Geneen Stubbs

From course notes to granules: A guide to deriving Learning Object components

Learning Objects (LOs) remain a complex entity, particularly for novices, and creating the resources from the beginning can be a daunting prospect if there is no development team for collaboration. Multiple issues need to be considered, including how LOs are defined, how LOs are planned, granularity and reusability, and categorisation of LOs. The paper outlines these issues and offers a solution to assist novice creators of Learning Objects from existing materials. Using the Cisco Reusable Learning Object Strategy to define and plan the Learning Object, this paper proposes a task analysis to derive granules of learning material, matched to appropriate competency levels. Tests of these guidelines produced 586 potential information objects that are small, granular items, each with a prerequisite, an objective and a skill level.

An initial framework for implementing and evaluating probabilistic adaptivity in mobile learning

The needs of mobile learners change dynamically with the various requirements of their wireless environments highlighting the need for implementing adaptivity in mobile learning. This paper introduces a new approach for adapting content in a mobile environment. This approach suggests adapting the delivery of granules of supplementary learning content to mobile devices using Bayesian belief networks. We describe a framework for producing content granules and controlling the preferences of adaptivity over various probabilistic techniques. The result will be a tool for the deployment and evaluation of adaptivity in a distributed mobile learning environment.

Converting existing course materials into learning objects: an exemplar in a school of computing

This paper reports on an initial study into the development of learning objects using a framework developed by Cisco and a CBL development model, UDRIPS. One problem encountered by educational developers is the lack of coherent guidelines upon which to base the structure of the learning objects themselves. The aim of the work described here is to use the Cisco business training-based framework and the UDRIPS model to create learning objects from the existing course materials of a module at the University of Glamorgan.

A Framework for Interoperability with VLEs for Large Scale Deployment of Mobile Learning

The diversity of mobile devices and their limitations have raised many challenges for the actual deployment of mobile learning across institutions. The main objective of this work is to present a solution that encourages institutions to adopt mobile learning as a tool to support the learning process. We present a generic framework for interoperability with existing VLEs that provides a compact and an easy to use implementation of their learning activities on Java enabled mobile devices. In this paper, we discuss the design and the prototype of the proposed interoperability framework. The results and the feedback of the prototype evaluation with tutors are reported. The reported results and comments cover the system?s usability and its value for both tutors and students.

MobiGlam: A Framework of Interoperability and Adaptivity for Mobile Learning

This chapter discusses the principles underpinning the design and the development of a framework, MobiGlam, which supports ubiquitous and scalable access to learning activities. The framework allows full end to end interconnectivity among open source virtual learning environments (VLEs) and Java-enabled mobile devices. Through this framework, interoperability and adaptivity techniques are combined to address the technical, pedagogical, and institutional challenges of mobile learning. The discussed framework achieved a level of flexibility and simplicity that resulted in a wide acceptance of the framework institutionally, allowing its use in various real world settings.