Evolving Personalized Learning Sphere: People, Pedagogy and Content

Maria James Visuvasam Bosco Institute of Information Technology, Guezou Nagar, Yelagiri Hills, Vellore Dt, TN {jamesvm@boscoits.com} Abstract
This paper proposes evolving and setting up a personalized learning sphere in every educational institutions that is steered by powerful content and learning technologies. It presents the choice and selection of suitable tools and technologies that align with teaching and learning strategies. Innovative application of Information Architecture (an evolving discipline aimed at User Experience) in education to enable students find learning content in a personalized manner and have productive learning experienc e. Pedagogy tools such as, ReCourse as Learning Design Model to create effective learning pathway that fits the learning style and pace of a student by using computer-aided information mapping and assessment tools. Keywords: Learning Environment, Information Architecture, Learning Design Model, Learning Experience, User Experience, IT Ethics

INTRODUCTION The future is digital. So does the education and communities that invest resources in educational ventures. Digital future also defines innovative ways of teaching and learning, new areas of knowledge discovery and social interaction. In concluding, this paper makes several cursory proposals in evolving learning sphere that constitute people. Some of them are, making IT Ethics as part of all Higher Education Curriculum; State investment in Compulsory Residential Education (from K12 to Higher education), bold introduction of In this labyrinth of study for innovation, the reader shall identify two specific orientations: 1. Learning Sphere that intertwines teaching- learning process with affordable technology injection, facilitating student participation in pedagogical plan, course delivery and assessment. 2. Establishing an organization-wide Educational Content Repository (ECR) that enables single sourcing, repurposing and reusability of learning content to enhance the quality of personalized learning material. LEARNING SPHERE Lets begin with Philosophy. Learning Sphere is the derivative of Sphere of Knowledge, which in turn is the Unified body or collection of knowledge regarding a specific subject, interest or otherwise area of internship after K-12 to provide intensive academic and career counseling prior to embarking on Higher Education. In all these innovations, local community plays crucial role vis--vis technology injections and community support through knowledge exchange.

expertise possessed by an individual (Wikipedia, 2011). The Learning Sphere embodies, People, Pedagogy and Content. People being teaching- learning community, Pedagogy as the strategic reciprocity of teacher-student communities, and technologized content. -

repurposed and single sourced for on demand accessibility), time-tested pedagogy as context (domain-specific localization, adaptable to students personal learning style).

The educational system today requires

People

standardizations and concrete measures at micro level implementation. To evolve a Learning Sphere in every center of

Content

Pedagogy

knowledge assimilation, we begin with technology injection. Technology injections are a great enabler for quality of education

Figure 1 Learning Sphere: confluence of factors

even for a sick educational system. It enforces process, participation and progress on the part of educators. Often, educators and service providers play monopolized role in teaching-learning activities as well as decision-making. Learning Sphere aim to blend and integrate learning communities to instill richer learning experience, through technology assisted process and social networking.

The interplay of People, Pedagogy and Content is represented in the above Venn diagram (Fig.1), which is an adoption of commonly used Information Architecture (IA) definition. The Context of IA is replaced here with Pedagogy. The central intersections of this Venn constitute the overarching technology integration, which we will shortly deal with in the next section. In summary, the establishment of a Learning Sphere requires the following factors: collaboration by community of practitioners (learners, co-learners, strategists, knowledge provider, solution provider and academic / institutional mentors), a versatile content repository, (offering content-as-a-service,

TECHNOLOGY SURVEY Innovative approaches in technology injections from Primary Level and beyond has been experimented, some with success, while others not. The technology indicated are successful enough to become model integration, all the same, their impact on global education is still a distant reality.

Naming few, it is worthwhile highlighting some innovations as under:

Class Wikis Mobile apps (course glossary etc.) Interactive Whiteboards Digital Games Podcasts Lecture Portable DVD Players Video Conferencing using VOIP Second Life (web-based 3D world)

OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) The bold service-oriented venture, "XO Laptop" strives to revolutionize how we educate the world's children by providing equal educational opportunities for the poorest children through collaborative, selfempowered and joyful learning in terms of low cost, connected laptop. (OLPC, 2011) OLPC is a window towards progressive technology adaption from early school education to higher level.

Instructional Design Tools eLML www.elml.org RELOAD www.reload.ac.uk RECOURSE http://tencompetenceproject.bolton.ac.uk/ General Knowledge Base www.generalkb.com

School Server & Classroom Websites Establishing a campus level Intranet connecting each classroom in which students have active part by collaborating with the teachers and maintain their portfolios and projects.

Content Repositories OpenCourseWare (MIT), JISC SLOOP Project Repository of Free Learning Objects

Social Networking for Education Learning Management Systems like Blackboard, Moodle and so on exploits Social Networking prows of Web 2.0. It is acceptable under diligence to employ Social Networking tools to connect the teaching community with students and their wards to widen the presence of Learning Sphere and deliver personalized learning experience. Some of the Social Networking tools that most suit Education are: Class blogs

www.sloopproject.eu OER (Open Educational Resources) Initiatives of India (Kumar, 2009) NROC (National Repository of Online Courses) www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/

In my opinion, Social Networking is promising for India, especially when combining Mobile services in a blended learning environment. Ultimately, Mconnection is the next practical step for

connected learning communities. For a repository to be effective and active, it has to replace that of modern libraries. Countrywide libraries can transform themselves into educational content repositories acting as a node in the knowledge grid, disseminating knowledge in the form of personalized realtime content to teaching- learning community on-demand.

leading to verifiable quality learning experience.1

Elements of Ux Surface Skeleton Structure Scope Learning Experience Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Learning Domain Cognitive Psychomotor

Affective Strategy Knowledge Table 1. Ux and Blooms Taxonomy Correlation

Reader will note that the learning experience per se is found at the realm of psychomotor

IA FOR EDUCATION Applying Information Architecture techniques in Education, we have a working framework to draft learning strategy.

domain; that is the skill of the student on his or her ability to manipulate knowledge objects effectively in real-life scenario.

In the Learning Sphere that consists of

1. Content

assistive to self-learning scenarios, a student can make a choice with regard to his/her selection of content and collaborative methodologies for learning. The students can with an academic mentor, consciously build competence, fully realizing his/her potential.

2.
3. 4. 5. 6.

Collaboration
Competence Experience

Knowledge
Wisdom

Figure 2. Inverted Learning Ladder

From the multitude of choices, technologyenabled pedagogical Learning Sphere empowers the young minds with the freedom to opt for a learning path that suits ones inherent natural capacity to experience the knowledge and wisdom.

By juxtaposing the Elements of User Experience (Ux) (Garrett, 2011) with Blooms Taxonomy (NWLINK, 2010) we arrive at a practical approach to Learning Sphere implementation. By correlating Blooms taxonomy with the elements of Ux (as represented in the Table 1), we have the outcome of a quantitative learning design

The proof-of-concept has not been established, this assertion points to a research on impact of Information Architecture in quality education

Deploy content on a Web-based platform sponsored by institutions and organizations Dissemination information for justin- time learning through Mobile devices to learning communities

Figure 3. Learning Choices

Support Assistive Technologies with course content in Blended Learning environment

REPOSITORY OF LEARNING The proposal outlines simple tasks for a learning repository as follows: Applying DITA Maturity Model (JustSystems & IBM, 2008), the learning solution provider: Plan Repository implementation Design to, Migrate learning content to DITA format Transform DITA Topics into Sharable Content Objects (SCORM) Define Workflow for Content Reusability Specialize and personalize content as learning strategy Integrate content across specialization and personalization Elevate content to cross-platform semantics Establish Semantic Eco-system that expands learning sphere towards social learning. Deliver Content Deliver educational content to Campus-wide Learning Management Systems

Mop-up support for Connecting National, Local and Personal repositories

Technology Recommendations: Here below are some of the tools and technologies pointing to evolving Learning Content Repository): Joomla powered Websites, Alfresco (collaborative CMS and DITA Repository), MediaWiki / Twiki (Encourage collaborative knowledge sharing), Syntext Serna / XML mind XML Editor (DITA Editor), DITA OT (publisher) and RELOAD (SCORM Editor)

FUTURE OF EDUCATION In line with the design, development deployment of Learning Sphere that consists of Content and Web Technologies, the human-side of building educational community can happen with suggestions that would make a difference, if opted for it: 1. Inclusion of IT Ethics in curriculum: the rationale behind such inclusion is that the future of Security System will be based on IT Ethics.

2. Insertion of Internship within the K-12 education to enable every students be computer literate to reduce the knowledge and digital divide. The agenda for such an internship would include, academic and career counselling, aptitude discovery and competency building with the help of academic mentor and organizational support. 3. Instituting Compulsory Residential K-12 Education with parallel and progressive adaptation of technologies right from early years of education. 4. Education of teachers in collaborative learning and assist evolving peer-to-peer formation of the students. 5. Standardisation of national educational services for evaluation of effectiveness and empower key-enabler to make innovative changes. CONCLUSION Any technology injection that san people is bound to fail. This has been the case of numerous technology innovations and strategies. The proposal case, Learning Sphere is an attempt to integrate People (constitute teaching- learning communities, connected by social networking), Pedagogy (domain-intensive strategies personalized to educative communities), Content (digitized, single sourced, repurposed and semantified for breezy delivery) with a suit of practices,

processes and technologies. The integration of above deciding factor can consider information architecture which is thoroughly user centric and therefore its implementation in Education is bound to be student focussed. That being the advantage, this paper calls for further exploration and research in aligning human knowledge growth with technology adaption. REFERENCES Garrett, J. J. (2011). The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond. Berkeley: New Riders. JustSystems & IBM. (2008, February 4). DITA Maturity Model. Retrieved August 22, 2011, from Cover Pages: http://xml.coverpages.org/DITA-MaturityModel.html Kumar, V. (2009, March 12-13). Open Educational Resources for National Development in India. EADTU, UNESCO. NWLINK. (2010, July 5). Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved August 22, 2011, from Blooms Taxonomy: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloo m.html OLPC. (2011, August 21). The OLPC Wiki. Retrieved August 21, 2011, from One.Laptop.Org: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki Wikipedia. (2011, August 21). sphere of knowledge. Retrieved August 21, 2011, from Wikitionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sphere_of_kno wledge?rdfrom=Sphere_of_knowledge