John Brecht

The learning registry: building a foundation for learning resource analytics

We describe our experimentation with the current implementation of a distribution system used to share descriptive and social metadata about learning resources. The Learning Registry, developed and released in a beta version in October 2011, is intended to store and forward learning-resource metadata among a distributed, de-centralized network of nodes. The Learning Registry also accepts social/attention metadata---data about users of and activity around the learning resource. The Learning Registry open-source community has proposed a schema for sharing social metadata, and has experimented with a number of organizations representing their social metadata using that schema. This paper describes the results and challenges, and the learning-resource analytics applications that will use Learning Registry data as their foundation.

CML: the ClassSync modeling language

The ClassSync Modeling Language (CML) addresses the problem of creating a controlling overlay to classroom learning activities, or e-learning workflows. Our aim is to allow authors and teachers to generate a mapping from activity design to its implementation in a wirelessly networked classroom with ubiquitous use of handheld computers for information exchange. CML models e-learning workflows with three major components: actors, data objects, and interaction networks. Actors are the diverse performers of actions, data objects are the semantically typed information units that are made available for exchange. Interaction networks are virtual networks constructed on top of whatever network ClassSync is running on, and dictate how information may flow through the ClassSync system (from actor to actor). Activities are the processes performed via these three components, in which actors create and consume data objects and exchange them over an interaction network. The benefits of this approach for students, curriculum designers, teachers, publishers and learning sciences researchers are highlighted.

G1:1 scenarios: envisioning the context for WMTE in 2015

The G1:1 international network of learning researchers met to identify major trends and uncertainties that could drive the evolution of learning technology. Using a technique called scenario-based planning, the group created stories of plausible futures that bring to life what collaborative learning may be like in 2015. These stories present contextual changes in technology and education practices that could occur, with each scenario considering a different trajectory. The group considered changes in the political and social goals of education and in the main role of teachers, as well as changes in the economies of publishing content. Using these scenarios as a way to think about long-term research plans could serve to make programs of research in wireless and mobile technology more robust.

Agile learning and collaboration: improvisational uses of group scribbles and other CSCL tools

Teachers in many countries now have access to wirelessly connected devices, but need ways to use that infrastructure to enable rich collaborative learning. Group Scribbles provides a dynamic and flexible medium that is easy to learn and enables transformative participatory learning experiences. A familiar Post-It note metaphor allows most teachers and students to learn Group Scribbles quickly and to use it to enable simple brainstorming activities without much preparation. This workshop brings together users and researchers from around the world to demonstrate Group Scribbles and other collaborative learning tools, discuss challenges of assessment and improvisational instruction, and develop design principles for producing activities that enable agile learning and collaboration in real classrooms. Through engaging brainstorming and design sessions, the workshop itself will operate as an agile classroom as participants use Group Scribbles to receive, generate, edit and transmit their own script to determine the flow and aims of the workshop.