Title:
Computer Support (CS) for Collaborative Learning (CL): Towards an architecture that integrates third-party services, activity flow and semantic search in existing Virtual Learning Environments

Presenter:
Yannis Dimitriadis, Full Professor of Telematics Engineering, director of the GSIC/EMIC research group, University of Valladolid, Spain (http://gsic.tel.uva.es/members/yannis)

Abstract:
Collaborative and project-based learning are important in current higher education and especially in engineering studies. Such complex pedagogies may be effectively and efficiently supported by ICT, typically in the form of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). However, there are significant problems for a successful and sustainable deployment of such VLEs.

On the one hand, teachers may be able to design and instantiate efficiently complex learning and assessment collaborative activities. On the other hand, appropriate existing third-party tools should be found and integrated in an existing VLE, without putting additional burdens to tool providers and teachers.This talk presents and discusses an architecture that enables teachers to effectively design complex CSCL activities, semantically search for appropriate tools and integrate them in existing VLEs. The main research issues are also analyzed within the scope of the work undertaken by the GSIC/EMIC group during the last 10 years in the field of CSCL and service-oriented architectures.