Beatriz Barros

Applications of a Collaborative Learning Ontology

The objective of the research presented in this article is to find representational mechanisms for relating and integrating the collaborative learning elements present in real practical environments, create an integrated ontology that considers and relates these elements, and make use of it to define new collaborative learning scenarios. It is therefore necessary to identify the key ideas underlying the notion of ontology that will be essential in subsequent application development: a list of the basic elements that give rise to a common vocabulary for collaborative learning, and the relationship and dependencies between them. The Activity Theory framework is used as a theoretical foundation for organising the elements in the ontology. This ontology gives rise to the structured elements that form the conceptual structure for the definition and construction of CSCL environments, and the analysis and assessment of group collaboration.

Coalescing individual and collaborative learning to model user linguistic competences

A linguistic, pedagogic and technological framework for an ICALL system called COPPER is presented here, where individual and collaborative learning are combined within a constructivist approach to facilitate second language learning. Based upon the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the ability to use language is viewed as one of several cognitive competences that are mobilised and modified when individuals communicate. To combine the different types of learning underlying the European Framework, a student model has been developed for COPPER that represents linguistic competences in a detailed way, combining high granularity expert-centric Bayesian networks with multidimensional stereotypes, and is updated following student activities semi-automatically. Instances of this model are used by an adaptive group formation algorithm that dynamically generates communicative groups based upon the linguistic capabilities of available students, and a collection of collaborative activity templates. As well as the student model, which is a representation of individual linguistic knowledge, preferences, etc., there is a group model, which is a representation of how a set of students works together. The results of a student’s activity within a group are evaluated by a student monitor, with more advanced linguistic competences, thereby sidestepping the difficulties present when using NLP techniques to automatically analyse non-restricted linguistic production. The monitor role empowers students and further consolidates what has been previously learnt. Students therefore initially work individually in this framework on certain linguistic concepts, and subsequently participate in authentic collaborative communicative activities, where their linguistic competences can develop approximately as they would in ‘real foreign language immersion experiences’.

Virtual Collaborative Experimentation: An Approach Combining Remote and Local Labs

The research presented in this paper shows how lab work can be organized into three phases: prelab, lab, and postlab, all supported by a Web-based experimental portal and a set of tools, some of which are connected to real lab devices. Different online tools and simulators are used in a flexible and configurable way that can be adapted to student curricula and course needs. This scenario is based upon real cases in distance learning courses in the Industrial Engineering School at the Universidad Nacional de Educacion (The Spanish Open University), Madrid, Spain. The details of the combined real and simulated activities are discussed and some conclusions and lessons learned from this work are presented.

Designing Workspaces to Support Collaborative Learning

We present an approach to create structured and shared workspaces supplying functionality to carry out collaborative activities for a range of learning tasks. A workspace is defined in terms of three interrelated components: group, task and colaboration; each one modelling respectively the relevant features for designing the structure and support for a collaborative learning activity. The system has been used to create a number of applications addressing different educational goals and target groups.

TRAZO: a tool to acquire handwriting skills using tablet-PC devices

The purpose of the paper is to describe TRAZO, a system aimed at the acquisition of handwriting skills using tablet-PC devices. This tool focuses on the pre-writing phase and is aimed at 3-year-old children, who practice different strokes following a sequence defined by the teacher. They usually draw straight lines first, then curves, and then move on to a combination of both. The system evaluates the exercises automatically, maintains a user model and includes a monitoring tool to show the learning processes graphically. The aim is to achieve hand coordination, visual perception; to learn to grip the pencil properly, and to practice the direction and pressure of the pencil (or any other object used to write).

An empirical study on the quantitative notion of task difficulty

Most Adaptive and Intelligent Web-based Educational Systems (AIWBES) use tasks in order to collect evidence for inferring knowledge states and adapt the learning process appropriately. To this end, it is important to determine the difficulty of tasks posed to the student. In most situations, difficulty values are directly provided by one or more persons. In this paper we explore the relationship between task difficulty estimations made by two different types of individuals, teachers and students, and compare these values with those estimated from experimental data. We have performed three different experiments with three different real student samples. All these experiments have been done using the SIETTE web-based assessment system. We conclude that heuristic estimation is not always the best solution and claim that automatic estimation should improve the performance of AIWBES.

A framework to define web-based communities

Nowadays, web-based communities have become the best way to exploit capabilities of internet interaction. They allow users to keep in touch and thus offer multiple possibilities to coordinate a group of people with a common interest in working or learning about a common subject. Nevertheless, virtual communities, such as those that exist on the internet, are often rigid. In most cases they are designed as ad hoc projects with specific design requirements. But in order to create a virtual community, an accurate previous analysis should be undertaken. This analysis requires the consideration of three complementary aspects: the social structure of the community, the collaborative model specifying the requirements for working together and the behavioural model describing guidelines to achieve adaptiveness. This paper presents a theoretical framework that pays special attention to these aspects. It permits defining web-based communities in a straightforward way. Furthermore, the framework has been implemented as a web design-based tool in order to create declarative specifications that facilitate the integration into other web-based community projects.

Towards a model of Collaborative Support for Distance Learners to Perform Joint Tasks

This paper describes the design and implementation of a prototype to support collaborative learning. It is part of a larger effort dealing with the study of mechanisms of cooperation and collaboration between distance learners while performing joint tasks involving complex interactions. The final goal of the project is to produce a conceptual model and a tailorable system for describing a variety of collaborative distance learning scenarios providing active group support. A first web-based prototype integrating private and shared workspaces has been implemented, and a testbed carried out with graduate students. The learning scenario and the collaborative facilities offered by the system are presented.

Designing a Semantic Portal for Collaborative Learning Communities

This paper presents the design of a semantic portal for collaborative learning communities and describes a persistence mechanism that stores objects enriched with a contextual description. The latter enables the knowledge reutilization in many learning activities and scenarios constituting, as such, a collective memory of the community. The current work is based on two theoretical foundations: the expressive capacity of ontologies, which offers a computer system new possibilities for using the knowledge it contains and the Activity Theory (AT) framework, which permits describing and structuring collaborative learning scenarios.

I-PETER: Modelling Personalised Diagnosis and Material Selection for an Online English Course

In this paper the underlying knowledge model and architecture of I-PETER (Intelligent Personalised English Tutoring EnviRonment) are presented. This system has been designed for the on-line distance learning of English where too many students restrict the teachers possibilities to provide individualised guidance. I-PETER is made up of four domain models that represent linguistic and didactic knowledge: the conceptual framework related to linguistic levels and knowledge stages, and the educational content and study strategies. The student model represents the knowledge that the student has learnt, the study strategies, and his/her profile. A students command of English is evaluated by interpreting his/her performance on specific linguistic units in terms of three related criteria, rather than by a general linguistic competence ranking. Evaluation consists of a diagnostic task model which assesses student performance, taking the form of a Bayesian network, and a selection mechanism that proposes appropriate materials and study strategies.