Dan Kohen-Vacs

Integrating SMS Components into CSCL Scripts

This paper presents an effort to enrich and expand the potential of CSCL scripts by combining different technologies. We introduce and describe a dedicated SMS-personal response system designed to support class activities and its integration with CeLS, an environment used to design and enact online collaboration scripts.

Systems integration challenges for supporting cross context collaborative pedagogical scenarios

This paper discusses the potential and challenges of integrating collaborative and mobile technologies in order to support a wide variety of learning activities across contexts. We present and illustrate two examples of such integrations aiming to expand the functionalities of an existing CSCL environment by introducing mobile technologies. Our goal is to enable the design and enactment of pedagogical scenarios that include asynchronous learning, outdoor collaborative activities and tasks performed in class using personal response systems. These examples are used to identify and analyze different challenges related to software systems integration issues. The outcome of these efforts is a proposed cross context systems integration model that can serve as the basis for future work that leads towards the integration of additional mobile applications designed and implemented to support novel collaborative learning scenarios.

Languages and platforms for CSCL scripts

Learners in unstructured CSCL scenarios often have difficulties to engage in specific collaborative learning activities, such as question asking, elaboration, or constructing sound arguments. An increasing amount of CSCL research therefore deals with the question how scripts can help learners to fully benefit from CSCL environments. The objective of the workshop is to study the questions related to the implementation of CSCL scripts, from their modeling to their effective deployment on a given platform.

Fragmented yet Seamless: System Integration for Supporting Cross-Context CSCL Scripts

Complex multistage pedagogical activities may address different planes (temporal, social, physical) by different pedagogical strategies. Since there is no comprehensive technological support for all possible pedagogical practices, activity phases may be supported by different technologies, adapted to the specific needs of the stage. As a result, the implementation of such activities would be technologically “fragmented” since data collected with one system will not be available for immediate use in another environment. The technological fragmentation may not only obstruct the enactment of such activities but even discourage teachers and prevent them from designing rich pedagogical experiences supported by different technologies. Therefore, in order to provide a seamless learning experience, there is a need to ensure continuous data flow between the activity phases enacted with different technologies. This chapter presents our ongoing efforts to cope with the challenge of integrating various TEL environments in order to support the design and implementation of cross-context, multistage collaborative activities.

Evaluation of enhanced educational experiences using interactive videos and web technologies: pedagogical and architectural considerations

Nowadays, teachers and students utilize different ICT devices for conducting innovative and educational activities from anywhere at any time. The enactment of these activities relies on robust communication and computational infrastructures used for supporting technological devices enabling better accessibility to educational resources and pedagogical scaffolds, wherever and whenever necessary. In this paper, we present EDU.Tube: an interactive environment that relies on web and mobile solutions offered to teachers and students for authoring and incorporating educational interactions at specific moments along the time line of occasional YouTube video-clips. The teachers and students could later experience these authored artefacts while interacting from their stationary or mobile devices. We describe our efforts related to the design, deployment and evaluation of an educational activity supported by the EDU.Tube environment. Furthermore, we illustrate the specific teachers’ and students’ efforts practiced along the different phases of this educational activity. The evaluation of this activity and results are presented, followed by a discussion of these findings, as well as some recommendations for future research efforts further elaborating on EDU.Tube’s aspects in relation to learning analytics.