LEARN-STREAMING SUPPORT FOR PLN

O. Casquero (oskar.casquero@ehu.es)

J. Portillo, R. Ovelar, M. Benito, J. Romo

University of the Basque Country

LOGOS Final Conference: New Technology Platforms for Learning

19-20 January 2009, Budapest

New needs for elearning

• European Space for Higher Education (ESHE)• individual work together with

• teacher guidance• collaboration between classmates

• mobility (ECTS)

• So, we need e-learning environments that • combine social services to support collaborative

learning• high personalization that supports individual

characteristics and learning preferences• ubiquitous access to apps with a single identity

LMS inside institutions

• LMS play a major role in institutional learning

• LMS have become more feature-rich over time, but• our needs in learning resource management and

user interaction are a lot more• they were not conceived to keep up with ESHE

• …same static learning experience to all learners• …difficult customization• …not federated

• they are course-focused and institution centered• access to course resources ends when the course is

finished

Web 2.0 outside institutions

• And what about Web 2.0 ?• It is on the cloud

• web services and mashups • easy customization by selecting the apps that

appeal to us

• It is based on collaboration between users• social use of the SW

• the more people use the service, the better feedback they get

• It gives a digital identity to the user• OpenID

Looking for a new learning

environment• So, we can improve technology-enhanced

learning if we manage to fit and guide the gradual integration of web 2.0 into the institutional environment

• But it is by no means easy to deal with the “jungle”:• Adapt web 2.0 opportunities to the institution• Learn how to work in the cloud within a community• Manage the volume of data that is generated• Deal with different identities in different services

iPLE: a bridge between the institution and the

Web 2.0• iPLE (institutional Personal Learning Environment)

• A “garden” where every learner/teacher can use the cloud and live in community in an easy and secure way• A window to learning resources and services

• institutional and external services through a single access point

• hub to route learning resources on one2one or one2many basis

• Controlled by the final user but influenced by:• Other classmates (teachers or students)

• Institution

• Digital identity

iPLE architecture

PLN: iPLEs as learning units

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLEPLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE

PLE PLE

PLE

PLE

PLEPLE

PLE

PLE

Network of Blogs for supporting learn-

streaming• Learn-streaming simply means publishing and

sharing daily learning activities that constitute life-long learning

• Learners and teachers should be able to retain their own learn-streaming (evidences of acquired competences)

• NoB designed to support learn-streaming storage:• one blog per subject: teacher posts / students comment• one blog (e-portfolio) per person (teacher or student):

automatic retrieval of DLRs (posts, comments, images, videos,...)

Network

of i

Blogs

PLE teacher

PLE student 1

PLE student 2

teacher

subject A

subject B

student 2

Network

of P

LEs

Learnin

g Social N

etwork

s

student 1

LMS Repository

• Some social networks are derived from the formal learning structure in the institution

• Each person's learning experience is managed through a iPLE (a node within a PLN) and thanks to syndication, web service APIs and use of widgets

• E-portfolios and subject blogs are nodes for a network of learning content storage (LMSs, repositories)

Strategy for iPLE prototype deployment

• Widgets• the glue for integrating services

• Start Page• iGoogle as the container for the widgets

• many other alternatives are possible due to the open nature of widgets, which allows their placement in any container• e.g.: Apache Shindig

• iGoogle within Google Apps• administrator can configure a default iPLE for everybody

Strategy for iPLE prototype deployment

• Single Sign-On: • SAML for institutional services

• simpleSAMLphp: easy to install and configure, well documented and good support

• institutional OpenID for external services• In Spain, RedIRIS offers an OpenID SP to RnD institutions

• for the University of the Basque Country, OpenID identifiers are:http://ni.rediris.es/naiz/username@ehu.es

• Specialized repositories for each type of content• Flickr, Youtube, Delicious, Scribd, …• Benefit from the ecosystem made up of satellite services

Strategy for iPLE prototype deployment

• Network of Blogs• Requested features:

• Content management (posts, comments, images, videos)

• Group management• Feed management (aggregation)• Streaming

• Selected CMS: Drupal• Wordpress μ+ Buddypress could be also considered

LEARN-STREAMING SUPPORT FOR PLN

O. Casquero (oskar.casquero@ehu.es)

J. Portillo, R. Ovelar, M. Benito, J. Romo

University of the Basque Country

Logos Open Conference: New Technology Platforms for Learning

19-20 January 2009, Budapest