In this thesis I address challenges related to the design, development anddeployment of web and mobile technologies used to support CollaborativeSeamless Learning (CSL) activities practiced across a variety of learningcontexts. The scientific publications at the core of this thesis offer adescription of the research I have performed over the last five years, andcomprise studies involving several hundred users.My research efforts included the elicitations of the requirements for and thedesign of a number of web and mobile tools to support collaborative seamlesslearning activities. A web-based environment called CeLS was developed tosupport the orchestration of CSL activities. It was then expanded to integratemobile solutions, aimed to extend the ability of CeLS to support educationalinteractions performed inside as well as outside physical classroom. Thesemobile solutions were designed to implement learning activities that supportdata collection, personal response systems and interaction with mobile videos.The main aim of the research was to investigate how best to design tools andsystems to support students during the enactment of collaborative seamlesslearning activities, and to provide teachers with artifacts to design and assessthose. Special emphasis has been given to the exploration of approaches thatenhance the flow, reusability and sharing of learner-generated content acrossdifferent learning activities. Several studies were conducted in order to validateand assess these ideas and concepts. Various data collection methods wereused to gather data from different stakeholders during the deployment of thedifferent CSL activities. The outcomes were processed and analyzed resultingin a set of recommendations concerning the design, development anddeployment of web and mobile applications to support collaborative seamlesslearning. A software architecture including various web and mobile integratedcomponents used to support innovative CSL activities is also proposed.

<p>Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study.</p><p>This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes.</p><p>The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.</p>

Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study. This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes. The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.

Dynamic networking is a key factor for successful transnational organizations. The transcultural shift is a critical process that can enable cultural hybridization so as to inspire consensual identity and learning aptitude amongst worldwide members. The Global Learning Organization (GLO) model is re-conceptualized to bring about this cultural shift. E-learning seems an appropriate tool to generate effective transcultural communication for both culture and learning perspectives under the GLO model. A qualitative case study using document analysis and interviews is conducted to understand how transcultural communication is generated via e-learning under the GLO model in two fields. Findings reveal that firstly, trust is a core element in generating transcultural communication and the combination of face to face and e-learning can enable trust to be activated and developed. Secondly, the way to build trust varies depending on task characteristics: the detail-oriented tasks require more intense face to face communication than the concept-focused tasks. This study illustrates that design of various mixed learning pattern with strategies to build trust through the affective dimension will be key for the successful GLO.

No description available.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Previous studies on the academic utilisation of mobile devices in South Africa have rendered some invaluable insights into the rationale and different ways students utilise mobile technologies in and outside the classroom. However, these studies have addressed issues about social practices of adoption in high schools that emphasise tutor-directed, instant messagingmediated supply of supplementary tuition/training in subjects like science and mathematics. Consequently, insufficient attention has been devoted to understanding the dynamic complexities of implementing mobile learning (m-Learning) projects in tertiary institutions. This research contributes to the m-Learning discourse by exploring a collaborative m-Learning perspective, through the pedagogical application of WhatsApp, a special-purpose instant messaging service implemented at a University of Technology in South Africa. This research paper argues that mobile instant messaging (MIM) may create alternative academic discussion platforms for the students’ collaborative interactions outside the classroom, which implies the transformation of pedagogical delivery. The FRAME model was utilised as the theoretical lens for this study. An interview instrument was developed based on the FRAME model constructs. Face-to-face semistructured interviews were conducted with twenty participants. The findings suggest improved academic participation, the promotion of collaborative m-Learning for critical thinking, knowledge creation and sharing, as well as fostering effective learning through student-centered approach hence liberal transformation in the lecturer’s mode of instructional delivery.

Approximately half of the information systems (IS) projects implemented each year are considered failures. These failed projects cost billions of dollars annually. Failures can be due to projects being delivered late, over-budget, abandoned after significant time and resource investment, or failing to achieve desired results. More often than not, the failure of a project is not due to technical issues, but due to social and business-related problems. These issues can include a communication breakdown and lack of participation by project stakeholders; lack of a business case and success criteria for a project; failure to review project status, delays and revisions; and unrealistic schedules. While educators cannot address the issue of project failure in information systems directly, they can target the need to build collaboration skills and sensitivity to project business and social issues in students. The building of these skills and sensitivities can lead to more effective project team members and managers. Conversely, there is little evidence that higher education prepares students to be collaborators. One goal of this research was to determine to what extent students demonstrated group knowledge construction through online discussion of project issues presented in a real-world business scenarios. The Interaction Analysis Model for Examining Social Construction of Knowledge in Computer Conferencing (IAM) was chosen to measure group knowledge construction through discussions in a series of project problem scenarios. A second goal was to determine to what extent the knowledge construction through group discussion increases students' perceived level of awareness of information systems projects' social and business issues. Both goals of this research were realized to some extent. This study demonstrated that by the use of scenarios to expose students to typical social and business causes of failure in information systems projects, awareness of these issues could be enhanced between the pre-test and post-test groups. This study also demonstrated that through participation in discussion groups, individuals can demonstrate significant growth in collaboration skills. Further research should examine a population that has more balance with regard to gender of the participants, and should consider the influence of "guided reflection" provided by instructors.

Collaborative group learning is a popular method of instruction that is used in a variety of academic disciplines but little is known about how it is perceived as an instructional approach. The purpose of this study was to discover how college-level learners and instructors perceive collaborative group learning in regard to value and benefit, role of the instructor, and factors that contribute to positive and negative collaborative experiences. A non-experimental study provided information about participants in the form of descriptive data, correlational statistics, and qualitative analysis. Findings indicated that collaborative group learning was valued because it supported the achievement of learning goals, was an effective method of learning, and held professional benefit. However, value and benefit were reported to be affected by a variety of factors, such as work and reward inequities, the social context of collaboration, and the appropriateness of the activity to the learning situation and objectives. Findings related to the instructor's role showed that students acknowledged and accepted ownership of group processes; however, they also indicated that they would like the instructor to play an active role in the collaborative activity to support the learning process. This and other instructor role findings indicate the complexity of balancing instructor functions, as highlighted in results that showed some learners and instructors preferred a hands-off approach on the part of the instructor, while other learners and instructors felt that instructor involvement was a necessity. Suggestions provided by learners and instructors regarding instructor functions that supported effective collaboration included such activities as mentoring collaborative behavior, monitoring group and individual progress, and providing clear expectations and guidance. Findings from this study may be useful for informing the design, development, and implementation of collaborative group learning activities by providing insight into the factors that contribute to effective collaborative experiences, as well as perceptual differences and similarities between the learners and instructors. / Ph. D.

The collection and the use of data on the internet with e-learning purposes are tasks made by many people every day, because of their role as teachers or students. The web provides several data sources with relevant information that could be used in educational environments, but the information is widely distributed, or poorly structured. Also, resources on the web are diverse, sometimes with high quality, but sometimes not. These situations involve a difficult search of e-learning resources, and therefore a lot of time invested, because the search process – typing, reasoning, selecting, using resources, bookmarking, and so forth - is completely executed by humans, despite that some of them can be executed by computers. Linked data provides designed practices for organizing, and for discovering information using the processing power of computers. At the same time, the community of linked data provides data sets that are already connected, and this information could be consumed by people anytime as resources with e-learning purposesThe current article presents the findings of a master thesis that address the linked data techniques and also the techniques used by students when searching e-learning resources, using internet. The resources used by the students, as well as the sources preferred, will be comparing with the current resources offered by the linked data community. Likewise, the strategies and techniques selected by the students will be taken into account, in order to establish the basic requirements of an e-learning collaborative environment prototype.The outline of the thesis is:Chapter 2 discusses the research methodology as well as the constructing and administering the research survey in which the current thesis based the requirements elicitation. Chapter 3 lays the groundwork for the rest of the thesis by presenting the principles and terminology of linked data, as well as related work about the internet in education, availability of e-learning resources, and surveys about the use of the internet in e-learning resources searchingChapter 4 presents the investigation of the methods used by student for exploring and discovering e-learning resources through the data analysis and interpretation of the survey. Chapter 5 Introduces to the prototype design. It includes the prototype idea, the requirements specification using the data analysis of the survey, and the architecture of the e-learning collaborative environment using the assumptions reached in the literature review and the dereferencable URIs found in the linked open data cloud diagram. The design of components in the environment will be addressed in terms of UML diagrams. Chapter 6 Validates the requirements of the prototype.Chapter 7 Tackles conclusions of the master thesis project in order to find incomes for further research in the area. This chapter also shows the contributions e-learning world evaluation is based on the benefits indentified by using this approach and gives indications of what future work can be done to improve the results. The findings address the decision-making process for designing a new era of e-learning environments that enhance the selection of e-learning resources, taking into account the technology available, and the information around the World Wide Web.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:22:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Elaine Fernandes Mateus.pdf: 2501974 bytes, checksum: 8a7ef60567fa3ed7f7bc5fb933e42672 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-12-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research aims at investigating a collaborative learning activity system in its network of relations to other activity systems in order to (a) study its possibilities of reconceptualizing the boundaries between university-school worlds and (b) understand the relationship between discursive practices and the transformation of its constitutive elements. The study is rooted in the cultural-historical activity theory (Vigotski, 1930/1978, 1934/1962, 1978/1998, 1997; Leontiev, 1959, 1978, 1998; Engeström, 1987, 1996/2005, 1999-a, 2001/2005), with an emphasis on the dialogical-ideological perspective of language use (Volochinov, 1929/2002; Bakhtin, 1981; Nystrand et. al., 1997; Daniel et. al., 2004; Cheyne e Tarulli, 2004). Based on an expansive-collaborative method (Bredo e Feinberg, 1982; Cameron et. al., 1992; Magalhães, 1992, 1994-a; 2002; Cole e Knowles, 1993; Pennycook, 1994; McLaren e Giroux, 2000; Engeström, 1987, 1999-a, 2000/2005, 2001/2005), 14 out of 52 study groups integrated by three school teachers, one teacher educator-researcher and four new teachers were analyzed. The results show that within dialectical expansive non-expansive cycles the learning activity system was transformed, including changes in the ways subjects positioned themselves, conceived of knowledge and in their interpersonal relationships. The collaborative learning activity made possible the reconceptualization of (a) the object of the activity from new teachers reflecting on techniques, instruments and their own learning processes to subjects collaboratively creating artifacts to remediate childrens´ learning at school; from a decontextualized and fragmented view of knowledge to a king of potentially transformative knowledge intertwined to their life world (b) the artifacts from monological discursive practices to dialogical discursive practices; from traditional epistemological perspective where meaning is fixed to an intersubjective epistemological perspective where knowledge is collaboratively produced, distributed and consumed (c) the social relations from a horizontal relationship between new teachers, teacher educator and school teacher to a collaborative production relationship / Este estudo tem o propósito de investigar uma rede de sistemas de atividade de aprendizagem colaborativa e inovadora de professores, a fim de contribuir para a compreensão (a) de suas possibilidades de ressignificação das fronteiras dos mundos universidade-escola e (b) das relações entre os atos sociais concretos de enunciação engendrados em sua trama ideológica e as transformações em seus elementos constitutivos. Sob esse enfoque, o projeto se constrói nos pressupostos teórico-filosófico-metodológico da pesquisa sócio-histórico-cultural (Vigotski, 1930/1978, 1934/1962, 1978/1998, 1997; Leontiev, 1959, 1978, 1998; Engeström, 1987, 1996/2005, 1999-a, 2001/2005), com ênfase na perspectiva dialógica da linguagem (Volochinov, 1929/2002; Bakhtin, 1981; Nystrand et. al., 1997; Daniel et. al., 2003; Cheyne e Tarulli, 2004). Com base no método expansivo-colaborativo (Bredo e Feinberg, 1982; Cameron et. al., 1992; Magalhães, 1992, 1994-a; 2002; Cole e Knowles, 1993; Pennycook, 1994; McLaren e Giroux, 2000; Engeström, 1987, 1999-a, 2000/2005, 2001/2005), foram analisadas 14 transcrições, selecionadas num total de 52 grupos de estudo dos quais participaram três professoras colaboradoras lotadas na rede pública de ensino básico, uma professora formadora-pesquisadora e quatro professoras novatas, alunas dos últimos anos do curso de Letras Anglo da UEL. Os resultados apontam que na dialética transformação-permanência nas regras de participação e na divisão social do trabalho, foram ressignificados os sistemas de atividade de aprendizagem na universidade e na escola, incluindo as maneiras dos sujeitos se perceberem, as relações interpessoais e as noções epistemológicas. O modelo em foco possibilitou a ressignificação (a) do objeto da atividade de ensino-aprendizagem de professoras novatas refletindo sobre inovações técnicas, instrumentos simbólico-materiais e sobre seu desenvolvimento profissional, para sujeitos (re)criando colaborativamente artefatos com os quais pudessem mediar sua aprendizagem, bem como a das crianças na escola; de um conhecimento descontextualizado, e fragmentado, para um tipo de conhecimento potencialmente transformador/entrelaçado ao mundo da vida (b) dos artefatos de práticas discursivas monologizantes, para práticas discursivas dialogizantes; de perspectivas epistemológicas centradas no conhecimento fixo e estável, para a possibilidade do conhecimento colaborativamente produzido (c) das relações sociais de uma relação horizontalizada entre professoras novatas, professoras colaboradoras e formadora para uma relação de produção colaborativa