iLearning Forum 2007

Proceedings of the conference

Presentations — by Serge Ravet — last modified 07-06-2007 12:27

The presentation files of the conference

An instructional model to develop cognitive, metacognitive and motivational skills in problem-based learning environments — by Leonardo Tosi — last modified 04-05-2007 21:23

The present study investigates the experience of a nation-wide training initiative addressed to administrative and technical school personnel,based on an instructional model developed by INDIRE and supported by a technology-rich, open, and flexible training environment. This initiative was funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and supported by a national agreement between the Ministry and the main trade unions. The objective was the the in-service re-qualification of administrative and technical school staff, including the different professional profiles (laboratory technicians, administrative assistant, director...). The plan of contents covered a wide range of topics related to the professional area and to the school system, depending on the target profile (i.e. safety, first aid, privacy, special needs support, computer and Internet literacy, accounting, communication, human resources management).

Ressources pédagogiques en ligne et Web 2.0 Ontologie, Indexation... — by Michèle Drechsler — last modified 03-05-2007 21:23

L'administration française est en pleine mutation en devenant « électronique ». Le programme gouvernemental ADELE 2004-2007 (ADministration ELEctronique) prévoit un traitement personnalisé, centré sur les besoins individuels de chaque usager, dans une relation privilégiée avec les services publics. Le Ministère de la Fonction publique, de la Réforme de l’État et de l’Aménagement du territoire (Secrétariat d’État à la Réforme de l’État)a mis en place le Plan d’Action de l’Administration Électronique (P2AE) 2004-2007.L'Agence pour le Développement de l'Administration Électronique ADAE a été créée. L' administration « Éducation Nationale » soucieuse de s’inscrire dans le cadre de la LOLF pour « travailler mieux » avec plus d’efficacité ne peut pas se dispenser de réfléchir et de mettre en place des dispositifs innovants et fonctionnels afin de répondre aux attentes de ses usagers. Elle favorise le déploiement des environnements numériques de travail ou "bureaux virtuels" constitués d’un ensemble homogène de services numériques: travail collaboratif, vie scolaire, accès aux ressources numériques …

Interoperability between the new open e-learning platforms: an intelligent answering machine — by S. Martin — last modified 03-05-2007 21:32

Nowadays, all of us know that interoperability is a very important issue in the e-learning research area, due to the importance of being able to share contents and knowledge from one e-learning platform to another. Mostly, the efforts are focussed on creating and using standards to allow the mentioned content sharing, as XML, SCORM, etc. In our organization we are also interested in another issue related with interoperability: sharing the knowledge of e-learning platforms in a transparent way, due to the fact that sometimes a student in a platform require information hosted in another platform or knowledge source. To get this goal we are involved in the creation of a new tool capable of accessing to the content of several e-learning platforms, allowing a student to use one platform to access transparently to the knowledge hosted in another platform.

a successful e-learning strategy for a large U.S. retail organization — by David Guralnick, — last modified 03-05-2007 21:42

As the use of e-learning in the corporate world has expanded, it has often become less effective. Many companies have rushed to “put content online” and track employees’ training scores without clearly defining an educationally-sound strategy for using the Internet and intranets to improve employee job performance. Today, most corporate e-learning strategy revolves around technology, designed to ensure systems “work” efficiently and without error. This technocentric view also leads to overemphasizing typical systems activities, such as scheduling and tracking training, then reporting results in a myriad of formats. Unfortunately, these approaches fail to help employees, because they favor computers, programming, and administration over learning and support.

Quality of DIDACTIC resources: The Università Telematica “Guglielmo Marconi” experience — by Guia Venturoli — last modified 03-05-2007 21:47

On the debate of educational courses quality, the Università Telematica Guglilemo Marconi (U.T.G.M.) started from the anaysis of the more frequent “worst practices” in order to translate quality criteria into useful indications to design and manage a course. Given the focus on methodologies rather than technologies, the research objective is to achieve a balance between teaching needs and technological systems, also taking into accout creative possibilities that the latter offers.

AN ONTOLOGICAL APPROACH TO COMPETENCY MANAGEMENT — by Lundqvist, K. O. — last modified 04-05-2007 00:09

Competency management is a very important part of a well-functioning organisation especially when considering individual long-term development planning and organisational learning. Unfortunately competency descriptions are not uniformly specified nor defined across boarders: National, sectorial or organisational, leading to an opaque competency description market with a multitude of competency frameworks and competency benchmarks. The aim of the Leonardo sponsored project TRACE (TRAnsparent Competence in Europe) is to enable transparency between European competency frameworks that will include the use of an individualised common description language. This description will be based on a ontological competency description which will add semantic value to any description which has references to or bindings with it.

the Future oF Learning — by Amy Finn — last modified 04-05-2007 00:15

Over the years, we have come to expect the delivery of knowledge and information at light speed. Knowledge and information are our lifelines and the lifelines of the organizations we work for and with. Through physical presence, virtual contact, social networking and other means, knowledge and infor- mation come to us and from us, and from these interactions and the things we do, we continuously learn. Alvin Toffler wrote, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”1 Learning is one of the major topics that make the critical difference between our success and failure, now and in the future. W. Edwards Deming once said, “Learning is not compulsory but neither is survival.”2 The significance of learning, and learning about learning, is unquantifiable in its importance to who we are and what we do today and in the future. This, then, is an article about the future of learning. And it is not as easy to write about as you might think.

eQUALITY, PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES — by Harald Haugen — last modified 05-05-2007 07:55

Quality of higher education is a central part in the Bologna process, starting 1999 and intending to implement the EHEA by 2010. In this presentation special attention is paid to online learning, what professional competencies are needed, particularly the e-competence and quality of university staff when embarking on new practices. An international case study will be presented, where a special course in Pedagogy for Online Learning (POL) was designed to qualify university professors for the new challenges. The course has received very positive attention within the Global Virtual University, a subsidiary of the UNU, as a key issue for implementing e-learning at Universities in developing countries. The majority of POL students

BUILDING COMMUNITIES VIA A LEARNING LANDSCAPE — by S. A. Williams — last modified 03-09-2007 11:00

The Learning Landscape project described here is known as RedGloo and has several objectives; among others it aims to help students to make friends, contacts and join communities based on interests and competencies. RedGloo provides a space where students can support each other with personal, academic and career development, sharing insights gained from extracurricular activities as well as their degree programmes. The current version of RedGloo is developed on top of the open source project Elgg. It is aimed at members of the School of Systems Engineering within the University of Reading. The School includes the following disciplines: Computer Science, Cybernetics, Electronic Engineering and Information Systems.

A MULTIBLENDED SOLUTION FOR EFFECTIVE LEARNING: THE EXPERIENCE OF CONSORZIO FOR.COM — by Ilaria Mascitti — last modified 04-05-2007 08:43

The Interuniversity Consortium FOR.COM. (hereafter FOR.COM.), recognized by MIUR (the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) offers on line learning courses delivered through an integrated learning system consisting of an e-platform, a m-platform and a t-platform. The FOR.COM. has been developing and experimenting an innovative learning methodology since its establishment in 2004, merging e-learning, m-learning and t-learning solutions. The choice to set up an integrated system represents the effective combination of different delivery channels, teaching models and learning styles, based on interactive and multimedia communication among all the subjects involved within the educational process. The FOR.COM. promotes a learning integrated system set up by the Edu C@mpus e-learning platform, the m-learning platform and the interactive television t-C@mpus platform, with the aim to meet the different and various learning needs of the FOR.COM. students and to offer different training paths based on a wide multimedia ICT solution.

Taxonomie pour évaluer les models pédagogiques dans le context de l'enseignement on-line. — by Paz Prendes — last modified 07-05-2007 10:58

L'objectif de notre recherche est le suivant: Désigner une modèle d'évaluation pour analyser chaque aspect pédagogique que nous devons considérer dans les expériences de l'enseignement supérieur. Un des facteurs les plus importants à considérer dans la planification d'expériences de e-learning est la définition d'un modèle pédagogique qui tient en compte des diverses dimensions spécifiques qui influeront sur l'expérience, au-delà des dimensions classiques du dessin curricular qui devront être aussi tenues en compte.

UN RESEAU REGIONAL POUR L’ELEARNING DES ADMINISTRATIONS PUBLIQUES EN REGION EMILIA-ROMAGNA : LE PROJET SELF — by Agostina Betta — last modified 04-05-2007 08:51

Le Système d’Elearning federé pour l’Administration Publique en Emilia-Romagna a pour objectif de définir un modèle coopératif qui réponde et renforce l’utilisation de la formation avec les nouvelles technologies. Son objectif est de constituer un réseau qui intègre les ressources humaines, compétences, contenus, procédures et technologies avec tout le territoire de la région Emilia-Romagna, en poursuivant un équilibre entre la dimension régionale et locale.

138 Evaluation de la qualité d'un dispositif du e-learning : la nécessité d'une approche par le marketing relationnel — by Grace-Blanche NGANMINI — last modified 04-05-2007 08:54

Le e-learning est un mode d’apprentissage qui tire parti de l’usage des technologies de l’information et de la communication à tous les niveaux de l’activité de formation. Il désigne plus particulièrement un dispositif de formation dont les principaux objectifs peuvent être définis comme l’autonomie d’apprentissage, la formation à distance, l’individualisation des parcours de formation et le développement des relations pédagogiques en ligne. Il nécessite un degré d’implication élevé de l’apprenant car il interpelle tout au long du processus d’apprentissage la présence et l’intervention de l’apprenant à différents niveaux. Peu de recherches ont travaillé sur le lien qui existe entre les actions des acteurs et la qualité perçue par l’utilisateur dans une démarche plus relationnelle.

Les jeux en ligne : des exemples d’intégration dans la pratique des intervenants en employabilité — by Louise Sauve — last modified 04-05-2007 20:29

L’avènement de l’inforoute et la diversification des technologies d’information et de communication (TIC) accroissent de plus en plus l’intérêt pour l’utilisation des jeux éducatifs dans un contexte d'apprentissage, qu’il soit initial ou continu. Selon Ridley (2004), les jeux sont devenus la principale forme de divertissement des apprenants par rapport aux livres et aux autres médias. Au Canada, 63 % des Canadiens âgés entre 15 et 69 ans possèdent un téléphone portable (Ericsson, 2004) et l’utilisent régulièrement pour y jouer. Au Québec, 67% des Québécois vivent dans un foyer qui possède un ordinateur et 26% possèdent une console de jeu fixe ou portable (Alliance numériQC, 2005). Alors que la littérature académique discute beaucoup du potentiel créatif des nouvelles technologies dont les jeux éducatifs, le constat qui est fait, côté apprenant, est celui de la mise en sommeil des nouvelles aptitudes susceptibles d’être développées. Dans l’ensemble des pays, notamment au Canada, le potentiel éducatif des jeux numériques ne donne lieu à aucune réalité sur le terrain (Piette, 2005; Prensky, 2005a, b)

Employability in a Flat World — by Michael Brown — last modified 04-05-2007 20:31

Employability skills, a key indicator in the labor exchange for highly competitive business sectors, are morphing, and traditional models of identifying and placing the right person in the right job at the right time are showing significant stress fractures. Job and project requirements are changing at record speeds and skills and competence inventories are evolving. The two dynamics are not properly connected and are causing unwanted turbulence.

FORMATION EN LIGNE EN MILIEU DE TRAVAIL : UN MODÈLE MIXTE (SYNCHRONE ET ASYNCHRONE) OFFERT À L’AIDE DE LA PLATE-FORME PERSONN@LISA — by Louise Sauve — last modified 04-05-2007 20:38

Une étude de Sauvé et St-Pierre (2003) montre que les formateurs ont des compétences très hétérogènes par rapport à la formation en ligne; que le temps d'apprentissage varie d’un formateur à l’autre pour s'approprier des compétences; que les formateurs ont de la difficulté à s’adapter à une situation d'apprentissage individualisée où leur rôle n'est plus d'être un transmetteur de savoirs mais plutôt un facilitateur, un accompagnateur, un conseiller; qu’ils ressentent le besoin de développer des compétences d'aide et de support à la personne apprenante en démarche de formation en ligne et enfin qu’ils opteraient pour une formation sur mesure qui tienne compte de leurs connaissances et compétences préalables et surtout de leur caractéristiques d’apprentissage.

Rethinking Quality for Building a Learning Society — by Serge Ravet — last modified 04-05-2007 20:40

The article explores how the issue of quality in the knowledge economy and learning society of the 21st century might dramatically differ from that we have known in the industrial age. Until now, most approaches to quality were based on the idea that there is a clear separation between the producer of a good or service and its consumer. How should we define the quality of a learning environment where learners are not simply consumers of knowledge, but co-producers of their own as well as their organisation’s and community’s knowledge? How de we define quality in a system of prosumption, where consumers and producers merge? To suggest a response to this issue, the article will examine how the understanding of the organic link between individual, community, organisational and territorial learning is critical to realise the true power of e-Learning, i.e. the e-transformation and quality of all the processes linked to education, training, human resource and community development.

Informal Learning Opportunities in the Workplace – a practical approach with Small and Micro firms in traditional Manufacturing and Hospitality sectors — by Simmonds — last modified 04-05-2007 20:42

This paper seeks to explore how informal learning can be recognised, validated and accredited within small enterprises. It is based on the experiences to date within the Leonardo Da Vinci project, Informal Learning Opportunities in the Workplace, INFLOW. The developments provide input into considerations regarding the development of learning communities and communities of practice and how technology can facilitate processes of informal recognition and validation. This specifically relates to Theme #1 for the ilearning Forum 2007 around eStrategies and learning organisations and presents an approach that focuses on smaller enterprises in the real business world rather than Corporates and Universities.

EVALUATION OF QUALITY OF ELECTRONIC LEARNING RESOURCES