Marcel Berthold

A mashup recommender for creating personal learning environments

This paper presents an approach and an integrated tool that supports the creation of personal learning environments suitable for self-regulated learning. The rationale behind this approach is an ontology of cognitive and meta-cognitive learning activities that are related to widgets from a Widget Store. Patterns of such learning activities allow for providing the user with appropriate recommendations of widgets for each learning activity. The system architecture follows a Web-based approach and includes the Mashup Recommender widget and its backend service, the ontology available through a Web service, the Widget Store with its interface to retrieve widgets, and the integration into the learning environment framework. The pedagogical approach regarding the usage of this technology is based on self-regulated learning taking into account different levels between guidance and freedom. A quantitative and qualitative evaluation with teachers describes advantages and ideas for improvement.

Self-regulated learning in formal education: perceptions, challenges and opportunities

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is a term that can be used to describe an individuals ability to develop a skill set allowing him or her to learn in a number of different ways. SRL can also relate to new pedagogical theories that encourage teachers in formal education to motivate and support their students into achieving a high level of self-regulation. This paper reports on the findings of a number of surveys conducted with a wide variety of teachers in different countries, regarding their perceptions of SRL. The results and analysis of these surveys help inform not only the perceptions of SRL amongst teachers but also examine the challenges and opportunities that arise from taking this approach.

Tweets reveal more than you know: a learning style analysis on twitter

Adaptation and personalization of e-learning and technology-enhanced learning (TEL) systems in general, have become a tremendous key factor for the learning success with such systems. In order to provide adaptation, the system needs to have access to relevant data about the learner. This paper describes a preliminary study with the goal to infer a learners learning style from her Twitter stream. We selected the Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model (FSLSM) due to its validity and widespread use and collected ground truth data from 51 study participants based on self-reports on the Index of Learning Style questionnaire and tweets posted on Twitter. We extracted 29 features from each subjects Twitter stream and used them to classify each subject as belonging to one of the two poles for each of the four dimensions of the FSLSM. We found a more than by chance agreement only for a single dimension: active/reflective. Further implications and an outlook are presented.

How to Augment Simulated Environments by Services Supporting Self-Regulated Learning? A Baseline Study

This paper takes up the concept of self-regulated learning (SRL) and reports results of a baseline study on a simulation for medical training. This study has been conducted to provide benchmark data and evidence of the need for the development of intelligent services for learners, e.g. metacognitive scaffolding. These services aim at augmenting existing simulators in order to close the gap between virtual and real world experiences and to facilitate SRL. Follow-up evaluations on the simulator with integrated services are planned.

Integrating Collaborative Learning Into the Self-regulated Learning Process Model

In this paper an approach is presented how communities of practice (CoP) can be integrated with a process model for self-regulated learning (SRL). First, it is argued that self-regulated learning happens on a general learning level as well as on a specific level which is related to use a learning group as certain learning strategy. In order to link collaborative learning to a cyclic SRL Process Modell, learning in CoPs is presented on a general and specific learning level.

Towards guidelines for educational adventure games creation (EAGC)

Many recent studies have shown that educational games are effective tools for learning [1]. Despite the recent popularity of game-based learning and some first general guidelines for the creation of such educational games [2], there is a lack of useful practical guidelines for specific game types that address all relevant aspects of design, implementation and testing. This might be explained with the possible lack of experience of instructional designers with computer games and game designers with education [3], but it influences the focus and the approach chosen for the game design and implementation process. The goal of our work is to develop guidelines for the creation of educational adventure games that help not to forget any aspect. In order to do so, we refer to both existing guidelines for the design of entertainment games and existing frameworks for the design of educational games. We suggest a structure of five main game development phases (conceptual design and game design, implementation, testing and validation) and also take project management into account, to not only guide through the creation of the game itself but also to support the organization of the game development process [4]. Our next steps are to put the EAGC guidelines into practice and to show their applicability in a concrete example project, an educational adventure game on electricity, which is currently under development.