Paul Sharples

Personal Learning Environments: Challenging the dominant design of educational systems

Current systems used in education follow a consistent design pattern, one that is not supportive of lifelong learning or personalization, is asymmetric in terms of user capability, and which is disconnected from the global ecology of Internet services. In this paper we propose an alternative design pattern for educational systems that emphasizes symmetric connections with a range of services both in formal and informal learning, work, and leisure, and identify strategies for implementation and experimentation.

Head Posture and Neck Pain of Chronic Nontraumatic Origin: A Comparison Between Patients and Pain-Free Persons

OBJECTIVE To compare standing head posture measurements between patients with nontraumatic neck pain (NP) and pain-free individuals. DESIGN Single-blind (assessor) cross-sectional study. SETTING Hospital and general community. PARTICIPANTS Consecutive patients (n=40) with chronic nontraumatic NP and age- and sex-matched pain-free participants (n=40). INTERVENTIONS Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Three angular measurements: the angle between C7, the tragus of the ear, and the horizontal; the angle between the tragus of the ear, the eye, and the horizontal; and the angle between the inferior margins of the right and the left ear and the horizontal were calculated through the digitization of video images. RESULTS NP patients were found to have a significantly smaller angle between C7, the tragus, and the horizontal, resulting in a more forward head posture than pain-free participants (NP, mean +/- SD, 45.4 degrees +/-6.8 degrees ; pain-free, mean +/- SD, 48.6 degrees +/-7.1 degrees ; P<.05; confidence interval [CI] for the difference between groups, 0.9 degrees -6.3 degrees ). Dividing the population according to age into younger (</=50y) and older (>50y) revealed an interaction, with a statistically significant difference in head posture for younger participants with NP compared with younger pain-free participants (NP, mean +/- SD, 46.1 degrees +/-6.7 degrees ; pain-free, mean +/- SD, 51.8 degrees +/-5.9 degrees ; P<.01; CI for the difference between groups, 1.8 degrees -9.7 degrees ) but no difference for the older group (NP, mean +/- SD, 44.8 degrees +/-7.1 degrees ; pain-free, mean +/- SD, 45.1 degrees +/-6.7 degrees ; P>.05; CI for the difference between groups, -4.9 degrees -4.2 degrees ). No other differences were found between patients and pain-free participants. CONCLUSIONS Younger patients with chronic nontraumatic NP were shown to have a more forward head posture in standing than matched pain-free participants. However, the difference, although statistically significant, was perhaps too small to be clinically meaningful.

Developing a reference model to describe the personal learning environment

How can we ensure that our educational systems evolve to better serve the needs of learners? This paper reports on initial work to create a Reference Model for a Personal Learning Environment, where the emphasis is on facilitating learning, in contrast to traditional Virtual Learning Environments which exist primarily to manage the learning process. This paper describes the rationale underlying the Personal Learning Environment concept and the advantages gained by specifying a reference model to define the PLE domain, before presenting a summary of the reference model itself.

Complementary assistance mechanisms for end user mashup composition

Despite several efforts for simplifying the composition process, learning efforts required for using existing mashup editors to develop mashups remain still high. In this paper, we describe how this barrier can be lowered by means of an assisted development approach that seamlessly integrates automatic composition and interactive pattern recommendation techniques into existing mashup platforms for supporting easy mashup development by end users. We showcase the use of such an assisted development environment in the context of an open-source mashup platform Apache Rave. Results of our user studies demonstrate the benefits of our approach for end user mashup development.

Augmenting the VLE using widget technologies

Can widget technologies revolutionise the virtual learning environment (VLE) and challenge the dominant design of e-learning? Are widgets ready to be deployed in todays VLEs? The authors describe an experimental implementation of the Moodle VLE using the W3C widget specification and Google Wave Gadget API to replace existing core features. This raises four challenges: 1) by replacing most of the functionality of the VLE with simple reusable applications, the core functionality and design of the VLE is challenged; 2) by allowing these applications to be extracted and used in personal learning environments (PLEs), the hegemony of the institutional system is challenged; 3) by conducting learning activities in small discrete applications, the model of student tracking is challenged; 4) synchronous, live updating applications challenges the model of user behaviour for the VLE. The paper also describes further work in adding widget technology to other VLEs using the IMS Basic learning tools interoperability (LTI) specification.

Developing win-win solutions for virtual placements in informatics: the VALS case

The placements and internships are one of the main paths to get professional background and some skills for students, especially in areas like informatics and computer sciences. The European-funded VALS project tries to promote the virtual placements and establish a new initiative in virtual placements called Semester of Code. This initiative binds higher education institutions, students, companies, foundations and Open Source projects in order to create virtual placements and solve needs that they have in relation with those placements. This paper introduces some projects about virtual placements that other institutions and companies perform, also the paper describes the needs, opinions and considerations about the virtual placements for each stakeholder involved in the placements, to finally explain the design decisions and actions behind the Semester of Code, and how they are intended to get better virtual placements and successful results.

Problems and opportunities in the use of technology to manage informal learning

There is a mismatch between the enthusiasm of policy makers and other actors for initiatives to support the validation of informal learning, and the lack of adoption of systems in practice. This problem is explored, with reference to the creation of the Informal Learning Collector in the European Commission TRAILER project. It is proposed that formality in learning can be usefully understood as a measure of the degree of managerial control over the learning process. It is then argued that the use of managerial tools, such as validation and competence catalogues, runs the danger of constraining the scope for informal learning. Analytics techniques offer the possibility of providing insight into practice by examining documents, without the need for formal description or tagging. However, these methods raise problems of surveillance (by companies and the state), confidentiality, and security of data. A prototype system is described which tests the feasibility of the approach.

Learning Design Authoring Tools in the TENCompetence Project

Since the IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) specification was published in 2003 (IMS Global Learning Consortium Inc. 2003) it has been recognised that the provision of effective and easy to use tooling is essential if the specification is to be widely adopted. Progress on tooling was discussed in Griffiths et al. (2005) and a more recent review of tooling and the wider achievements of the specification is available in Griffiths and Liber (2008), and it is in this wider context of IMS LD tooling that we situate the development of the ReCourse Learning Design Editor. Open image in new window

SELF-REPORTED INJURY MECHANISMS IN CLIMBERS

Background Climbing is an increasingly popular sport worldwide. However relatively little is known about the mechanisms of injury sustained by climbers. Objective To investigate mechanisms of injury in a representative sample of British climbers. Design Retrospective cross-sectional study. Setting Online survey of active climbers. Patients (or Participants) 369 active climbers (men n=307, mean±SD, age=37.66 ±14.38 years; Women n=62, mean ±SD, age=34.63 ±12.19 years). Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) Epidemiological incidence proportion (IP) and mechanism of injury. Main Outcome Measurements Injuries that resulted in medical intervention and/or withdrawal from participation for ≥1 day. Results Of 369 climbers surveyed, 299 sustained at least 1 injury in the last 12 months resulting from climbing. The IP was 0.810 (95% CI: 0.770–0.850). Thus the average probability of sustaining at least one injury was 81% (95% CI: 77–85). The total number of injuries sustained was 1088 providing a clinical incidence of 2.95 injuries per climber. 94 climbers sustained an acute injury as a result of impact with the climbing surface and/or ground, 212 climbers sustained an injury resulting from chronic overuse and 166 climbers sustained injuries resulting from a non-impact acute trauma. The average probabilities of sustaining injury per mechanism were: impact injury 25.5% (95% CI: 23.2–27.8); acute non-impact injury 45.1% (95% CI: 42.5–47.7) and chronic overuse injury 57.5% (95% CI: 54.9–60.1). Injury from chronic overuse was positively associated with indoor lead operating standard (P=0.007), bouldering operating standard (P< 0.001) and bouldering frequency (P< 0.001). The most common injury site was the fingers with 180 participants (60%) sustaining at least one finger injury. 85 participants sustained at least 1 chronic overuse reinjury. Conclusions The most commonly reported injury mechanism was chronic overuse. The most common site was the fingers. Chronic overuse injuries due to repetitive loading may have been historically preceded by a non-impact acute trauma.

Saxef: A System for Automatic eXtraction of E-learning object Features

New online courses are often created by using existing materials on the net.However, those materials are usually proposed without information on their aims and the typology of users which they are destined to. Moreover, the contents are not clearly synthesized so that a complete analysis of the whole materials is often necessary to understand their relevance to the new course.Using our experience on the creation of online courses with existing web materials, we have thought how to help teachers in fi nding the best materials for the creation of new online courses. To this end, we have developed a system, called SAXEF (System for Automatic eXtraction of learning object Features), that is capable to automatically extract the didactic indicators (a sort of DNA) of any web page (or group of pages) found on internet and allows a teacher to easily evaluate whether that page (with its contents) is of interest to him/her. This paper presents the main architecture of SAXEF, its implementation details and some experiences on its use. At present, SAXEF is capable to automatically extract various didactic indicators such as main and secondary topics, synthesis level and multimedia level from any group of web pages.