Antonio Marzano

Eduonto: an ontology for Educational Assessment

The search for possible applications in the field of Education, by means of domain specific ontologies on the issues of assessment of learning (assessment) and system (evaluation), has been implemented through the construction, testing and evolution of an integrated learning environment called EduOntoWiki. It is supported by ontological structures related to science education based on active consent of specific communities of practice. It allows selecting and incorporating the ontologies in order to organize learning objects to improve learning process. It is created as a setting in which they had the relevant formal descriptions (coding ontology) and informal (and narrative contextualization of concepts); where the possible intra-and inter-community relations were made explicit and recognized by all participants through specific social software. The last point in particular, has led to our hypothesis: only the transition from a technology-driven model (formal, static) to a community-driven model (dynamic and integrated in an open learning environment) could make really effective and relevant the ontologies that we built in several communities of practice. Therefore, the final goal was the realization of an integrated learning environment attempting the difficult transition from an “ontological-formal” system to an “ontological-relational” one.

A research initiative on the construction of innovative environments for teaching and learning. Montessori and Munari based psycho-pedagogical insights in computers and human behavior for the new school

Italians children-students live a strong technological gap among different education instances: on the one hand, they are attending schools technologically still to the 80 years, on the other hand, they can rely on hyper-technological domestic-family environments where videogames, smartphones, internet are always available. In the school, all learnings take place under the supervision of the teacher that stimulates, directs and corrects these important steps in the basic training. On the contrary, in the domestic environment the presence of technology is increasingly pervasive. These new technologies cognitively stimulate the children, but they entertain the little ones often alone and without the participation and supervision of an adult audience.Thus, the technology gap results in a pedagogical clash among different educational instances and this is the space addressed by our research initiative whose objective is the construction of innovative teaching and learning environments for children between 3 and 6 years of age. The specific quantitative outcomes can be defined with respect to three main families of indicators: measures to detect the use of learning environments; indicators of the level of satisfaction and involvement of the various involved actors; real impact on the socio-cognitive development of children produced by the introduction of methodologies and technologies. A research initiative on the construction of environments for teaching and learning.The Montessori and Munari based Psycho-pedagogical insights for the New School.An innovative platform for 36 years children.New areas of interaction and information exchange for schools and families.

Educational Assessment: Semantic Representation and Ontologies

The search for possible applications in the field of Education, by means of domain specific ontologies on the issues of assessment of learning (assessment) and system (evaluation), has been implemented through the construction, testing and evolution of an integrated learning environment called EduOntoWiki. It is supported by ontological structures related to science education based on active consent of specific communities of practice. It allows selecting and incorporating the ontologies in order to organize learning objects to improve learning process. It is created as a setting in which they had the relevant formal descriptions (coding ontology) and informal (and narrative contextualization of concepts), where the possible intra-and inter-community relations were made explicit and recognized by all participants through specific social software. The last point in particular, has led to our hypothesis: only the transition from a technology-driven model (formal, static) to a community-driven model (dynamic and integrated in an open learning environment) could make really effective and relevant the ontologies that we built in several communities of practice. Therefore, the final goal was the realization of an integrated learning environment attempting the difficult transition from an ontological-formal system to an ontological-relational one.

A Smart Competence-Based Prioritisation for Learning Programmes

In public and local administration contexts, the organizational structures depend on bureaucratic aspects. This often implies that people are engaged in offices and their allocation come from emergencies and political factors instead of rational motivations related to knowledge, competences and profiles. In most cases, such situations become gangrenous and generate dissatisfaction and low productivity. The objective of our work is applying competence management, skill gap analysis and a study of the existing organizational structures to point out the functional unit with the most critical situation in terms of allocated employees and to suggest a solution according to the complex laws, internal regulation for the staff management and trade-union influences. The proposed approach identifies the real gaps that create inefficiencies and suggests the people to engage in learning programs by focusing exactly on what the organizations need with respect to what the employees have. It happens by elaborating a priority scale on the base of existing hierarchies, relationships, logistic constraints and other aspects with the aim, above all, of enhancing the identified unit and the local administration itself.

Apprendimento in digitale e processi cognitivi: problemi aperti e riflessioni da ri-avviare

Il contributo intende esaminare gli apporti di ricerche empiriche, nazionali e internazionali, realizzate nell’ambito della Media Education, con particolare riferimento al rapporto tra tecnologie, supporti digitali e processo di apprendimento. Nella prima parte del contributo e delineata la cornice teorica di riferimento per ricostruire il passaggio da una societa monosensoriale ad una multisensoriale sempre piu dominata dagli artefatti digitali. La seconda parte si concentra sui supporti digitali di lettura, in particolare sull’e-book. Dopo aver analizzato le tecnologie usate per la fruizione dei testi digitali e descritto i vantaggi e gli svantaggi del supporto digitale, ci si chiede se e quanto sia promettente l’utilizzo dell’e-book nei contesti di formazione. Ci sono numerosi problemi aperti e potenziali direttrici di indagine: le evidenze empirico-sperimentali, che su questo punto sono contrastanti, meritano ulteriori e futuri approfondimenti anche di natura epistemologica.