escolares. Nesta fase, foram incluídos aspetos associados à identificação do tipo de mochila mais utilizada, as rotinas e hábitos dos estudantes e as características da mochila utilizada. Verificou-se que os estudantes utilizam, maioritariamente, a mochila de duas alças para transporte de material escolar. Posteriormente foram efetuadas medições de peso da mochila, altura e peso aos 131 estudantes que constituíram a amostra da 1º fase. O principal objetivo deste ponto foi identificar o tipo de mochila habitualmente utilizada pelos estudantes assim como, o peso transportado nas mochilas. Na 2ª fase foi efetuado um estudo para a determinação do PMA e do IEP, através da abordagem psicofísica, para a tarefa de transporte de mochila, considerando-se uma amostra constituída por 10 estudantes. Para este estudo, apenas foi considerada a mochila mais frequentemente utilizada, identificada na 1º fase. A tarefa consistiu no transporte da mochila nos dois ombros e com as alças devidamente ajustadas ao corpo, num percurso pré-definido, de acordo com o procedimento experimental. Os resultados indicaram que nem todos os estudantes transportam mochilas com pesos dentro das recomendações da Organização Mundial de Saúde. O PMA determinado pelos estudantes foi de 6.8 kg para a mochila de duas alças e a região dos ombros foi identificada durante todo o estudo como sendo a que apresentava maior intensidade de dor durante o transporte da mochila.

Making programming exercises interoperable with PExIL

Several standards have appeared in recent years to formalize the metadata of learning objects, but they are still insufficient to fully describe a specialized domain. In particular, the programming exercise domain requires interdependent resources (e.g. test cases, solution programs, exercise description) usually processed by different services in the programming exercise lifecycle. Moreover, the manual creation of these resources is time-consuming and error-prone, leading to an obstacle to the fast development of programming exercises of good quality. This chapter focuses on the definition of an XML dialect called PExIL (Programming Exercises Interoperability Language). The aim of PExIL is to consolidate all the data required in the programming exercise lifecycle from when it is created to when it is graded, covering also the resolution, the evaluation, and the feedback. The authors introduce the XML Schema used to formalize the relevant data of the programming exercise lifecycle. The validation of this approach is made through the evaluation of the usefulness and expressiveness of the PExIL definition. In the former, the authors present the tools that consume the PExIL definition to automatically generate the specialized resources. In the latter, they use the PExIL definition to capture all the constraints of a set of programming exercises stored in a learning objects repository.

A survey on e-learning content standardization

eLearning has been evolved in a gradual and consistent way. Along with this evolution several specialized and disparate systems appeared to fulfill the needs of teachers and students such as repositories of learning objects, intelligent tutors, or automatic evaluators. This heterogeneity poses issues that are necessary to address in order to promote interoperability among systems. Based on this fact, the standardization of content takes a leading role in the eLearning realm. This article presents a survey on current eLearning content standards. It gathers information on the most emergent standards and categorizes them according three distinct facets: metadata, content packaging and educational design.

Limites no Cruzamento de Géneros: Documentário e Ficção

Trabalho de projeto apresentado à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Audiovisual e Multimédia.

Personalised placement in networked video

Personalised video can be achieved by inserting objects into a video play-out according to the viewer's profile. Content which has been authored and produced for general broadcast can take on additional commercial service features when personalised either for individual viewers or for groups of viewers participating in entertainment, training, gaming or informational activities. Although several scenarios and use-cases can be envisaged, we are focussed on the application of personalised product placement. Targeted advertising and product placement are currently garnering intense interest in the commercial networked media industries. Personalisation of product placement is a relevant and timely service for next generation online marketing and advertising and for many other revenue generating interactive services. This paper discusses the acquisition and insertion of media objects into a TV video play-out stream where the objects are determined by the profile of the viewer. The technology is based on MPEG-4 standards using object based video and MPEG-7 for metadata. No proprietary technology or protocol is proposed. To trade the objects into the video play-out, a Software-as-a-Service brokerage platform based on intelligent agent technology is adopted. Agencies, libraries and service providers are represented in a commercial negotiation to facilitate the contractual selection and usage of objects to be inserted into the video play-out.

Partitura de luz: a representação criativa como perspectiva educacional

Este projecto de investigação teve como objectivo avaliar - através de uma série de workshops orientados pela mestranda no Centro Cultural de Belém em Abril de 2012 - o impacto da utilização de notação musical não-convencional num contexto não escolar. Traçando possíveis paralelos com o ensino especializado da música, propuseram-se metodologias de aprendizagem que permitissem a introdução da notação, de forma inovadora, no referido contexto escolar. O processo de investigação baseou-se em observação directa, na análise dos questionários preenchidos pelos participantes dos workshops e na observação e análise das gravações em vídeo que documentaram o processo artístico, pedagógico e de investigação. Numa sala escura, 6 retroprojectores projectaram uma Partitura de Luz. Entre crianças e adultos, 120 participantes (não-músicos) criaram empiricamente as suas composições, moldando o som em função da forma e a forma em função do som. O resultado foi compensador: a criação de condições favoráveis ao desenvolvimento máximo da expressão criativa individual ou colectiva dos participantes - através da utilização irrestrita de símbolos, imagens, objectos e matérias - culminou num efectivo estabelecimento de correspondência musical, a partir de recursos vocais. Este projecto, “Partitura de Luz”, foi uma oportunidade de relacionar a vertente artística – musical, plástica e gráfica - com a vertente humana: pedagógica e social.

Towards a flexible and transparent database evolution

Applications refactorings that imply the schema evolution are common activities in programming practices. Although modern object-oriented databases provide transparent schema evolution mechanisms, those refactorings continue to be time consuming tasks for programmers. In this paper we address this problem with a novel approach based on aspect-oriented programming and orthogonal persistence paradigms, as well as our meta-model. An overview of our framework is presented. This framework, a prototype based on that approach, provides applications with aspects of persistence and database evolution. It also provides a new pointcut/advice language that enables the modularization of the instance adaptation crosscutting concern of classes, which were subject to a schema evolution. We also present an application that relies on our framework. This application was developed without any concern regarding persistence and database evolution. However, its data is recovered in each execution, as well as objects, in previous schema versions, remain available, transparently, by means of our framework.

Para uma experiência estética em contexto educativo: trabalho de projecto

Trabalho de Projecto submetido à Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Teatro - especialização em Teatro e Comunidade

Multidimensional scaling visualization of earthquake phenomena

Earthquakes are associated with negative events, such as large number of casualties, destruction of buildings and infrastructures, or emergence of tsunamis. In this paper, we apply the Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) analysis to earthquake data. MDS is a set of techniques that produce spatial or geometric representations of complex objects, such that, objects perceived to be similar/distinct in some sense are placed nearby/distant on the MDS maps. The interpretation of the charts is based on the resulting clusters since MDS produces a different locus for each similarity measure. In this study, over three million seismic occurrences, covering the period from January 1, 1904 up to March 14, 2012 are analyzed. The events, characterized by their magnitude and spatiotemporal distributions, are divided into groups, either according to the Flinn–Engdahl seismic regions of Earth or using a rectangular grid based in latitude and longitude coordinates. Space-time and Space-frequency correlation indices are proposed to quantify the similarities among events. MDS has the advantage of avoiding sensitivity to the non-uniform spatial distribution of seismic data, resulting from poorly instrumented areas, and is well suited for accessing dynamics of complex systems. MDS maps are proven as an intuitive and useful visual representation of the complex relationships that are present among seismic events, which may not be perceived on traditional geographic maps. Therefore, MDS constitutes a valid alternative to classic visualization tools, for understanding the global behavior of earthquakes.

Wuthering heights on the screen: exploring the relations between film adaptation and subtitling

This essay aims to confront the literary text Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë with five of its screen adaptations and Portuguese subtitles. Owing to the scope of the study, it will necessarily afford merely a bird‘s eye view of the issues and serve as a starting point for further research. Accordingly, the following questions are used as guidelines: What transformations occur in the process of adapting the original text to the screen? Do subtitles update the film dialogues to the target audience‘s cultural and linguistic context? Are subtitles influenced more by oral speech than by written literary discourse? Shouldn‘t subtitles in fact reflect the poetic function prevalent in screen adaptations of literary texts? Rather than attempt to answer these questions, we focus on the objects as phenomena. Our interdisciplinary undertaking clearly involves a semio-pragmatic stance, at this stage trying to avoid theoretical backdrops that may affect our apprehension of the objects as to their qualities, singularities, and conventional traits, based on Lucia Santaella‘s interpretation of Charles S. Peirce‘s phaneroscopy. From an empirical standpoint, we gather features and describe peculiarities, under the presumption that there are substrata in subtitling that point or should point to the literary source text, albeit through the mediation of a film script and a particular cinematic style. Therefore, we consider how the subtitling process may be influenced by the literary intertext, the idiosyncrasies of a particular film adaptation, as well as the socio-cultural context of the subtitler and target audience. First, we isolate one of the novel‘s most poignant scenes – ‗I am Heathcliff‘ – taking into account its symbolic play and significance in relation to character and plot construction. Secondly, we study American, English, French, and Mexican adaptations of the excerpt into film in terms of intersemiotic transformations. Then we analyze differences between the film dialogues and their Portuguese subtitles.

The optical and scopic urges viewed from a phenomenological perspective

Taking as starting points the books The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience, by Vivian Sobchak, and Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse, by Jacques Lacan, this article proposes to look at two well renowned film objects – Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954, USA) and Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960, UK) – in order to equate two forms of perception that, all things considered, come together as one: the perception of the mechanical apparatuses that record and project film and the optical and mental apparatuses that operate on the human filmmakers as well as their intradiegetic protagonists. In fact, these two films not only explore the characteristics and limits of vision and affection in their diegetic world, that is part of the filmmaker’s world itself, but reveals just how much the human lives through the eye and the expression of the machine itself. Film ontology is foremost a matter of (re)production rather than creation.