Juan Carlos Guevara

LORSE: Intelligent meta-searcher of learning objects over distributed educational repositories based on intelligent agents

This paper introduce LORSE, a multiagent system based on JADE (Java Agents Development Framework) to support teachers and students in the time consuming task of searching for distributed learning objects in several learning objects repositories such as MERLOT, Connexions and Fedora Commons Repositories, It offers them the possibility of developing this task in the context of a learning management system. LORSE consist of a set of intelligent agents, whose responsibility it is to deliver to users different learning objects in response to specific searches requested by the users. The agents connect with the repositories by means of RESTful web services clients developed as one of its behaviors and then they develop the searches over the learning objects metadata to provide a suitable response to users. The integration process of LORSE with the dotLRN platform is presented and some implementations results are introduced.

Web editing module for tagging metadata of the Fedora Commons repository learning objects under DRD and LOM standards

Nowadays there is a large and increasing body of learning objects stored on the Web. Some of them reside in different learning repositories, such as the MERLOT repository [1], the Education Network Australia (EDNA) [2], and the Connexions repository [3]. Fedora is an acronym for Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture [4]. Fedoras flexibility makes it capable of serving as a digital repository for a variety of use cases, including digital asset management, institutional repositories, digital archives, content management systems, scholarly publishing enterprises and digital libraries [5]. Many universities and companies around the world are using Fedora as a valid approach to manage their increasing knowledge. This document proposes an extension of the Fedora Commons repository which is composed by: A web editing module based on the ISO/IEC 24751-3 Digital Resource Description (DRD) [6] standard in order to label learning objects from the Fedora repository to provide them with accessible characteristics and on the other hand a web editing module to label learning objects from the Fedora Repository based on the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) [7] standard. Our approach offers institutions the possibility of labelling their learning objects in an accessible way, in order to facilitate the process of delivering the educational resources and the adaptive instructional design adjusted to the special needs of users. Our approach offers institutions the possibility of labelling their learning objects in an accessible way, in order to facilitate the process of delivering an adaptive instructional design adjusted to the special needs of users.

Accessibility evaluation improvement using Case Based Reasoning

Nowadays, many web content editors allow teachers to create web content as learning objects; however, most of these editors do not generate accessible web content. In many cases, the generated web content is not in accordance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). As a result, teachers and students with disabilities, e.g. people with visual impairment, people with hearing impairment, among others, could not properly use the web content in their learning or teaching processes. Moreover, some automatic tools for accessibility evaluation do not evaluate the web content using all the criteria from the guidelines; the rest are usually evaluated by humans (manual evaluation). In this paper, we introduce a tool to support accessibility evaluation in the generated web content when teachers use the TinyMCE web content editor. In this manner, we help them to identify web accessibility failures that can be improved. We also introduce a new approach for the web content accessibility manual evaluation process by applying the Case Based Reasoning technique. This work has been developed in the context of the European funded ALTER-NATIVA Project.

Educational simulator of conic sections supported by intelligent agents and semantic web: An example in the development and design of educational simulators for mathematics

This paper highlights the main aspects in design and development of an educational software tool that belongs to the simulators category, proposed to support teaching and learning processes in the topic of drawing conic sections, such as the hyperbola, parabola, circumference and ellipse in rectangular coordinates in mathematics field. The educational simulator was designed using a multiagent system with an ontology in order to increase the application performance and the feedback to students in web learning environments. The Simulator was completely developed in Java programming language under the Java 2 Enterprise Edition specification with the Java Server Faces framework using open source tools. In addition, the pedagogical design was based on the constructivism pedagogical model and the problem based learning model in order to develop an innovative tool focused on a modern approach in education. As a result this project propose an innovative design as an example, which can be followed, in order to develop educational simulators for mathematics using intelligent agents, semantic web and modern educational approaches.

Desarrollo y aplicación de un modelo de gestión de conocimiento para la interacción Universidad – empresa entre la facultad Tecnológica y el sector del software en Colombia.

La universidad y la empresa son dos de los actores fundamentales del crecimiento economico de un pais. Por un lado, la universidad, como nucleo de la produccion de conocimiento a traves de la investigacion e innovacion. Por otro lado, las empresas como elemento imprescindible en la implantacion de la innovacion en los procesos productivos y en la comercializacion en el mercado. Sin embargo, en Colombia la cooperacion entre la universidad y empresa no funciona de manera sistematica, debido a ausencia de gestion, diversidad de objetivos y desconfianza entre las partes. De esta manera, se necesita un modelo de gestion de conocimiento que se encargue de conectar a las universidades y las empresas para maximizar el beneficio a la sociedad. En este articulo, se muestra el desarrollo, la aplicacion y la evaluacion de un modelo piloto de cooperacion entre la facultad Tecnologica de la Universidad Distrital y empresas del sector del software en Bogota (Colombia) que se implemento a traves de la construccion de un portal Web. A traves de este articulo se podran aprender estrategias de acercamiento sistematico de la universidad colombiana con otros sectores productivos del pais.

A web content accessibility evaluation process for learning objects in the context of a virtual learning environment

A wide variety of web content editors that are included on virtual learning environments, help teachers to create learning objects as web pages to support their teaching processes, those editors add some accessibility features to the generated web content . However in most of the cases, the generated web content is not always according to all Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). As a result, teachers and students with disabilities could not properly use the web content in their learning or teaching process. In this paper, we introduce a plug-in for the TinyMCE web content editor to support the web content accessibility manual evaluation process by applying the Case Based Reasoning technique. It is useful, when teachers use the TinyMCE editor upon the ATutor virtual learning environment, because teachers can identify web accessibility failures that can be improved by using recommendations provided by human evaluators.

A case-based reasoning approach to support teaching of spanish as a second language in indigenous communities from latin america

Across Latin America 420 indigenous languages are spoken. Spanish is considered a second language in indigenous communities and is progressively introduced in education. However, most of the tools to support teaching processes of a second language have been developed for the most common languages such as English, French, German, Italian, etc. As a result, only a small amount of learning objects and authoring tools have been developed for indigenous people considering the specific needs of this population. This paper introduces Multilingual–Tiny as a web authoring tool to support the virtual experience of indigenous students and teachers when they are creating learning objects in indigenous languages or in Spanish language, in particular, when they have to deal with grammatical structures of Spanish language. Multilingual–Tiny has a module based on the Case-based Reasoning technique to provide recommendations in real time when teachers and students write texts in Spanish.

A Web Content Accessibility Evaluation Process for Learning Objects in the Context of a Virtual Learning Environment

A wide variety of web content editors that are included on virtual learning environments, help teachers to create learning objects as web pages to support their teaching processes, those editors add some accessibility features to the generated web content . However in most of the cases, the generated web content is not always according to all Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). As a result, teachers and students with disabilities could not properly use the web content in their learning or teaching process. In this paper, we introduce a plug-in for the TinyMCE web content editor to support the web content accessibility manual evaluation process by applying the Case Based Reasoning technique. It is useful, when teachers use the TinyMCE editor upon the ATutor virtual learning environment, because teachers can identify web accessibility failures that can be improved by using recommendations provided by human evaluators.

Model of simulator for the teaching of chemical distillation

This paper discusses how an educational simulator was designed and developed to support the teaching - learning process in the topic of single and fractioned distillation in a chemistrys course, taking into account the importance of didactical units to plan syllabus and the way in which educational simulators can be integrated as tools for a course in order to enhance learning activities under a web learning environment. Moreover, this paper discusses how the constructivism pedagogical model and the problem-based learning model were used inside the simulator in order to propose a model that can be followed to design other educational tools for chemistry, and obtaining a simulator completely developed with open source software. The model proposed in this paper consist of three main components, which are the didactic unit, the educational simulator and the pedagogical and didactical approaches, those components are described and were defined taking into account teachers and students needs in the topic mentioned. First of all, in this paper is described the problematic and background, followed by a description of didactic units and educational simulators. After that, there is a description of the solution proposed and finally the methodologies and outcomes are discussed.