Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper presents Lab@Future, an advanced e-learning platform that uses novel Information and Communication Technologies to support and expand laboratory teaching practices. For this purpose, Lab@Future uses real and computer-generated objects that are interfaced using mechatronic systems, augmented reality, mobile technologies and 3D multi user environments. The main aim is to develop and demonstrate technological support for practical experiments in the following focused subjects namely: Fluid Dynamics - Science subject in Germany, Geometry - Mathematics subject in Austria, History and Environmental Awareness — Arts and Humanities subjects in Greece and Slovenia. In order to pedagogically enhance the design and functional aspects of this e-learning technology, we are investigating the dialogical operationalisation of learning theories so as to leverage our understanding of teaching and learning practices in the targeted context of deployment.

Practical experience is an important component of the educational process. However, the time and economical resources often required for the setting up and construction of scientific laboratories is outside the scope of many institutions. A solution to this problem could be found in the adaptation of the Virtual Reality technology, which could allow the creation of Virtual Laboratories, which will simulate the processes and actions that could take place in real laboratories. In particular, this paper, based on the expertise and motivation gained by the VirRAD-IST project, proposes and describes such an educational virtual laboratory, which aims to meet the requirements of a real laboratory and furthermore to support communication and collaboration services. We propose a web-based system, which allows users to perform experiments on educational fields, such as Physics or Chemistry in 3D multiuser worlds where users are represented by avatars and they are offered a wide range of communication and collaborati on services in order to simulate efficiently a real learning experimental process.

In this paper we show how clustering techniques can be applied to student answers generated from a web-based tutoring tool. In particular we are interested in extracting clusters of students based on the mistakes they made using the tool, with the aim of obtaining pedagogically relevant information and providing this feedback to the teacher. The data we used comes from the Logic-ITA, a web-based tutoring tool to practice formal proofs currently in use in the School of Information Technologies at the University of Sydney.

Gender issues and severe related problems have been discussed in the context of using modern technologies over a long period of time. Similar discussions have concerned science teaching, especially the problems of physics education and female students. Finland has been one of the most advanced countries in the implementation of modern technologies, but even here there are several open problems. We have collected data on the use of different pedagogical approaches in modern learning environments in the context of science teaching. We have national survey data from Finland (3,626 lower secondary school students and 184 teachers, and 2,661 upper secondary school students and 81 teachers). These data show that both teachers and students have rather similar ideas about the need to develop versatile pedagogical approaches including the more active use of e-learning tools and tools available for modern science classrooms like Microcomputer Based Laboratory. This means also that a balance is needed in the roles of virtual and real components of learning environments. Male students were dissatisfied with the present situation of e-learning in science. Both genders wished for more frequent e-learning with more variety. We even performed a case study actively engaging in developing science teaching in a modern learning environment yielding more detailed and qualitative data in the context of a virtual school project. We discuss the benefits of such a research-and-development project even for inservice training of teachers.

In the last few years, the need for an automated way to assess people has increased quickly because of the growing request from both private and public structures. Many Learning Management Systems (LMS) have been developed in order to automatize the learning and assessment process. In most of the cases these systems don’t allow a quality content evaluation and an efficient ability estimation. In this paper we analyze the features of the Proportional Odd Model (POM), belonging to the Item Response Theory. The POM enables to translate an automatic test deliver in an efficient way in order to get an evaluation through either a summative or a formative way. The data have been collected in some undergraduate courses of Bologna University, by using test delivering and by authoring system developed in ASP and Java, respectively.

This paper describes a model that was successfully used for the simultaneous design and evaluation planning of a Finnish teacher training program in technology education that was carried out via computer-mediated learning. An argument for simultaneous program design and evaluation planning is given.

The Lab of Tomorrow project introduces innovation both in pedagogy and technology. It aims at developing tools that allow for as many links as possible between teaching of natural sciences and every day life. Since science deals with the study of nature and the world around us, teaching science cannot be separated from daily experiences that result from student’s interaction with the physical phenomena. In the Lab of Tomorrow project the re-engineering of the school lab of tomorrow is proposed along with the development of a new learning scheme based on the production of computational tools and project material that allow high-school students to use their every day life environment as the field where they conduct sophisticated experiments.

Nowadays collaborative educational platforms are producing an important impact in our society showing this influence in a huge number of researching projects. The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has gained its prominence in the building of collaborative environments for educational purpose providing new ways of producing learning. So, in order to obtain an educational system which fits with the educational purposes, it is necessary to join pedagogical and technical efforts.

More concretely our developments are focused on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) systems, in which the ground of the knowledge building is the user collaboration. In this paper we are going to deal with the design and implementation of a platform for supporting collaborative learning using tools such as whiteboard, chat, posting tools, modeling experiments tools and other tools which allows view the results from the experiments.

Regarding the design of this platform it is has been used J2EE technologies for supporting the asynchronous communication and Elvin notification server like to support the synchronous communication.

In this paper it will be also described how it has been developed the architecture, showing as well how the tools can exchange events delivered in the communication channel. Finally, we will show an example of collaboration inside this system, and it will be explained how the user can move in this platform as well as how users can coordinate the use of some resources.

A visual simulator has been developed as an example of Web-based education tool, which is designed for students to understand graphically internal behavior and structure of computer system in a course of information engineering education. It is written in Java programming language, downloadable from Web server and executable on almost all types of personal computers including Java virtual machine and major Web browsers.

This paper describes a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in a ubiquitous computing environment. The environment, called TANGO (Tag Added learNinG Objects) system, detects the objects around the learner using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, and provides the learner the right information for language learning. This system supports learning in daily life with PDA (personal digital assistant) beyond web based education with desktop computers. In the experiment, the learner played the game of TANGO, and was very interested in this system.