Current Projects
- ColMOOC: ColMOOC aims to enhance the MOOCs experience by integrating:
- Collaborative settings based on Conversational Agents (CA) both in synchronous and asynchronous collaboration conditions
- Screening methods based on Learning Analytics (LA) to support both students and teachers during a MOOC course
- Reinforce European leadership by forming recommendations and policy guidelines
For more information, please visit http://www.colmooc.eu
- Competence-Sea: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can foster equal access to education in specific regions. This project aims to empower specific groups of learners in Southeast Asia, such as single mothers in Malaysia, entrepeneurs in Indonesia, and rural health workers in the Phillipines with MOOCs. For more information, please visit http://competen-sea.eu
- Interreg “Uni-GR Masters Border Studies”: The UniGR-Center for Border Studies closely brings together researchers and students of Uni-GR partner universities, ensures optimal research conditions, and promotes dialogue between academia and politics. Digitalisation shall be sensibly used to assist these processes. Online platforms shall offer a common cross-border point of reference for reseach and studying. For example, under the expert support of the department of Educational Technology, in a trilingual glossary, key concepts of border studies are compiled in an online database. Moreover, our main contribution, is the design and evaluation of technology-supported collaborative learning scenarios to cater for the needs of the “Border Studies” Masters. For more information see Uni-GR Border Studies
- PIAF: PIAF (Développement de la pensée informatique et algorithmique dans l’enseignement fundamental – Development of computational and algorithmic thinking in basic education) is an Erasmus+ project in cooperation with Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. The goals are to define a conceptual framework and a common reference framework of competencies, and to educate teachers regarding computational and algorithmic thinking through participatory design activities in multiple workshops. More information as well as Computational Thinking resources can be found on the PIAF website.
Completed Projects
- Advise-Me: The objective of this project is to develop flexible support for detailed diagnostics of mathematical competences of pupils, and to
use this in digital environments of mathematics education. This results in dashboards for teachers to identify and help underachievers and to monitor groups (“Pilot-in-the-cockpit approach”) or awareness tools for pupils for an accurate understanding of their own performance and progress (“Fly-yourself-approach”). Also the system itself can use the diagnostic information for adapting the environment to the level of an individual, for example by selecting the next task to offer (“Autopilot-approach”). Please see http://advise-me.ou.nl/ for more information on the project’s website. - Adaptive argumentation support in Facebook. Building on former projects below, we develop a Facebook app that analyzes one’s personality type and provides tailored script support for building sound arguments on Facebook.
- Argumentation diagrams on tabletops for supporting AppInventor designs. Here, groups of students jointly create a smartphone app with the help of a generic tabletop environment including collaboration scripts and awareness tools. The learning activities are orchestrated so that learners first jointly create and lay out the design on the tabletop and then use AppInventor to actually create the app.
- Arguing in Facebook – Pilot Project: Social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook have the potential to host and support argumentative knowledge construction (AKC). However, little is known about how to use SNS for AKC. In this pilot project, we investigate the potential benefits of graphically represented computer-supported argumentation scripts. A follow-up field study using Facebook explores how an academic debate continues to impact learners’ voluntary Facebook use.
- MUPEMURE STELLAR Theme Team: The MUPEMURE Theme Team investigates how learners can be facilitated to actively share, process and acquire multiple perspectives on multiple representations of mathematical and science topics. We combine latest technology for creating, modifying, and sharing representations in CSCL scenarios with group awareness and scripting approaches.
- MuSuCoL STELLAR Theme Team: A significant paradigm shift is underway from traditional desktop computing of mouse and keyboard to interactive surfaces. The MuSuCoL Theme Team has two goals: (1) to better support and connect the research community around learning with interactive surfaces and (2) to advance the research on collaborative learning using multiple interactive surfaces.
- Orchestrating AKC in SNS: In this project the benefits of supporting Argumentative Knowledge Construction (AKC) through Social Networking Sites (SNS), e.g. Facebook, are tested in combination with supporting awareness. A set of lab studies will investigate how computer-supported collaboration scripts may improve student AKC in SNS by (1) suggesting different sequences of argumentative moves and by (2) modifying students’ awareness to selected group features and their expectancy to engage in transactive debate with others.
- Proportion (link leading to call for participation in German): The ipad-app „Proportion“ allows two kids to learn relations and proportions together. Tasks are becoming increasingly difficult and require different strategies to accomplish. Immediate feedback after each task and graphical tools facilitate kids’ understanding and application of the strategies.
- Technology-Enhanced Collaborative Drawing: When learners draw their own representations of scientific phenomena (like photosynthesis) themselves they are stimulated to identify and link key concepts and processes. Drawing also has the potential to serve collaborative learning. In this project, 5th grade elementary school students worked collaboratively with a computer based drawing tool. A first inspection of the data revealed knowledge gains for all participating students.