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Invited Speakers
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 Harmonizing content technology with standards technology |
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Abstract: Dissemination of fine quality learning contents requires standards to exchange data as well as support for ensuring the quality of them. Currently, standards technologies have been developed by standards bodies, for example, ISO SC36, IEEE LT, IMS. These standards provide formats of data related learning contents and have been shaping the foundation to share and reuse them. For the next step, I believe it is critically important to make it easier for practitioners to access standards technologies. Concerning IMS LD, for example, it is hard for teachers to use it directly for designing lesson plans of high quality. I see there are two reasons for this. From the programming language point of view, IMS LD can be viewed as an assembly language which provides a great flexibility to express lesson plans at the cost of big effort to learn and a high possibility of producing low-quality lesson plans because of the lack of guidelines.
In this talk, I discuss requirements of a high-level language for learning and instructional scenario descriptions (lesson plans) as a next-generation IMS-LD programming environment and propose a system named SMARTIES which enables teachers who do not know how to use IMS LD to describe a learning and instructional model in IMS LD. SMARTIES is an interactive system which helps lesson-plan authors break-down an abstract learning/instructional goal into executable actions interactively with useful guidance to output a high-quality learning and instructional scenario in IMS LD format. As an approach to realize this, I developed an ontology of learning and instructional theories named OMNIBUS and a theory-aware authoring system named SMARTIES with my colleagues. OMNIBUS defines concepts for organizing learning and instructional knowledge from both of theory and practice. SMARTIES helps users design learning and instructional scenarios with such knowledge modeled on OMNIBUS. Added values of SMARTIES from the viewpoint of standards technology include (1) it keeps the design rationale of learning and instructional scenarios with explicit intermediate goals of a sequence of actions and (2) it can explain many items in the scenario. I also mention my recent deployment activities of SMARTIES into a schoolteacher group in Tokyo in which SMARTIES has been extensively used to improve teachers’ lesson plans.
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Associate Professor Dr. Yusuke Hayashi (C3)
Information Technology Center, Nagoya University, Japan
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Dr. Yusuke Hayashi is an associate professor of the Information Technology Center, Nagoya university. He received Ph.D. degrees from Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Japan, in 2003. He was research associate of the school of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) from 2003-2005 and an assistant professor of the Department of Knowledge Systems, the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (ISIR), Osaka University from 2005-2010. He has been engaged in research on Knowledge modeling, Ontological engineering, Intelligent learning support systems, Knowledge management and standard technologies. He is a member of Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), Japanese Society of Information and Systems in Education (JSiSE), Japan Society for Educational Technology (JET), International Artificial Intelligence in Education (IAIED) Society and the Asia Pacific Society of Computers in Education (APSCE). He received the best paper award of ICCE conference in 2006 and nominated to the best technical paper award of ICCE conference in 2009.
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| Advantages of using mobile devices in learning situations |
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Abstract: I present two aspects of the use of mobile devices in learning situations. The first is their use as learning tools, similar to pencils and notebooks. The learning resources are in the outside of mobile devices. Classroom teachers design lesson plans, learning strategies, and activities. Mobile devices serve as tools that support learning activities and work behind the scenes. In the research field of m-learning, although the appropriateness of the use of mobile devices as learning tools, similar to pencils, may be an open question, the features of mobile devices, such as portability and the convenience of access to a network, have a positive influence on learning. The second aspect is the construction of standard m-learning environments where learning activities can be carried out using learning resources prepared in the mobile device or obtained by communicating with the server. Almost all elements of the learning activities, such as instructions, information, and scaffoldings, are embedded within the learning contents provided by learning system constructors.
In this presentation, I describe both aspects by using examples of experimental lessons that use mobile devices and indicate future directions in mobile device supported learning.
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Associate Professor Makiko Takenaka, Ph.D. (C4)
Center for Research in Education and Human Development, Oita University, Japan
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Makiko Takenaka is an Associate Professor of Center for Research in Education and Human Development, Oita University. Teacher education is her speciality, and she mainly lectures on the area of the Learning Sciences and Educational use of ICT. She received a Ph. D. in Educational science from Kobe University in 2005. Her research interest are CSCL, m-learning and Educational use of ICT (especially in classroom situations). It is one of her research characteristics to study in cooperation with a school or teachers. For example, in Educational use of ICT, the same system is used by different classroom lessons repeatedly. By conducting the repetition experiment over a long period of time, the validity of a system and the actual condition of learning support are verified. Such researches were evaluated highly, and she has been the recipient of APSCE Award for Best Paper in 2004, the Research Encouragement Prize by Japan Society for Educational Technology (JSET) in 2006, the Best Paper Award by Japan Society for Science Education (JSSE) in 2007 and so on. Recently, she has started the research on practical use of the ubiquitous device for elderly people’s lifelong learning. |
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| The Praxis of Designing 3D Learning Games with the Sustainment of Theories and Strategies |
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Abstract: Digital games have been used widely for the teaching and learning purposes across various fields and levels. Related research proliferated in the recent decade. Nevertheless, designing digital learning games is exceptionally different from those for commercial or entertainment purposes since educational practices require much more considerations in aspects such as learning context, content, involvement, and so forth.
As the 21st century education is supported and mediated with digital technology, digital games start to take the role as learning instruments. They are purported to provide customized, participatory, and immersive environments for learning. Thereupon, theories, models, and strategies pertaining to game designs shall be apprehended with educational perspectives. A 3D Role-play Game entitled as “Taiwan Epic Game” is aimed to present the history and culture of Southern Taiwan that has gone through its preparatory phase with the sustainment of educational conceptual framework. This talk is aimed to present the praxis of designing 3D learning games with the sustainment of theories and strategies.
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Professor Dr. Ju-Ling Shih (C5)
Department of Information and Learning Technology National University of Tainan, Taiwan
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Dr. Shih holds a full professorship in the Department of Information and Learning Technology in National University of Tainan, Taiwan. She earned her Ed.D. in Communication and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, specializing in distance education and instructional technology. She has two Master degrees: Ed.M. in Communication and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University; and M.S. in Broadcasting Production from Boston University.
Her research interests include instructional design and qualitative research in digital games, mobile learning, and technology-mediated education in various levels and fields. She is involved in several individual and collaborative studies, ranging from the applications of mobile devices in natural and social sciences education to the design and production of 3D digital learning games. Now, she is developing a cross-platform “Taiwan Epic Game” that integrates the mobile-learning and digital games for the exploration of Taiwan history and culture.
Her publications can be seen in professional academic journals such as Educational Technology and Society, Computers & Education, and British Journal of Educational Technology among others. She is on the Editorial Board (2011-2014) for the International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation (IJMLO). She received the 2012 Ta-You Wu Memorial Award and 2011-2013 Excellent Young Scholars Project from National Science Committee, Taiwan.
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