- Not Yet Ready for Everyone: an Experience Report about a Personal Learning Environment for Language Learning. Abstract: A Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a mash-up of learning
services. It enables students and teachers to assemble a work
environment that is adapted to a domain and specific individual
needs. In this article, we report on our experiences on using a PLE
for Language Learning in five French lectures at the Shanghai Jiao
Tong University Continuing Education School. We found that while a
PLE has the potential to simplify access to and usage of Web sites
and services for language learning, students will use it only if
properly motivated. Furthermore, at the time being, difficulties
that result from the user interface and technical implementation
make the interactions with PLEs difficult. The problems need to be
overcome in order for PLEs to become adopted by the average, not
technically highly literate students and teachers.
- Cross-Cultural Multimedia Language Learning:
Case Study and Analysis. Abstract: This paper describes a pedagogical pattern for cross-cultural language learning and its application in a case study involving learners in Australia and China. The pattern uses a multimedia discussion tool as its main component, supported by video conferencing and chat. We analyze how students interacted with the tools, especially the documents they created and the commenting behavior. Based on this analysis, we give a set of recommendations relevant to practitioners and researchers in technology-enhanced language learning. - Supporting Flexible Competency Frameworks. Abstract: Since Bloom's initial work on competencies in 1956, various
competency systems have been designed and used to assess students'
competencies. Different pedagogical researchers and stakeholders
prefer different systems. We have been collaborating with them. Such
systems are essential for the adaptation by adaptive intelligent
tutoring systems. Now, this paper presents how ActiveMath
integrates several competency systems to bridge the gap between
different competency systems and thereby facilitating the reuse of
learning objects across system boundaries. The combination of
competency-related data is achieved by mapping a new competency
system to the internal one.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Talks at ICWL2010: PLE, language learning, adaptivity
The International Conference on Web-based Learning 2010 took place beginning of December. I had quite a busy schedule as I took the chance of having a local conference to submit quite a few papers. I talked about our research on Personal Learning Environments, language learning, and adaptivity. Click on the title of the paper to download it as a pdf.
