Mart Laanpere

Learner control and personal learning environment: a challenge for instructional design

In an increasingly networked and technologically mediated world, people need to continuously update their knowledge and skill base, so as to be able to self-direct their intentional learning projects. In addition to teaching domain-specific knowledge and skills, the role of higher education should be reorganizing current teaching and studying practices in a way that allows students to take control over their projects and environments. Contemporary models of instructional design consider a learning environment as a predefined element in instruction created and controlled by an educational authority. On the other hand an emerging personal learning environment (PLE) discourse emphasizes learner control over an environment. However, current interpretations of PLEs leave other instructional functions unattended. The article proposes an elaborated understanding of PLE, one which integrates important instructional functions of learner control. The theoretical framework presented in this article is inspired by conceptual ideas developed within the iCamp ( www.icamp.eu) project. The article illustrates the line of argumentation with students experiences gathered from a pilot course taught at Tallinn University, Estonia.

Open and Social Technologies for Networked Learning

Voice-based services offer major business opportunities in developing areas such as India and Africa. In these areas mobile phones have become very popular, and their usage is increasing all the time. In this project, we study the deployment of voice-based mobile educational services for developing countries. Our study is based on a Spoken Web technology developed by IBM Research Labs, and our focus is on India’s Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). It is being built as a service that runs on the telecom infrastructure similar to World Wide Web that runs as a service on the Internet infrastructure. Spoken Web proposes to build an alternate web for the underprivileged population that is yet untouched by the enormous benefits of Internet and World Wide Web. In this research project RuralVoice we also investigate how Finnish service and technology companies can co-create novel services for this challenging target population in three educational areas i.e. agriculture, healthcare and entrepreneurship education.

Web-based self- and peer-assessment of teachers' digital competencies

Although there exist several alternative frameworks and standards for describing the digital competencies expected from teachers, there is a lack of Web-based assessment tools that allow authentic, reliable and valid assessment of these competencies. This paper addresses the design challenges related to a software solution for self- and peer-assessment of teachers’ digital competencies. The empirical part of the paper describes the participatory design process and results from the first user testing of a Web-based self- and peer-assessment tool DigiMina, which supports teachers in building and sharing a personal competency profile. In DigiMina, the competencies are assessed by a teacher herself or by her peers using the performance indicators that are based on the competency model NETS for Teachers created by the International Society of Technology in Education.

Learning flow management and semantic data exchange between blog-based personal learning environments

The use of blogs as Personal Learning Environment is an emerging trend in higher education. While many teaching and learning tasks are easy to implement in a blog-based PLE, this type of tools still lacks some of the important features that made traditional Learning Management Systems efficient for both teachers and learners. This paper addresses the challenges of enhancing blog-based learning environments with two new functionalities: learning workflow management and semantic data exchange.

Supporting Cross-Institutional Knowledge-Building with Web 2.0 Enhanced Digital Portfolios

This paper discusses how to facilitate cross institutional knowledge building in the context of university-workplace partnerships. The elements of new type of university-workplace relationship, and the role of technological support are described and illustrated with a case study on Web 2.0 enhanced digital portfolio implementation in Tallinn University.

Exploring the Potential of Open Badges in Blog-Based University Courses

Recent developments with personal learning environments and open online courses have led educators to experiment with opening up their formal higher education courses. In these courses, the online learning activities take place in open learning environments based on various Web 2.0 tools such as blogs. Although this type of courses have a number of pedagogical benefits, they also raise issues related to private grading of students’ works and recognizing the learning of informal participants. This paper presents our exploratory study on addressing these issues by introducing open badges to master’s level course that takes place in a blog-based learning environment. Students’ perspectives on using open badges were evaluated through focus group interviews. The results of the study indicate, that badges could have a potential in formal higher education, if they are used more widely and provide an explicit choice of personal learning paths for learners.

Designing Dippler — A Next-Generation TEL System

This paper discusses the conceptual design of Digital Learning Ecosystems, which, as we argue, are becoming the foundation of next-generation Technology-Enhanced Learning systems (TEL systems). We illustrate our argument by a case study on design and development of a Dippler ecosystem. First, the framework for identifying the generations of TEL systems is described and expectations towards next generation of TEL systems are drawn from the literature review. After that, the dialectics of ongoing mainstream discourse (LMS vs PLE) is analysed and platform for reaching the synthesis is drawn. As we argue, the next-generation TEL systems are better understood if not referred as “learning environments”, but rather as Digital Learning Ecosystems. Finally, process and results of a design-based research on Digital Learning Ecosystem called Dippler is described and discussed.

Implementing a Technology-Supported Model for Cross-Organisational Learning and Knowledge Building for Teachers

This study proposed using the elaborated learning and knowledge building model (LKB model) derived from Nonaka and Takeuchi’s knowledge management model for supporting cross-organisational teacher development in the temporarily extended organisations composed of universities and schools. It investigated the main LKB model components in the context of teachers’ professional development; the kind of technological barriers to be overcome in order to implement such a model; and what the application scenarios of an LKB model are. Four groups of stakeholders, altogether 10 persons, were interviewed for the study. Data were analysed using a qualitative framework analysis method. The main findings of the study exposed the following difficulties in applying an LKB model for extended organisations for teacher development: teachers’ sense of identity, technical issues and organisational barriers. Several scenarios were proposed for the use of technology to facilitate the LKB model in the teacher development context using the e-portfolio and social learning resources repository.

Enhancing Learning Analytics in Distributed Personal Learning Environments

This paper describes LePress, a WordPress plug-in that enhances blog-based personal learning environment (PLE) with features and semantics that facilitate planning, implementation, and analysis of learning flows. The paper introduces learning flows in LePress, and then explains learning semantics the LePress supports. In order to demonstrate the advantages of LePress for learning analytics, we describe how it can facilitate explicit data collection and analysis of learning activities in blog-based PLEs. In order to demonstrate the advantages of LePress for learning analytics, we describe how it can facilitate explicit data collection and analysis of learning activities in blog-based PLEs.

A case study on using social media for e-participation: design of initiative mapper web service

This paper addresses the potential of using social media for improving inclusion of immigrants in society in general, but especially in decision-making about the policies and regulations concerning their life. We describe a case study, which was carried out according to the scenario-based design methodology and resulted with conceptual design and a prototype of a new social Web service called Initiative Mapper. This innovative Web service was designed in line with social media approach and it could be used for enhancing online collaboration between immigrants based on their needs, interests and ideas, through joint action and grass-foot level e-participation.