Andrej Afonin

RESEARCH AND ASSEMBLING OF DISTRIBUTED LEARNING

ENVIRONMENTS

Andrej AfoninKaunas University of Technology

Traditional education

• 1 teacher – many students• 1 source of information• Teacher in the middle Teacher

Student

Student

Student

Auditorium

Knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge

Results

Results

Results

Teacher

StudentStudent

StudentStudentKnowlegde

Results

Knowledge

Results

Knowledge

Results

Knowlegde

Results

Auditorium

Learning enhanced with VLE

• 1 teacher – many students• 1 source of information• Teacher in the middle

• Benefits– Reuse of Learning Material– Facilitated testing– Asynchronous communication

Teacher

Student

Student

Student

VLE

Knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge

Results

Results

Results

Teacher

StudentStudent

StudentStudentKnowlegde

Results

Knowledge

Results

Knowledge

Results

Knowlegde

Results

VLE

Current situation in TEL

Student

Teacher

E-mail

Blogs

Media resources / Video blogs / Podcasts

Social Bookmarking

Collaborative development tools

VLE

Knowlegde

Results

Discover Share

Read

Write

Get

Send

Read Write

WatchCreate

Internet + RSS

Rea

d W

rite

• 1 teacher – many students

• Multiple sources of information, teacher is one of many

• Changing role of educator from being a manager to being a facilitator

• Student in the middle

SolutionPLE

E-mail

E-mail

Teacher

VLE

Social Bookmarking

Bookmarking

Wiki


Blogs


Blogs

Media

RSS

Internet + RSS

Internet / Distributed Services

A framework, meeting raised challenges, for building Personal Learning Environment (PLE).

A PLE is a concept based on Web 2.0 technology. It’s a browser based collection of tools which create an environment where learner access information from variety of sources

The main point of PLEs is that they are personal and they are learner-centric and can be whatever the learner wants them to be

(Laura Overton)

PLE elements• Production tools

– Developing own content e.g. blogs, wiki

• Collaboration and Sharing tools– Share content with others

• Communication tools– Instant messaging, video-conferencing,

email• Storage tools• Aggregation content

– RSS• Aggregating people

– Social networking• Aggregating software

– Mash-ups• Identity management

– Single sign-on• API and protocols

– Key requirements for PLE to grow

(Laura Overton)

PLE

E-mail

E-mail

Teacher

VLE

Social Bookmarking

Bookmarking

Wiki


Blogs


Blogs

Media

RSS

Internet + RSS

Internet / Distributed Services

Benefits

• Create a repository of material about particular subject matter

• Communication and collaboration• Organize material in a way is personal to you• Learn formally and informally• Learn at a time and place to suite you• Learn through out your life• Interact with colleagues and wider communities• Explore a subject in an informal manner• Reflect on your learning• Submit work for assessment and review

Drawbacks

• Number of tools and their use depends on learners computer performance

• Informational literacy

• Essential to reconcile the structured nature of formal education with informal attributes of networked learning

• Data privacy and security issues

Educational issues

• Web 2.0 services use cases and learning scenarios– trials with students

• Results– paper about iCamp distributed environment– paper about social software, past, presence and

future tendencies– paper about use of social software in learning process

Technological solutions• .NET technologies + jQuery• OAuth protocol for a single sign-on• Distributed architecture support

– Web Sockets, HTTP extension for synchronous and asynchronous communication

• Suitable for intensive data exchange• Dense applications with many independent elements• Cross-domain applications• HTTP for establishing connection, pure TCP session for data exchange

– PubSubHubbub protocol• open server-to-server publish/subscribe protocol as an extension to Atom

and RSS• turns existing Atom and RSS feeds to real-time streams

• Journal paper about distributed system design and implementation

Concerns && Discussions

• No concerns about technology– Working prototype in 6 month

• Where is science?– what to write in my thesis's

Thank you slide

Thank you for your attention!

Andrej Afonin

Kaunas University of Technology

[email protected]