Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-08-03T17:31:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Cristina Marcelino Bento.pdf: 4724253 bytes, checksum: ffd05de4cac6fb2f3875d88d9a145f5e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T17:31:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Cristina Marcelino Bento.pdf: 4724253 bytes, checksum: ffd05de4cac6fb2f3875d88d9a145f5e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-13 / This doctoral thesis explores the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in education. It is a case study in a Salesian institution of higher education located in the state of São Paulo (Brazil). The case study outlines in qualitative research (BOGDAN; BIKLEN, 1994; YIN, 2015) comprising three stages: exploration, data collection and analysis. Its objectives are to describe and analyze how a group of teachers of this institution uses institutional and non-institutional virtual environments, identify and justify the use of non-institutional virtual environments and observe the differences in the use of institutional and non-institutional environments. Moodle and Facebook are the virtual environments used by teachers in the institution. The study noted that the use of weighted form occurs in both environments, as the process of understanding and\or learning environment of each tool, the adequacy to the profile of the students, or the need to understand their own role in cyberspace. The analysis concludes that there is need for change of the pedagogical practice for teachers using AVA as an extension of the classroom, which affects the teaching profile / Esta tese de doutorado explora o uso de Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVA) na educação. É um estudo de caso realizado em uma instituição de ensino superior salesiana localizada no interior do Estado de São Paulo. O estudo de caso delineiase em investigação qualitativa (BOGDAN; BIKLEN, 1994; YIN, 2015) compreendendo três etapas: exploratória, coleta e análise de dados. Seus objetivos são: descrever e analisar como um grupo de professores dessa instituição utiliza ambientes virtuais institucionais e não institucionais; identificar e justificar o uso de ambientes virtuais não institucionais; e verificar se há diferença no uso de ambientes institucionais e não institucionais. Moodle e Facebook são os ambientes virtuais utilizados pelos professores na instituição. O estudo observou que o uso de forma ponderada se dá em ambos os ambientes, seja pelo processo de compreensão e\ou aprendizagem das ferramentas de cada ambiente, pela adequação ao perfil dos alunos ou pela necessidade de compreender a própria atuação no ciberespaço. A análise conclui que há necessidade da mudança da prática pedagógica para o docente que utiliza AVA como extensão da sala de aula, o que afeta o perfil docente

This thesis has conducted interpretive qualitative research to investigate the impacts and limitations of LMS Moodle in distance students’ learning process from distance students’ perspectives. The qualitative data was collected from mediated semi-structured interviews with distance students participating in a Master program at Linnaeus University. Through empirical findings and analysis, the positive experiences and limitations of using Moodle in facilitating distance learning process have been revealed from distance students’ perspectives. The positive experiences include that LMS Moodle was used by distance students for interacting with other students, teachers and accessing study contents during their distance learning process. Moodle was used to know new classmates, teachers and the new learning system, recruit group members for the collaborative works, communicate with teachers and other classmates, and obtain significant information about courses. Especially, accessing study contents in Moodle easily was critical for distance students' learning. However, there were still some limitations. Distance students preferred Facebook to Moodle for student-student interaction during the process of collaborative works. The interaction with teachers was not adequate and timely for distance students. The limitations also include unsatisfactory Moodle interface design and poor usability of Moodle.   Some suggestions about improving LMS Moodle in different ways had also been acquired from the research. The suggestions from distance students mainly focus on integrating Moodle with other web conferencing platforms for improving the quality of student-student, student-teacher interaction in Moodle, ameliorating the interface design of Moodle, and adding Moodle tutorials. The result will help the development of LMS based on distance students' needs and finally benefit distance students' learning process.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:22:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Antonio Marcos Ficiano.pdf: 5036119 bytes, checksum: cb709e617e65237763b790ae354cf962 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-10-25 / The research work - which is characterized by the intervention - aims to understand and analyze the overall process of building an interface to the Moodle Learning Management System, assuming the combination of three elements: navigability, usability and architecture information seeking to encourage learning, which demonstrates the process of building the interface to highlight the importance of multidisciplinary work. The project addresses the Distance Education and the concept, characteristics and possibilities of interactivity of AVAs, with a brief mention of multimedia, the Internet and its history. Speaks of computer languages, programming techniques, classification of languages, types of software, models of virtual environments and web-based methodologies to software development, based on the approach to systems design. This is the Moodle platform, with its technological potential, examining the process of customizing the platform with an corporate course, in which greater navigability and usability have been taken as the base. And finish the job search when he observes the product built under the light of the concepts and theories studied, and how to apply these principles could be confirmed in promoting effective learning. Research has shown that both teachers and students are benefited by participating in classes to distance learning in virtual environments, while it is well structured, in that they enable the development of critical thinking, practical reasoning, ease of interaction, collaboration and socializing / O trabalho de pesquisa realizado - que tem por característica a intervenção -, tem como objetivo geral conhecer e analisar o processo de construção de uma interface para o Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem Moodle, partindo do pressuposto da articulação de três elementos: navegabilidade, usabilidade e arquitetura da informação em busca de favorecer a aprendizagem, que demonstra o processo de construção da interface com o destaque da importância do trabalho multidisciplinar. O projeto aborda a Educação a Distância e o conceito, características e possibilidades de interatividade dos AVAs, com uma breve referência da multimídia, da Internet e sua história. Fala das linguagens de computação, técnicas de programação, classificações das linguagens, tipos de softwares, modelos de ambientes virtuais baseados na web e metodologias utilizadas para o desenvolvimento de softwares, com base na abordagem de concepção de sistemas. Trata da plataforma Moodle, com suas potencialidades tecnológicas, com a análise do processo de customização da plataforma com um curso corporativo, em que uma maior navegabilidade e usabilidade foram tidas como base. E termina o trabalho de pesquisa quando observa o produto construído sob a luz dos conceitos e teorias estudados, e de que maneira a aplicação desses princípios puderam ser confirmados na promoção efetiva da aprendizagem. A pesquisa mostrou que tanto os professores como os alunos são beneficiados ao participarem de aulas a distância em ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem, quando este se encontra bem estruturado, na medida em que estes possibilitam o desenvolvimento de espírito crítico, a prática de raciocínio, facilidade de interação, colaboração e socialização

Learning management systems (LMSs) are the technical foundation for online learning programs that offer benefits to learners in a variety of settings. As with many enterprise software systems, LMSs are expensive and carry considerable risk. Exploring critical success factors (CSFs) and using them as a foundation for decisions concerning complex software implementations helps increase the likelihood of success. This study addresses the gap in knowledge concerning CSFs for LMS implementations. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover CSFs by exploring the lived experiences of 8 association executives who identified themselves through email communications as having managed a successful LMS implementation. Organizations providing online continuing education programs were identified using a publicly available list, and program managers were identified from the organization's website. Interviews using semi-structured questions yielded a set of tightly correlated CSFs from 6 of the 8 participants. General systems theory and sociotechnical systems theory underpinned the study. Moustakas' data analysis methods were used to code the interviews and develop themes, which resulted in a set of actionable CSFs. Stakeholder support, a well-planned implementation, an experienced vendor, and software that provides a predictable user interface were among emergent CSFs for LMS implementations. This research may have a positive social impact because reducing the risk of LMS implementations will enable organizational leaders to extend learning opportunities to more individuals. Those opportunities, in turn, will lead to prosperity for membership associations and the industries they serve.

Enrollment in full-time, virtual, K-12 schools is increasing while mathematics performance in these institutions is lacking compared to national averages. Scholarly literature lacks research studies using learning analytics to better predict student outcomes via student learning management system (LMS) interactions, specifically in the low performing area of middle school mathematics. The theoretical framework for this study was a combination of Hrastinski's theory of online learning as online participation and Moore's 3 types of interactions model of online student behavior. The purpose of this study was to address the current research gap in the full-time, K-12 eLearning field and determine whether 2 types of student LMS interactions could predict mathematics course performance. The research questions were developed to determine whether student clicks navigating course content page(s) or the number of times a student accessed resources predicted student performance in a full-time, virtual, mathematics course after student demographic variables were controlled for. This quantitative study used archived data from 238 seventh grade Math 7B students enrolled from January 8th-10th to May 22nd-25th in two Midwestern, virtual, K-12 schools. Hierarchical regressions were used to test the 2 research questions. Student clicks navigating the course content pages were found to predict student performance after the effects of student demographic covariates were controlled for. Similarly, the number of times a student accessed resources also predicted student performance. The findings from this study can be used to advise actionable changes in student support, build informative student activity dashboards, and predict student outcomes for a more insightful, data-driven, learning experience in the future.

Social networking sites are among the most popular daily activities of students these days. Students are mostly using social networking sites for communication and sharing of their experiences. Facebook is an example of a social networking site, which supports additional features such as creating a profile page, creating group pages and supports possibility of implementing different integrated application with Facebook. These features improve the Facebook experience, allowing users to form groups, where they can introduce ideas and concepts, which can be shared and discussed in a structured style. For this thesis we have created a new learning management system by implementing an online educational platform within a Facebook context. This work introduces a new, complementary style of education, where students can improve their knowledge and sociality outside the university in an innovative way. The platform takes advantage of gamification, which introduces game-like elements to concepts such as education and learning management systems, to make them more fun and rewarding. The goal of this thesis is to extend the educational border to an interesting online environment where students can learn, communicate, and examine their knowledge globally in different courses within our application platform in Facebook.

This dissertation presents a scalable web framework leaning system, Web-based Learning System (WebLS), addressing the distance learning scenario. Since the speed popularity of the Internet infrastructure and World Wide Web Services that have become the most commonly used information platform and an important medium for education; and expand to the Web-based e-Learning model. The Web-based e-Learning is not subject to the boundary of time or space that has greatly enhanced the effectiveness of online distance learning. The WebLS aims at bringing together the most promising web technologies and standards, in order to attain a scalability and highly availability online learning environment. Moreover, the scalable web framework includes a SCORM based learning management system (named LMS), a server cluster infrastructure, a learning content management service, an information and content repository (named LMS database), and an agent system supporting the innovative solutions taken to implement scalability, availability, portability, reusability, and standardization. The WebLS can store and provide Web access portal to learning contents from teachers, voluntaries, and institutions that lack resources or expertise to offer curriculums over the Internet. So, in the first we design and implement the web-based learning managemnt sytem, Learning Management System (LMS), which conform the e-Learning standard, SCORM 1.2 specification, that established by ADL, and satisfy the requirements of the basic functionality at online web-based learning. Besides, in point of the research topic of learning behavior analysis, we propose a study result for extracting better learning path, Experience Matrix System with Time Fragment Extraction (EMST), which can analyse the learner¡¦s study behavior in Web-based learing environment. Then the information is used to explore, analyse students¡¦ learning path in order to find out the suitable learning path for the more learners. As masses of learners concurrently enter the learning system, the system is often unable to serve such a massive workload, particularly during peak periods of learning activity. We use the server-cluster architecture as a way to create scalable and highly available solutions. However, hosting a variety of learning contents from different owners on such a distributed server system faces new design and management problems and requires new solutions. This dissertation describes the research work we are pursuing for constructing a system to address the challenges faced by hosting learning content on a server farm environment.

Orientadora: Profa. Dra. Itana Stiubiener / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia da Informação, 2015. / O grande avanço da Internet tornou possível que estudantes tivessem acesso à informação e conteúdos de aprendizagem independente de sua localização geográfica. Para potencializar essa mudança de paradigmas na educação surgiram aplicações educacionais em dispositivos móveis, nas quais o estudante pode ter acesso à informação em qualquer lugar e a qualquer hora. Assim, este trabalho tem por objetivo investigar se o uso de dispositivos móveis propicia melhorias da difusão da informação dos Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVA), e propor uma ferramenta que se trata de um aplicativo desenvolvido para dispositivos móveis, a qual utiliza alerta de notificações de novas informações que ocorrem no AVA para deixar o aluno ciente de novidades. A ferramenta é atrelada ao simulador AVA, um sistema desenvolvido que simula um Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem, e instalada no dispositivo móvel de um usuário. Para teste e validação da solução proposta foi feito um experimento com alunos de graduação de uma instituição de ensino superior. Constatou-se uma alta aceitação por parte dos alunos, a maioria afirmou que a ferramenta melhora a difusão da informação no ambiente virtual e também acreditam que todos os AVAs deveriam possuir um aplicativo para dispositivo móvel incorporado ao sistema. Verificou-se que a solução proposta ajuda estudantes a otimizarem seu tempo de busca de novas informações, sem a necessidade do uso de um desktop ou lugar específico para acessar as informações do AVA, contribuindo para que a informação chegue aos estudantes de forma mais rápida e otimizando o tempo de acesso ao AVA. / The breakthrough of the Internet made it possible for students to have access to information and learning content independent of location. To leverage this paradigm shift in education emerged educational applications on mobile devices, in which the student may have access to information anywhere and anytime. So, this study aims to investigate whether the use of mobile devices provide improvements in the dissemination of information on Learning Management System (LMS), and propose a tool that it is an application designed for mobile devices, which uses notifications alert of new information occurring in the LMS to make the student aware of updates, the tool will be linked to LMS simulator, a system developed that simulates a Learning Management System, and installed on the user's mobile device. For testing and validation of the proposed solution has made an experiment with undergraduate students in a higher education institution. It was found high acceptance by the students, the majority found that the tool improves the dissemination of information in the virtual environment and also believe that all LMS should have an application for mobile device built into the system. This solution benefits students to optimize their search time new information without the need of using a desktop or a specific place to access the LMS information, contributing to that information reaches students more quickly and the time to access the LMS also be optimized.

No description available.

This thesis aims to explore learning management systems use and usefulness in Higher Education (HE) environments in a Middle Eastern developing country (Saudi Arabia) and gauge what factors influence the attitudes of the learners and by the same token investigate which of these, if any, do affect their performances in such environments. This study intends to delve into these factors and single out any relationships that might exist among these factors. The LMS (learning management system) chosen for the purpose of this research is the „Blackboard‟ LMS. To enable the researcher to look thoroughly at the issue, three separate studies were conducted to achieve comprehensive results. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were combined for maximum Data collection from participants using questionnaires, interviews and numerical data from the Blackboard tracking system. A framework encompassing all the perceived critical variables that could play a part in affecting students' attitudes in the use of the Blackboard LMS and their overall achievements was designed, developed and then tested. The framework consists of four main parts, 1) Learners interaction with their peers; their ability to use the Internet and associated technologies, named 'learner dimension'. 2) Instructors‟ technical knowledge and competence, the manner in which they deliver lessons to learners using 'Blackboard' and the interactions taking place between the two parties named ' instructor variable or dimension'. 3) The technology itself variable or dimension: usability, flexibility and quality. 4) The HE institution's support dimension: training and technical support. The results have indicated that students were keen to adopt the LMS Blackboard for their courses. Instructor attitudes and behaviours when using Blackboard were found to play a major role in students' attitudes and performances. A major relationship was found in relation to student gender, academic specialization and attitude towards using the LMS, but not in the way the system is used. Students varied and various academic specializations were found to impact positively on their attitude towards the use of the system and in their learning (in terms of performance on a specific course). The learner variable was found to be a good indicator of how students behaved towards VLE and Blackboard and their achievements. The Instructor dimension was also found to be a positive indicator of students' attitudes, their use of Blackboard and achievements in its use. Similarly the technology and the HE institution variables were also found to be sound indicators of their attitudes.