Barbara Kieslinger

Social Software for Professional Learning: Examples and Research Issues

Social software is used widely in organizational knowledge management and professional learning. The PROLEARN network of excellence appreciates the trend of lowering the barriers between knowledge and learning management strategies for organizations and individuals. But, companies should not underestimate the needs for systematic support based on sound theories and technologies. We illustrate the requirements by examples and research issues for collaborative adaptive learning platforms for workplace learning in organizations.

iCamp: the educational web for higher education

iCamp is an EC-funded research project in the area of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) that aims to support collaboration and social networking across systems, countries and disciplines in higher education. The concept of an iCamp Space will build on existing interfaces and integrate shared community features. Interoperability amongst different open source learning systems and tools is the key to successful sustainability of iCamp. The content for this collaboration within social communities is provided via distributed networked repositories including, for example, content brokerage platforms, online libraries, and learning object databases. The innovative pedagogical model of iCamp is based on social constructivist learning theories. iCamp creates an environment for a new way of social networking in higher education that puts more emphasis on self-organised, self-directed learning, social networking and cross-cultural collaboration.

A Participatory Design Approach for the Support of Collaborative Learning and Knowledge Building in Networked Organizations

Engagement in collaborative learning and knowledge building activities is still a big challenge for many workplace-learning designers. Especially in highly competitive environments people might be reluctant to give away too much of their tacit knowledge. A feeling of ownership and an involvement of the individual in the planning of the learning activities can be important motivational factors. In an international research project called IntelLEO - Intelligent Learning Extended Organization we intend to follow a participatory design approach involving individual workers from the very beginning of the development process. The planned user participation will range from the first conceptual design phase through the different development stages until the final validation of the system. Our hypothesis is that this involvement will increase the motivation of the individuals for collaborative learning and knowledge building activities. (http://online-journals.org/i-jac/article/view/999)

A qualitative approach towards discovering microblogging practices of scientists

Although Microblogging (for instance Twitter) is still rather young compared to other traditional weblogging services there already exists quite a number of studies on its usage. The majority of scholars dealing with this topic have chosen a quantitative approach focusing on different aspects such as publishing patterns, follower patterns, publishing practices, etc. However, there are less qualitative evidence and case studies on how Twitter is used by adults in their personal working practices. This paper presents a qualitative approach of discovering microblogging practices and obtaining rich descriptions of few cases that give a deeper insight into how Twitter is used by scientists and how this practice shapes their social networks. The methodological approach is based on online ethnographic studies. Therefore Grabeeter, a tool for collecting all public tweets of a person in various formats, has been adapted in order to obtain the data appropriate for a qualitative analysis following a grounded theory approach. After an analysis of the current state-of-the-art we will outline an approach for a more qualitative analysis that focuses on discovering tacit aspects of microblogging practices such as value or purpose. Finally some initial results from four individual cases will be discussed. This work presents the initial phase of a detailed qualitative approach towards exploring microblogging practices of scientists.

An approach in provision of interoperability of eLearning systems in enlarged EU - the case of iCamp project

The paper addresses the main activities and findings of an EU based initiative for provision of interoperability of eLearning systems in the enlarged EU. The initiative is a project named iCamp1. The project is based on the current research results in several finished and on-going projects such as the Network of Excellence in Professional Learning - PROLEARN. As several surveys of the eLearning market have shown the abundance of eLearning systems that are difficult to be interconnected and used in various environments the need for system interoperability rose. The problem of interconnectivity is especially important for learning resource repositories intended for the widest audience in Europe and worldwide. The paper provides a short insight into the technical, pedagogical and collaborative learning approaches taken within the iCamp initiative.