Marco Kalz

Time will tell

This longitudinal study explores the effects of tracking and monitoring time devoted to learn with a mobile tool, on self-regulated learning. Graduate students (n?=?36) from three different online courses used their own mobile devices to track how much time they devoted to learn over a period of four months. Repeated measures of the Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire and Validity and Reliability of Time Management Questionnaire were taken along the course. Our findings reveal positive effects of tracking time on time management skills. Variations in the channel, content and timing of the mobile notifications to foster reflective practice are investigated, and time-logging patterns are described. These results not only provide evidence of the benefits of recording learning time, but also suggest relevant cues on how mobile notifications should be designed and prompted towards self-regulated learning of students in online courses. Mobile notifications and learning analytics can be used to foster self-regulated learning.Tracking and monitoring learning time on mobile devices improve time management skills.Learning analytics served on mobile devices raise awareness on the learning process.Sporadic contextualized mobile notifications support the competence of learning to learn.

Beyond the channel: A literature review on ambient displays for learning

The review analyses work in the research field of ambient display with a focus on the use of such displays for situational awareness, feedback and learning. The purpose of the review is to assess the state-of-the-art of the use of ambient displays with an explicit or implicit learning purpose and the possible classification of respective prototypes on the basis of a presented framework. This framework is comprised of theories around the educational concepts of situational awareness and feedback as well as design dimensions of ambient displays. The review sheds light on results of recent empirical studies within this field as well as developed prototypes with a focus on their design and instructional capabilities when providing feedback. The results expose that the explicit use of ambient displays for learning is not a prominent research topic, although implicitly ambient displays are already used to support learning activities fostering situational awareness by exploiting feedback. Overall ambient displays represent a technological concept with great potential for learning and the review facilitates a proper foundation and research questions for further research in this direction - towards ambient learning displays.

Positioning of Learners in Learning Networks with Content, Metadata and Ontologies

Positioning in learning networks is a process that assists learners in finding a starting point and an efficient route through the network that will foster competence building. In the past we have explored computational approaches to positioning based on the contents of the learning network and the behaviour of those participating in it, more or less ignoring different efforts to stimulate positioning and competence development from a top-down perspective. In this paper we introduce a research agenda for positioning in learning networks, discuss several cases and give an outlook on the development of a positioning service for learning networks.

Smartphone Apps for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training and Real Incident Support: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation Study

Background No systematic evaluation of smartphone/mobile apps for resuscitation training and real incident support is available to date. To provide medical, usability, and additional quality criteria for the development of apps, we conducted a mixed-methods sequential evaluation combining the perspective of medical experts and end-users. Objective The study aims to assess the quality of current mobile apps for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training and real incident support from expert as well as end-user perspective. Methods Two independent medical experts evaluated the medical content of CPR apps from the Google Play store and the Apple App store. The evaluation was based on pre-defined minimum medical content requirements according to current Basic Life Support (BLS) guidelines. In a second phase, non-medical end-users tested usability and appeal of the apps that had at least met the minimum requirements. Usability was assessed with the System Usability Scale (SUS); appeal was measured with the self-developed ReactionDeck toolkit. Results Out of 61 apps, 46 were included in the experts’ evaluation. A consolidated list of 13 apps resulted for the following layperson evaluation. The interrater reliability was substantial (kappa=.61). Layperson end-users (n=14) had a high interrater reliability (intraclass correlation 1 [ICC1]=.83, P<.001, 95% CI 0.75-0.882 and ICC2=.79, P<.001, 95% CI 0.695-0.869). Their evaluation resulted in a list of 5 recommendable apps. Conclusions Although several apps for resuscitation training and real incident support are available, very few are designed according to current BLS guidelines and offer an acceptable level of usability and hedonic quality for laypersons. The results of this study are intended to optimize the development of CPR mobile apps. The app ranking supports the informed selection of mobile apps for training situations and CPR campaigns as well as for real incident support.

Expert concept mapping study on mobile learning

Borner, D., Glahn, C., Stoyanov, S., Kalz, M., & Specht, M. (2010). Expert concept mapping study on mobile learning. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 27(4), 240-253.

The MOOC and learning analytics innovation cycle MOLAC: a reflective summary of ongoing research and its challenges

The article deals with the interplay between learning analytics and massive open online courses MOOCs and provides a conceptual framework to situate ongoing research in the MOOC and learning analytics innovation cycle MOLAC framework. The MOLAC framework is organized on three levels: On the micro-level, the data collection and analytics activities are focused on individual reflection and individual prediction. On the meso-level, data from several open courses are combined to support benchmarking and to create insights about behaviour of groups of learners rather than the individual. These insights can inform the institution to adapt their educational model. On the macro-level of the framework, cross-institutional learning analytics enables to develop learning and teaching interventions that can be tested in a cluster of educational organizations to analyse the impact of these interventions beyond contextual factors. The article proposes four areas of future activities that are needed to enable the MOLAC framework. These are the standardization of the description of the educational design of MOOCs, data sharing facilities across institutions, joint policymaking and ethical guidelines and last but not least standardized evaluation approaches.

Energy awareness displays: motivating conservation at the workplace through feedback

The paper presents a project that sets up to make energy consumption data visible and accessible to employees by providing dynamic situated consumption feedback at the workplace. Therefore a supporting infrastructure as well as two example applications have been implemented and evaluated. The resulting prototype fosters a ubiquitous learning process among the employees with the goal to change their consumption behaviour as well as the attitudes towards energy conservation. The paper presents the approach, the requirements, the infrastructure and applications, as well as the evaluation results of the conducted informative study, comparative study, user evaluation, and design study.

Skill-based scouting of open management content

Already existing open educational resources in management have a high potential for enterprises to address the increasing training needs of their employees. However, access barriers still prevent the full exploitation of this potential. Users have to search a number of repositories with heterogeneous interfaces in order to retrieve the desired content. In addition, the use of search criteria related to skills, such as learning objectives and skill-levels is in most cases not supported. The demonstrator presented in this paper addresses these shortcomings by federating multiple repositories, integrating and enriching their metadata, and employing skill-based search for management related content.

Assessing the Crossdisciplinarity of Technology-Enhanced Learning with Science Overlay Maps and Diversity Measures.

This paper deals with the assessment of the crossdisciplinarity of technology-enhanced learning ( TEL). Based on a general discussion of the concept interdisciplinarity and a summary of the discussion in the field, two empirical methods from scientometrics are introduced and applied. Science overlay maps and the Rao- Stirling diversity index are used to analyze the TEL field with a scientometric analysis. The science overlay maps show that a wide variety of disciplines contributes to research in the field. The analysis reveals that the field has been operating on a relatively high level of crossdisciplinarity in the last 10 years compared with six other fields of reference. Only in 2004 a decrease in the level of crossdisciplinarity could be identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toward a learner-centered system for adult learning

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an e-learning system that integrates the use of concepts of virtual learning environments, personal learning environments, and social network sites. The system is based on a learning model which comprises and integrates three learning contexts for the adult learner: the formal, instructional context, the personal context for learning management, and the social peer context. The paper outlines how the Open University of the Netherlands (OUN) implemented this model in the OpenU system and has piloted this system within the field of a MSc Program in the learning sciences. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the design and development of an integrated e-learning system following an ADDIE-based strategy and shows how the resulting system has been piloted. Findings – The result of the design and development process is an integrated e-learning system that was piloted with the OUN. Research limitations/implications – The limitations of the paper are ...