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Group-awareness for Mobile Cooperative Learning

Roc Messeguer, Leandro Navarro, Angelica Reyes

Department of Computer ArchitectureTechnical University of Catalonia

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G INTRODUCTION

Cooperative learning is an instruction method based on students working together in small groups to accomplish shared learning goals.

The location of every significant element in the workplace is a rich source of information to understand the structure and performance of the collaborative activities.

The problem of automating group awareness information into CSCL applications supporting cooperative learning activities, without passing this burden to group participants or overloading the instructor.

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G OUR APPROACH / CONTRIBUTION

We intend to use location information to automatically infer contextual information that facilitates CSCL support.

Exploring ways to support activities requiring work in groups

This information can be applied during the activity

to inform the instructor about the current organization of the classroom

to support students whenever they are in a given group

to collect log information for further evaluation.

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GROUP AWARENESS MIDDLEWAREInformation sources

The middleware picks up information from the physical level that provides location information

The middleware should consider: previously defined context

information (e.g. the characteristics of the classroom: number and location of tables, whiteboards, etc.)

previously defined rules (e.g. common rules to assign group membership based on proximity to a certain artifact).

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GROUP AWARENESS MIDDLEWAREInformation sources

The middleware picks up information from the physical level that provides location information

The middleware should consider: previously defined context

information (e.g. the characteristics of the classroom: number and location of tables, whiteboards, etc.)

previously defined rules (e.g. common rules to assign group membership based on proximity to a certain artifact).

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GROUP AWARENESS MIDDLEWARERules

The pattern of a previously defined set of rules: If (condition == TRUE) then {specific

action} has to be applied. Types of rules:

Rules to create groups Rules to destroy groups Rules to belong to a specific group Rules to assign a specific role to persons

belonging to a group

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GROUP AWARENESS MIDDLEWARERules

The pattern of a previously defined set of rules: If (condition == TRUE) then {specific

action} has to be applied. Types of rules:

Rules to create groups Rules to destroy groups Rules to belong to a specific group Rules to assign a specific role to persons

belonging to a group

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G GROUP AWARENESS MIDDLEWARE

Middleware

Management of groups and roles

ConfigurableRules

Context Information

Positioning Mobile technologies

Application Platform

CSCWCSCL …P2P

Management Overlay Topology

Processor

Group-awareness middleware

Management of groups and roles

ConfigurableRules

Context Information

Positioning Mobile technologies

Application Platform

CSCWCSCL …P2P

Application Platform

CSCWCSCL Logging…

Management of Overlay Topology

ProcessorParticipants addressPhysical classroom org.

Potential groupsPotential roles

Rule 1: First person joining group manager roleRule 2: …Rule 3: …

Rule 1: First person joining group manager roleRule 2: …Rule 3: …

SETUP

Middleware

Management of groups and roles

ConfigurableRules

Context Information

Positioning Mobile technologies

Application Platform

CSCWCSCL …P2P

Management Overlay Topology

Processor

Group-awareness middleware

Management of groups and roles

ConfigurableRules

Context Information

Positioning Mobile technologies

Application Platform

CSCWCSCL …P2P

Application Platform

CSCWCSCL Logging…

Management of Overlay Topology

ProcessorParticipants addressPhysical classroom org.

Potential groupsPotential rolesParticipants addressPhysical classroom org.

Potential groupsPotential roles

Rule 1: First person joining group manager roleRule 2: …Rule 3: …

Rule 1: First person joining group manager roleRule 2: …Rule 3: …

SETUP

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G EVALUATION

To evaluate how effective and useful is group awareness using location information

Implemented a simplified version of the middleware

Developed a instant group collaboration application

Experiment with real users in collaborative learning activities

Our intention in this evaluation was to assess how CSCL applications with automatic group awareness that assist group interactions result in any measurable improvement in the learning process.

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G EXPERIMENTS

The collaborative learning methodology followed in the experiments performed was a jigsaw.

The stages of the jigsaw activity we followed are: Introduction of the topic (whole class) The teams go over the problem in question and assign

a section to each member (by group) Individual work of each section of the problem (by

student) Expert groups work to master the concepts of their

section (by group) Home groups work to connects the various section to

answer the problem in question (by group) Evaluation (by student and/or by group)

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G EVALUATION OF LOCATION TECHNOLOGY

Initial tests with RFID tags (bad results) Triangulation based on WiFi (good results)

Placelab Software

The system can detect which students are on each group based on the location of each unique MAC address of the laptops they are carrying.

Location of students in the classroom (cm), home group state, (27 students, 30 minutes, 2 samples/min).

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INSTANT GROUP COLLABORATION APPLICATION

The goal of this application is to offer to each student a shared interaction space, permissions to access documents and disseminate events produced by other people in the same physical group.

The application offers a shared virtual folder for the group where any member can find all the documents that everyone in the group has made public.

The applications running in each laptop interact with other application instances in a peer-to-peer way based on Pastry, a distributed hash table routing.

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G EXPERIMENTAL DATA AND EVALUATION

Table 2. Individual qualifications out of 10 (scores from a quiz on the topics covered in the class)Location Group (IGC) Redianet group

(laptops)Laptop group(no app)

Control group (desktops)

Average 8.2 7.9 7.4 8

Std Deviation 2.5 2.6 2.3 2.5

Table 3. Group qualifications out of 10 (scores from evaluating the activity group report)Location Group (IGC) Redianet group

(laptops)Laptop group(no app)

Control group(desktops)

Average 9.1 8.4 7.0 6.25

Std Deviation 1.9 2.6 2.3 1.2

Opinions of students obtained from a “quick” questionnaire (what is good and what could be better)

Comments from the instructors Individual quiz (measures quality of knowledge)

Group document (measures quality of outcome of the activity)

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G CONCLUSIONS

Experimental validation and comparison among different settings has shown that location technologies can be effectively used as a basis for a middleware for the dynamic management of context information in terms of groups.

Deriving group membership information from location information based on WiFi networks is technically viable and can be incorporated in CSCL applications.

The use is beneficial for group participants for CSCL applications. The effect can be perceived in terms of user satisfaction and improvement on the learning outcomes and thus in student’s qualifications.

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Group-awareness for Mobile Cooperative Learning

Roc Messeguer, Leandro Navarro, Angelica Reyes

Department of Computer ArchitectureTechnical University of Catalonia