Ulrike Lucke

A survey on pervasive education

Researchers and developers worldwide have put their efforts into the design, development and use of information and communication technology to support teaching and learning. This research is driven by pedagogical as well as technological disciplines. The most challenging ideas are currently found in the application of mobile, ubiquitous, pervasive, contextualized and seamless technologies for education, which we shall refer to as pervasive education. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the existing work in this field and categorizes it with respect to educational settings. Using this approach, best practice solutions for certain educational settings and open questions for pervasive education are highlighted in order to inspire interested developers and educators. The work is assigned to different fields, identified by the main pervasive technologies used and the educational settings. Based on these assignments we identify areas within pervasive education that are currently disregarded or deemed challenging so that further research and development in these fields are stimulated in a trans-disciplinary approach.

Pervasive media and messaging services for immersive learning experiences

The public availability of virtual worlds, as for instance Second Life or the OpenSimulator, has introduced a new type of online learning, called “virtual learning”. Virtual learning is used to simulate face-to-face learning, to create new and innovative learning material and to interconnect distant learners. Unfortunately, the virtual environment is mostly exclusive and connections to other learning environments are rare stand-alone solutions with a lack of universal methologies. This paper depicts the benefit of “Immersive Learning” in the context of a systematic and flexible fusion of virtual learning and computer-aided face-to-face learning. This fusion leads to ad hoc learning scenarios, that are independent from time and location. They adapt to learners and environments with a seamless and transparent transition between both worlds. The fusion will be demonstrated and verified by an exemplary prototype implementation.

A service-oriented approach towards context-aware mobile Learning Management Systems

Thanks to the public and low cost availability of wireless high speed internet access students are increasingly equipped with mobile internet enabled devices to connect to university services like Learning Management System (LMS). But the applications services like LMS are still unable to adapt themselves to modern mobile devices with restrictions like reduced display size. By recognizing the device and its restrictions it is possible to optimize the LMS interface. Additionally by using device features like position, acceleration sensors, or the camera it is possible to detect the intentions of the user. The context of the users situation determines which university services are helpful and interesting. Gathering these context information and reasoning on them is the foundation of our context- and service-oriented approach towards a mobile LMS. This enables us to personalize the mobile learning experience with location-sensitive lecture streaming, campus navigation, and ubiquitous features of the whole university computing infrastructure. By using a service-oriented architecture we are able to compose a variety of different university and external services towards a pervasive university.

Security architecture for service-based mobile environments

The paper describes an approach for the integration of transparent security mechanisms into de-centralized mobile application scenarios. This becomes necessary as the communication among various devices migrates to wireless technologies at a progressive rate, finally leading to pervasive computing scenarios. Our result is a modular and heterogeneous architecture based on a high-capacity middleware. In this regard, the Web services technology is a guarantor for modularity as well as flexibility. It allows the integration of special tasks applying high security and mobility on different layers. This paper describes basic technologies used in such a system as well as selected aspects of a realized prototype.

SOA Interoperability for Large-Scale Pervasive Environments

Since years, the infrastructural support of pervasive environments like intelligent rooms and houses is an active matter of research. Corresponding projects have been agreed upon service-oriented architectures (SOA) to be used for a most flexible and transparent integration of existing services and applications in those scenarios. But, in times of everywhere low-priced internet access as well as ubiquitous use of personal internet clients (e. g. smart phones), former locally constrained pervasive environments become large-scaled. In this paper, we discuss the challenges of SOA for large-scale pervasiveness on an infrastructural level. Furthermore, we introduce an infrastructural model as well as a prototype that partially solves these challenges by using a systematic SOA interoperability concept.

3D interactions between virtual worlds and real life in an e-learning community

Virtual worlds became an appealing and fascinating component of todays internet. In particular, the number of educational providers that see a potential for E-Learning in such new platforms increases. Unfortunately, most of the environments and processes implemented up to now do not exceed a virtual modelling of real-world scenarios. In particular, this paper shows that Second Life can be more than just another learning platform. A flexible and bidirectional link between the reality and the virtual world enables synchronous and seamless interaction between users and devices across both worlds. The primary advantages of this interconnection are a spatial extension of face-to-face and online learning scenarios and a closer relationship between virtual learners and the real world.

A New Architecture for Heterogeneous Context Based Routing

This paper presents a new architecture for a heterogeneous context based routing system called HCBR that classifies devices with homogeneous network interfaces into horizontal cells and uses devices with interfaces in different cells to combine these cells to a heterogeneous ensemble by using vertical communication structures. Furthermore, a central and a decentral approach of this HCBR architecture are described which allow a flexible device communication inside an ensemble and permit reliable and context based data exchange between devices of different cells. Additionally, requirements in Quality of Service (QoS) as well as context of applications are considered for selection of suitable horizontal and vertical communication channels in a highly heterogeneous network infrastructure of a pervasive environment.

Multi-perspective Cooperation Based on Boundary Objects

Boundary Objects (BOs) are means of communication support for teams. In eLearning projects, teams usually consist of people with diverse professional backgrounds and different experiences. Due to this fact, team members have different perspectives on the eLearning product or service to be developed – eLearning system development thus becomes a complex and demanding task. Using specific BOs in a purposeful way can help people to communicate and support interaction between team members. Amongst others, process models, scripts, patterns and architecture models have been investigated as BOs for e-Learning system development)

The Process of Inclusive Design

Re-thinking the process of designing inclusive systems may help to identify the potential for re-use and interoperability of developed systems. Based on existing models of system engineering and project management, a process model for inclusive design as well as consequences for its practical application are presented.

Alternative Concepts for Accessible Virtual Classrooms for Blind Users

The use of virtual classrooms by blind users is hindered e.g. By inaccessible user interfaces, graphical and dynamical content, as well as synchronous communication. Based on a requirements catalogue for accessible virtual classrooms and existing concepts to eliminate barriers for blind learners, alternative concepts are presented for a two-dimensional Braille display. An evaluation using tactile paper prototyping indicates an improvement towards accessibility and equal usage for all participants.