Mohamed Amine Chatti's ongoing research on Knowledge and Learning

CfPs 3th IEETeL 2012

2012-01-18T13:07:00.001+01:00

You are very welcome to participate in

3th International Workshop on
Interactive Environments and Emergent Technologies for eLearning (IEETeL 2012) that will be held in conjunction with The 11th IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Communications
(IUCC-2012 - http://scim.brad.ac.uk/~hmibrahi/IUCC2012/),
Liverpool, UK, 25-27 June 2012

For further details, please see the workshop site:
https://sites.google.com/site/ieet4el/home

Rationale
------------------

The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers, educators and technology experts to share and discuss the new solutions, trends and realizations of eLearning environments and the adoption of emergent technologies in a learning process.
New kind of learners requires suitable environments ensuring flexible, personalized, adaptable, in-demand learning. The dynamic, interactive and social aspects of Web 2.0 have great potential to support innovative teaching and meaningful learning. Semantic web enables computers and people to work in cooperation, 3D virtual worlds support new online experiences of research and learning, augmented reality helps deeper understanding of subject matter, mobile technologies play a role in increasing individual support and opportunities for personal development.
This forum invites research, technical papers, and work in progress investigating eLearning environments process development and practices of their implementation in education to support university students as well as to prepare them to become self-organized and life-long learners.
These include the technological aspect of environments building: “from scratch”, using open source software or mashup applications from a cloud as well as pedagogical strategies and solutions for utilizing such environments.

Topics of interest
-----------------------------

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Web 2.0 Applications for Learning
• 3D Virtual Environments
• Semantic Web
• Educational MashUps
• Immersive technologies in ADL
• Networks/Grids for learning
• Adaptive and intuitive environments
• Personal Learning Environments
• Mobile learning environments and applications
• Augmented Reality Implementation

Program Committee
--------------------------
Toshio Okamoto, University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan
Gabriela Grosseck, West University of Timisoara, Romania
Reggie Smith III, United States Distance Learning Association
Inge de Waard, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium
Ion Roceanu, "Carol l" National Defense University, Romania
Marco Temperini, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Mohamed Amine Chatti, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Dimiter Denev, Max Planck Instiut Informatik, Germany
Volin Karagiozov, American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria
Jennifer Richardson, Purdue University, USA Alev
Elci, Eastern Mediterranean University, Turkey
Javed Alam, Youngstown State University, USA
Palitha Edirisingha, University of Leicester, UK

Organizers
-------------------------
Malinka Ivanova
Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria
Email: m_ivanova@tu-sofia.bg
Anguelina Popova
Open University of the Netherlands
Email: angie.popova@gmail.com

PLEM - User Scenario

2011-12-20T11:51:00.008+01:00

Our student Simona Dakova has created a sample user scenario for PLEM. More information about PLEM can be found here.

Please feel free to use this service. Comments, feedback, suggestions for improvement etc. are welcome!

PELE: Personal Exploratory Learning Environments

2011-10-19T17:12:00.002+02:00

Our proposal "PELE: Personal Exploratory Learning Environments" has been selected as an ETS-Project at RWTH Aachen University, funded by the "Exzellenzinitiative in der Lehre des Stifterverbands für die Deutsche Wissenschaft".
The list of accepted proposals can be found here. Also a short description of the projects is available here (internal RWTH area).

gRSShopper Overview [Video]

2011-08-19T12:25:00.002+02:00

A video by Stephen Downes on how gRSShopper works.

The Internet of Things [Video]

2011-08-17T11:32:00.001+02:00

Via Michele Martin.

Towards Sustainable Open Source Workshop

2011-08-16T12:31:00.004+02:00

Following the success of OSCOMM 2009 and OSCOMM 2010, My dear friend Imed Hammouda is organizing the 'Towards Sustainable Open Source' workshop (SOS 2011). This workshop will be held in conjunction with the 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2011) in Salvador, BA, Brazil, October 5-8, 2011 . The workshop is also a warm-up event for OSS 2012 to be held in Tunisia. For more information please visit the workshop website.

Toward a Personal Learning Environment Framework

2011-05-11T09:39:00.003+02:00

The paper "Toward a Personal Learning Environment Framework" was selected as the best article from the International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments (IJVPLE) for the 2010 volume year. More important, the paper is now free and can be downloaded here.

Abstract:

Over the past decade, it has been argued that technology-enhanced learning (TEL) could respond to the needs of the new knowledge society and transform learning. However, despite isolated achievements, TEL has not succeeded in revolutionizing education and learning processes. Most current TEL initiatives still take a centralized technology-push approach in which learning content is pushed to a predefined group of learners in closed environments. A fundamental shift toward a more open and learner-pull model for learning is needed. Recently, the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) concept has emerged to open new doors for more effective learning and overcome many of the limitations of traditional TEL models. In this paper, the authors present theoretical, design, implementation, and evaluation details of PLEF, a framework for mashup personal learning environments. The primary aim of PLEF is to help learners create custom learning mashups using a wide variety of digital media and data.

CfP Mobile Learning Workshop at DeLFI 2011

2011-05-10T12:27:00.003+02:00

The CfP for the Mobile Learning workshop which will be held in conjunction with DeLFI 2011 on 5 September 2011 in Dresden, Germany is now available here. More information about the workshop can be found here.

PLE Videos

2011-05-05T14:06:00.002+02:00

Our students in the eLearning course have created great videos on how they do see their Personal Learning Environments. Below are some examples. Other videos can be found on YouTube tagged with rwth_elearn11.

Learning SWOT

2011-04-27T13:26:00.008+02:00

We tried yesterday with our students in the eLearning course to come up with a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)-Matrix for our educational system.

The results of this interactive session are available below:

Rethinking Education Videos

2011-04-14T12:16:00.005+02:00

In the eLearning course that we're offering in this semester at RWTH Aachen, we asked our students to produce a short video on how they do see the future of education using new technologies. Some of the videos are now available on YouTube tagged with rwth_elearn11.

Here is an example:

Model-driven mashup personal learning environments

2011-03-22T09:57:00.005+01:00

The paper "Model-driven mashup personal learning environments" has been published in the Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (Vol. 3, No. 1). The paper can be downloaded here.

Abstract:

Mashups have become the driving force behind the development of personal learning environments (PLEs). Creating mashups in an ad hoc manner is, however, for end users with little or no programming background not an easy task. Various tools and platforms have been built in an attempt to support mashup creation. These platforms, however, are still considered complex and do not address crucial challenges in mashup development today, such as scalability, interoperability, reuse, and automatic service invocation and mediation. In this paper, we leverage the possibility to use the concept of model-driven mashup development (MDMD) as an approach that can drastically tackle the aforementioned issues and drive the rapid and user-friendly creation of mashups. We then present the conceptual and technical details of PLEF-Ext as a flexible framework for end-user, model-driven development (MDD) of mashup PLEs.

Rethinking Education

2011-03-09T11:22:00.003+01:00

Via Stephen Downes.

A video by Michael Wesch on Rethinking Education...

WebTech1011

2011-02-24T09:36:00.004+01:00

We offered a Web Technologies course in the past semester. We opted this time for a more self-organized learning event by giving our students more control over the whole learning experience. The students took an active role in the organization and assessment of the course. They gave talks on different emerging Web technologies and worked on their own projects using their preferred technologies. They also evaluated each other talks and project presentations. The result was quite impressive.
To be honest I learned much in this course. You can find slides of the technologies presented in course on Slideshare. Some videos of the developed projects are available on YouTube, tagged with webtech1011.

Below are the topics covered in this course:
- Web Standards
- Server-side Technologies (PHP, ASP.NET, JSP/Servlets, Symfony, Struts, Rails)
- Client-side Technologies (RIA, Flash, JavaFX, Silverlight, AJAX, JQuery, Dojo, GWT)
- Web Services (SOA, REST/SOAP, Web APIs, Mashups)
- Emerging Technologies (Mobile Web, Android, iOS, Augmented Reality, Cloud Computing, Web Mining, Recommender Systems)

It's not that everything went as expected. We got several suggestions for improvement that we will definitely take into consideration in the next iterations of the course.

The 2011 Horizon Report

2011-02-15T13:54:00.001+01:00

The 2011 Horizon Report is now available (.pdf).

CfPs: The PLE Conference 2011

2011-02-07T09:41:00.000+01:00

Call for Papers: The PLE Conference 2011

http://www.pleconf.com

Following the highly successful inaugural event in Barcelona (#PLE_BCN), the next PLE Conference will be held at the University of Southampton, UK (#PLE_SOU) from July 11th to 13th 2011, and will have a lively social programme as well as a highly interactive and innovative technical programme.

The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) Conference is intended to produce a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experience and research around the development and implementation of PLEs – including the design of environments and the sociological and educational issues that they raise. Whilst the conference includes a traditional research paper strand, we also encourage proposals for sessions in different formats including workshops, posters, debates, cafe sessions and demonstrations aiming to sustain the dynamic and interactive discussion environment established by the opening event in Barcelona in 2010.

A Personal Learning Environment (PLE) includes the tools, communities, and services that constitute individual educational platforms learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals. This represents a shift away from the traditional model of learning, and towards a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of online and offline resources that they select and organise. To gain something of the flavour of last year¹s conference search for #PLE_BCN and see http://pleconference.citilab.eu/

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline Saturday 26th March

The conference organisers welcome 500-800 word abstracts for full or short research papers. Submissions for other types of presentation, such as workshops, symposia, demonstrations and installations are also encouraged. These can be submitted electronically via ConfTool http://pleconf.cs.uni-paderborn.de/ . The full guidelines for submissions can be downloaded here.

Conference themes include (but are not limited to):

Theories and frameworks for Personal Learning Environments
Technologies and software for developing Personal Learning Environments
PLEs in Practice (case studies, approaches to using PLEs)
Educational institutions, change and PLEs
Pedagogical approaches to managing personal learning
The development and management of Personal Learning Networks
Mobile PLEs and augmented reality
Supporting informal and contextual learning
Using PLEs in organisations
Using PLEs for Work Based Learning
Mash-up PLEs
Presentation formats
Future visions: Quo vadis PLE?

The PLE conference is especially looking for originality and relevancy of ideas and for creative proposals, in both form and content. Formats for publication and communication of research are two different things! Independently of the publication format you decide to contribute, full research paper, workshop etc., the organising committee encourages interactive and creative ways of communicating research.

Hence, we invite you to submit your contribution in the publication format you prefer and select your preference regarding the type of presentation you wish to make (e.g.: round table discussion, bring your own laptop, cafe session, etc.) in the submission form. Once the review of papers is concluded, presentations will be organised by topics and session chairs will start liaising with participants regarding the organisation of their session. Our goal is to create spaces for meaningful discussions. In short, the purpose is to create opportunities for delegates to interact with each other and achieve real communication. We aim to promote dialogue and interactivity throughout the conference.

We welcome submissions and ideas for videos, photo collages, podcasts, cartoons, posters – or any other kind of artifacts you can think of. In celebration of User Generated Content we will have a Mediacast Contest during the PLE Conference 2011 with awards for the best three mediacast productions on Personal Learning Environments.

A separate call for pechakucha sessions will be released shortly.

Review Process
All proposals will be subject to a peer review process and all proposals accepted will be published electronically with an ISSN number. In addition to the proceedings, we intend to publish selected conference papers in special editions of the journals that support the conference.
Please note that all submissions should be licensed under a Creative Commons licence.

Each registered participant may submit one full or short paper contribution to the conference, although further proposals in different formats are welcome.

Deadlines
The deadline for proposals is March 26th, 2011.
You will be notified if your submission has been accepted by April 30th.
For those submitting proceedings papers, the deadline for the receipt of the full paper is May 28th.

Full Papers:
If your abstract is accepted, the full paper should be between 3000 and 5000 words. words (including references, tables and figures).

Short Papers/ Extended Abstracts:
The short paper proposals are especially designed to encourage the presentation of work in progress. Short papers should be between 1500 words and 2500 words.

Workshops, Posters, Symposia, Demonstration, Installations, BringYourOwnLaptop sessions and other Formats:
Please submit your proposal indicating that you intend to make a contribution in one of these alternative formats.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us:

Web: http://www.pleconf.com
Conference Chairs: info@pleconf.com
Programme Committee Chairs: pcchair@pleconf.com
Hashtag:#PLE_SOU

EC-TEL 2011 Call for Papers

2011-01-31T11:40:00.000+01:00

EC-TEL 2011

Sixth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning

Towards Ubiquitous Learning

http://www.ec-tel.eu

20-23 September 2011, Palermo, Italy

EC-TEL is a unique setting for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in Technology Enhanced Learning from Europe and other continents to meet together and exchange on the current challenges and advances in the field. At EC-TEL, experts and young researchers in Computer Science, Education, Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Social Science, as well as entrepreneurs have the opportunity to establish collaborations, strengthen their links and
cross-fertilize their core disciplines.

EC-TEL 2011will push further the Ubiquitous Learning paradigm by not only
tackling the challenges of exploiting new trendy devices in various contexts,
but also by investigating ways to meet and support formally and informally the learners in their learning playgrounds and social environments thanks to
innovative scenarios.

CONFERENCE TOPICS

From both research and experience perspective the following topics of interest to the conference include, but are not limited to:

Technological underpinning

Large scale sharing and interoperability
Personalization, user modeling and adaptation
Context-aware systems
Social computing
Social media
Semantic Web
Mobile technologies
Serious games and 3D virtual worlds
Network infrastructures and architectures for TEL
Sensors and sensor networks
Augmented reaility
Roomware and ubiquitous learning
Data mining and information retrieval
Recommender systems for TEL
Natural language processing and latent semantic analysis
eLearning specifications and standards
Learning analytics

Pedagogical underpinning

Problem- and project-based learning / Inquiry based learning
Computer supported collaborative learning
Collaborative knowledge building
Game-based and simulation-based learning
Story-telling and reflection-based learning
Instructional design and design approaches
Communities of learners and communities of practice
Teaching techniques and strategies for online learning
Learner motivation and engagement
Evaluation methods for TEL

Individual, social &organizational learning processes

Cognitive mechanisms in knowledge acquisition and construction
Self-regulated and self-directed learning
Reflective learning
Social processes in teams and communities
Social awareness
Knowledge management and organizational learning
Sustainability and TEL business models and cases
Business-learning models
Trust and reputation in TEL
Fitness and evolvability of learning environments

Learning contexts and domains

Applications of TEL in various domains
Formal education: initial (K-12, higher education), post-initial (continuing education)
Workplace learning in small, medium and large companies
Aggregated learning at the workplace Distance and online learning
Lifelong learning (cradle to grave)
Vocational training
Informal learning
Non-formal learning
Ubiquitous learning
Knowledge management

TEL in developing countries

ICT Inclusion for learning
Digital divide and learning
Generation divide and learning
Education policies
Rural learning

TEL, functional diversity and users with special needs

Accessible learning for all
Visual, hearing and physical impairments
Psycho-pedagogic support for users
Educational guidance for tutors
Adapted learning flow, content and monitoring process
Standards about accessibility and learning

DEMONSTRATIONS

The EC-TEL Demonstration is your chance to fully engage EC-TEL attendees at a personal level by letting them see, touch, squeeze, or hear your visions for the future of TEL. We expect that your Demonstration will be a reliably running prototype of your vision ready to be tried out, questioned, and interacted with. In particular, we encourage Demonstration submissions that complement an EC-TEL Paper submission, so that attendees can get a direct experience of your work in addition to the scientific presentation.

WORKSHOP ORGANISATION

EC-TEL 2011 offers the opportunity to host several workshops. Parties interested to organize a workshop are asked to submit a proposal of max. 4 pages outlining the theme of the workshop, workshop format, expected participants and domains addressed, dissemination activities, programme committee, and organizational requirements. A separate call will be published in parallel. Proposals should be submitted via the EasyChair system of EC-TEL.

PROJECT MEETINGS

In addition to the regular sessions and workshops, EC-TEL offers a unique
opportunity for European Projects in TEL to held face-to-face meetings. Please contact the local organization Chair at your earliest convenience to book meeting rooms.

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper & demonstration submission: 04 April 2011
Paper & demonstration acceptance: 31 May 2011
Camera-ready final papers: 30 June 2011
Workshop proposals: 04 April 2011
Workshop acceptance: 09 May 2011
Workshops: 20-21 September 2011
Conference: 22-23 September 2011

SUBMISSION FORMATS

All papers will be reviewed through a non-blind review process. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Proceedings will be published by Springer within their “Lecture Notes in Computer Science” series which is ranked in the ISI Web of Knowledge. The use of supplied template is mandatory:
http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-7-72376-0

Full Papers (max. 14 pages)
Short Papers and Posters (max. 6 pages)

CONFERENCE ORGANISATION

General Chair: Martin Wolpers, Fraunhofer FIT, Germany
Programme Chairs: Carlos Delgado Kloos, eMadrid/TELSpain/University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain; and Denis Gillet, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
Workshop Chair: Stefanie Lindstaedt, Know-Center Graz, Austria
Poster and Demonstration Chair: Fridolin Wild, The Open University, UK
Dissemination Chair: Abelardo Pardo, eMadrid/TELSpain/University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain
Local Organization Chair: Mario Allegra, Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche, Italy
Doctoral Consortium Chairs: Katherine Maillet, Télécom SudParis, France; and Mike Sharples, University of Birmingham, UK

The 3P Learning Model

2011-01-18T09:40:00.001+01:00

The paper "The 3P Learning Model" has been published in the Journal of Educational Technology and Society (Vol. 13, Issue 4). The paper can be downloaded here.

Abstract:

Recognizing the failures of traditional Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) initiatives to achieve performance improvement, we need to rethink how we design new TEL models that can respond to the learning requirements of the 21st century and mirror the characteristics of knowledge and learning which are fundamentally personal, social, distributed, ubiquitous, flexible, dynamic, and complex in nature. In this paper, we discuss the 3P learning model; a vision of learning characterized by the convergence of lifelong, informal, and personalized learning within a social context. The 3P learning model encompasses three core elements: Personalization, Participation, and Knowledge-Pull. We then present the social software supported learning framework as a framework that illustrates the 3P learning model in action, based on Web 2.0 concepts and social software technologies.

Reference:

Chatti, M. A., Jarke, M. & Specht, M. (2010). The 3P Learning Model. Educational Technology & Society, 13(4), 74-85.

News

2011-01-10T13:31:00.001+01:00

After finishing my PhD at Informatik 5 (the Informations Systems group at RWTH Aachen University), I joined Informatik 9 (the eLearning group at RWTH Aachen University). See my new homepage there.

Dissertation

2010-12-23T15:22:00.005+01:00

My dissertation Personalization in Technology Enhanced Learning: A Social Software Perspective has been published by Shaker Verlag, Germany.

PhD Defense

2010-10-18T12:12:00.006+02:00

Below are some photos from my PhD defense. The last weeks before the defense were quite hard.
But Alhamdulellah everything went well :-)

informatik 5 wins InfoCup 2010

2010-07-01T08:26:00.004+02:00

We won this year's version of the RWTH Computer Science Faculty Soccer Tournament (InfoCup 2010). Below is a photo of our very international winner team.

l. to r.

Milos Kravcik

Prof. Matthias Jarke

Mohamed Amine Chatti

Morteza Hashemi Farzaneh

Marko Pascan

Daniel Gomez

Sven Weber

Christoph Quix

Stefan Schiffer

Vaishak Belle

Manh Cuong Pham (missing in this photo)

This is a joint photo of the teams who won the three first places in the tournament.

Deficiencies in Current TEL Models

2010-06-09T11:50:00.002+02:00

In my opinion, the failures of current Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) models basically result from the heavy emphasis on:

Knowledge as a thing.
Learning as a predetermined process.
TEL as a technology issue.

Knowledge as a Thing

Current TEL approaches are following a static and predefined representation of knowledge and are mainly focusing on content delivery. The view of knowledge as an object that can be stored and reused makes that what is presented as learning management is simply content management under a new label. Content, however, represents only one side of the knowledge equation, namely the information side. Information is explicit knowledge that is easily expressed, captured, stored and reused. In the KM literature, there is wide recognition that explicit knowledge represents only the tip of the iceberg. Only a small fraction of valuable knowledge is explicit and there is a huge mass of high-quality knowledge embedded in people, which is not easily expressible and cannot be recorded in a codified form. This hard-to-articulate knowledge is what Polanyi called tacit knowledge.

Furthermore, capturing and storing knowledge as reusable learning objects in centralized repositories makes that knowledge can be isolated from its context. In the KM literature, it has already been pointed out that knowledge is context sensitive. Nonaka & Konno (1998), for instance, point out that "knowledge is embedded in ba" (p. 40); i.e. the shared space or context. "If knowledge is separated from ba, it turns into information" (p. 41).

Learning as a Predetermined Process

Traditional LMS-driven TEL approaches share the view according to which learning is regarded as a process limited by the duration of the semester or term. The view of learning as a semester-bound process conflicts with the nature of learning. Learning is continuous and fluid and cannot be reduced to a process with clearly defined beginning and end.

Moreover, current TEL solutions share a primary focus on the automation of the learning process. A strong emphasis has often been placed on how to control, centralize, and standardize the learning process using technology. The view of learning as an institution-controlled process has led to the development of instructional design specifications that aim to describe a learning flow in a standardized manner, such as IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD).

The automation of the learning process fails to address the complex and uncertain dimensions of knowledge and learning. The learning process cannot be reduced to a string of predetermined processes. It rather emerges through a series of processes that cannot be predicted or anticipated. Organizing the learning process into units with predefined content and learning outcomes is a clear view of learning as a linear process. The linearity of the institution-controlled learning process is not well adjusted to describing what is actually going on in learning in a world of radical discontinuous change. In each new context, learning is a unique process and is the result of emergent processes that do not follow any particular order.

TEL as a Technology Issue

TEL has been often perceived as merely a technological solution to support and supplement institution-led instruction. Consequently, a significant amount of attention has been placed on implementing repositories to capture, store, manage and reuse learning objects and developing platforms to control and automate the learning process.

There is much evidence that current TEL approaches use technology to increase the efficiency of existing practices rather than to improve the effectiveness of the learning experience.

The LMS is designed with the primary focus on management and control and is driven by the needs of the educational institution. LMS-driven TEL solutions follow a one-size-fits-all approach and suffer from an inability to give learners the opportunity to contribute to the learning process in significant ways, and to satisfy the heterogeneous needs of many learners. Similarly, current TEL 2.0 solutions continue to privilege the teacher/institution, rather than the learner, as the central element in the learning experience. These solutions share a common emphasis on how to best integrate the emergent Web 2.0 technologies into the learning process without influencing the traditional pedagogical principles and policies imposed by formal educational institutions. The result is that technology is often applied in the existing institutional context of learning controlled by the institution and organized into courses with preselected tasks, prescribed tools, and predetermined learning outcomes.

In sum, current TEL models, driven by technology-push, might make the learning experience faster or cheaper but not necessarily better. They aim at efficiency (i.e. doing the thing right) rather than effectiveness (i.e. doing the right thing). They use technology primarily to make the traditional institution-centric learning model more efficient. This model, however, remains untestable, unchallenged, and consequently unchanged.

References:

Nonaka, I., & Konno, N. (1998). The concept of “ba”: Building a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 40–54.

Definitions of PLE

2010-06-07T09:46:00.001+02:00

Ilona Buchem has compiled a list of PLE definitions ...

Definitions of Personal Learning Environment (PLE)

View more presentations from Ilona Buchem.

CfP MUPPLE Workshop at EC-TEL 2010

2010-06-02T09:24:00.002+02:00

3rd Workshop on Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments (MUPPLE-10)

Held at the 5th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning
(EC-TEL10) in Barcelona, Spain, September 28 - October 1, 2010

https://sites.google.com/site/muppleworkshop/
*******************************************************************
RATIONALE

A change in perspective can be certified in the recent years to
technology-enhanced learning research and development: More and
more learning applications on the web are putting the learner centre
stage, not the organisation. They empower learners with capabilities
to customize and even construct their own personal learning environments
(PLEs).

These PLEs typically consist of distributed web-applications and services
that support system-spanning collaborative and individual learning
activities in formal as well as informal settings. These PLEs typically
complement Learning Management Systems (LMS) with additional widgets,
services, and data integrated from and with organization-external
learning tools. Technologically speaking, this shift manifests in a
learning web where information is distributed across sites and activities
can easily encompass the use of a greater number of pages and services
offered through web-based learning applications. Mash-ups, the
'frankensteining' of software artefacts and data, have emerged to be the
software development approach for these long-tail and perpetual-beta niche
markets. Core technologies facilitating this paradigm shift are Ajax,
javascript-based widget-collections, and microformats that help to glue
together public web APIs in individual applications. Interoperability is
the enabler to allow these different components to be worked together
facilitating the achievement of the underlying learning task.

In a wide range of European IST-funded research projects such as Stellar,
ROLE, LTfLL, Mature, and OpenScout a rising passion for these technologies
can be identified.

This workshop therefore serves as a forum to bring together researchers and
developers from these projects and an open public that have an interest in
understanding and engineering mash-up personal learning environments (MUPPLEs).

The workshop is supported with donations to the Open University of the UK:
travel grants will be available.

*******************************************************************
TOPICS OF INTEREST (but not limited to):

* Visions: Architectures, Frameworks, Strategies, Models
* (Collaborative) Authoring Tools
* Data Interoperability: with e.g. Microformats, streaming data,
mixed media data
* User Interfaces: Concepts, Metaphors, Workflows
* Development Methodologies
* Innovative Widgets and Services: e.g. for instruction, game-based learning,
self-reflection, personal information
* Interoperability Standards for widgets, content recombination, configuration
* User Studies & Evaluation Methods: evaluating e.g. performance, usability,
specific design features, training methods
* Educational theories for PLE

*******************************************************************
WORKSHOP FORMAT

The aim of this workshop is to bring together the various research and
development groups in technology-enhanced learning that currently focus
on the development of the next generation learning environments that
put the individuum centre stage and empower learners with design
capabilities by deploying modern mash-up principles to establish
system-spanning interoperability.

As this approach is rather young, the workshop seeks to attract both
research results and work in progress in order to chart out the current
state-of-the-art of MUPPLEs in TEL and to define main enablers and future
challenges. Naturally, it will serve as a forum for establishing new
collaborations.

Using the presentations as impulses and continuing post-talk debates,
the workshop will conclude the day with an open discussion exchanging
ideas, summing up, and defining a medium- to long-term research agenda.

*******************************************************************
SUBMISSIONS

Authors are invited to submit original unpublished research as position
statements (max. 2 pages) and extended abstracts (max. 4 pages). Those
extended abstracts that are accepted will be given the option to be
extended into full papers (8 pages). All submitted position statements
and extended abstracts will be peer-reviewed by at least two members of
the program committee for originality, significance, clarity, and quality.
The workshop proceedings will be published online as part of the CEUR
Workshop proceedings series. http://CEUR-WS.org is a recognized ISSN
publication series, with ISSN 1613-0073.

We are additionally preparing a MUPPLE book, which will draft contributions
from this and the previous workshops.

Authors should use the Springer LNCS format (http://www.springer.com/lncs).
For camera-ready format instructions, please see 'For Authors' instructions
at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.

All questions and submissions should be sent to: mupple @ googlegroups.com

*******************************************************************
IMPORTANT DATES

* Paper Submission: June 26th, 2010
* Results Notification: July 7th, 2010
* Camera Ready Submission: September 15th, 2010
* Workshop Date: September 28th or 29th, 2010

*******************************************************************
PROGRAMME COMMITTEE (to be confirmed)

* Abelardo Pardo (University Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
* Dai Griffith (University of Bolton, UK)
* Denis Gillet (EPFL, Switzerland)
* Effie Law (University of Leicester, United Kingdom)
* Felix Moedritscher (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria)
* Graham Atwell (Pontydysgu, United Kingdom)
* Gytis Cibulskis (Kaunas Technical University, Lithuania)
* Mart Laanpere (Tallinn University, Estonia)
* Martin Wolpers (Fraunhofer FIT, Germany)
* Mohamed Amine Chatti (RWTH Aachen, Germany)
* Nikos Karacapilidis (University of Patras, Greece)
* Scott Wilson (University of Bolton, United Kingdom)
* Stephane Sire (EPFL, Switzerland)
* Tony Hirst (Open University, UK)
* Zuzana Bizonova (INT Paris, France)
* Jan M. Pawlowski (University of Jyvaeskylae, Finland)
* Stefan Trausan-Matu (University "Politehnica" Bucharest, Romania)

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ORGANISERS

* Marco Kalz (Open University, The Netherlands)
* Matthias Palmer (University of Upsala, Sweden)
* Fridolin Wild (The Open University, UK)

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ABOUT EC-TEL10

After four successful EC-TEL conferences in the year from 2006 to 2009,
the Fifth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning provides
a unique forum for all research related to TEL, among them education,
psychology, and computer science. The contributions will cover the design
of innovative environments, the implementation of new technological
solutions, results of empirical studies on socio-cognitive processes in
learning, and field studies regarding the use of technologies in context.

EC-TEL is a competitive and broad forum for TEL research in Europe and
beyond. In its specialised accompanying workshops and the highlighting
main conference programme, EC-TEL10 provides unique networking
possibilities for participating researchers throughout the week and
includes project meetings and discussions for ongoing and new research
activities supported by the European Commission.

See http://www.ectel2010.org/ for details.