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E -Learning on the Social Semantic Information Sources Informal ways of knowledge harvesting Jarosław Dobrzański Jaroslaw.dobrzanski @deri.org March , 14 rd 200 7

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Outline <ul><li>Motivation scenario </li></ul><ul><li>Formal and Informal Learning </li></ul><ul><li>Social Semantic Information Sources review </li></ul><ul><li>Expressing information </li></ul><ul><li>Didaskon </li></ul>

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Sample scenario <ul><li>Preconditions: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>John, 22 years old student, wants to learn the history of Ireland </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>John already has some knowledge in that field, since last summer he was in Dublin for a month (he has done some sightseeing) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>One of is hobbies is gaellic footbal </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>His best friend, Paul: </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Has recently learned about Ireland </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Has also read supportive meterials delivered by the LMS. </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Has described the most interesting facts in his semantic blog </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Has also bookmarked some relevant websites on his del.icio.us </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>LMS knows abovementioned facts – they are included in his profile description </li></ul></ul>

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Sample scenario <ul><li>Action: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>John is mature – used courses for adults </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>He has learned something while sightseeing – no use repeating </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Introduce into learning path more information about gaellic footbal , perhaps even on other Irish sport disciplines as he likes sport </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Use the information Paul has collected on del.icio.us and his semantic blog </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Results </li></ul><ul><ul><li>John learned from formal learning materials </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>He also used new collaborative tools </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>He annotated and evaluated (parts) of the learning material – the can be useful in future </li></ul></ul>

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Formal vs. Informal learning <ul><li>Flexible and spontaneous – learn what/when/where you want </li></ul><ul><li>New, more natural, unofficial approach </li></ul><ul><li>Learning is PULLED </li></ul><ul><li>Chats, observations </li></ul><ul><li>Rapid exapnsion of the Internet affected it </li></ul><ul><li>Costs less, better effects </li></ul><ul><li>Rigid cources – made once and for all </li></ul><ul><li>Traditional, old, preparatory approach (i.e. classrooms) </li></ul><ul><li>Training is PUSHED </li></ul><ul><li>Also new platforms – online courses provided by Learning Management Systems – HUGE COSTS </li></ul>Informal Formal

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Social Semantic Iinformation Sources <ul><li>Techniques of Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web – towards the Semantic Web 2.0 </li></ul><ul><li>Collaboration, sharing, bookmarking powered by semantic descriptions </li></ul><ul><li>Examples: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Semantic Blogs </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Semantic Wikis </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Social Semantic Digital Libraries </li></ul></ul>

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Semantic Blogs <ul><li>Will Richardson – educational blogging pioneer </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Students to write a reader’s guide to a book </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Author of the book involved – answering questions </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Collaboration platform </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Metadata about the blogs content to adapt them to the Semantic Web platform </li></ul><ul><li>Semantic Blogs are both human and machine readable </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Better search , browsing and navigation </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Enriching posts with other types of information </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Rich relations between posts from many weblogs </li></ul></ul>

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Semantic Wikis <ul><li>Wiki – interlinked website developed and maintained by a community </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Simple text syntax for creating pages </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Easy and deep linking via names </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Developed by members of a society </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Everyone tries to keep it reliable </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Versioning and diff features </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Examples: e ncyclopedia, open source software management platform, personal information management system </li></ul></ul>

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Semantic Wikis <ul><li>Semantics improves wikis </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Better structure and content modelling – a way to create RDF without knowing about it </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Rich description of relations between pages </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Defining types and objects </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>RDF Import / export anabled </li></ul></ul>

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Social Semantic Digital Library <ul><li>Digital library for the next generation Internet </li></ul><ul><li>Different resources: books, magazines, multimedia </li></ul><ul><li>Additional, informal sources of information: evaluations, annotations </li></ul><ul><li>More efficient, ontology-based search </li></ul><ul><li>Community-enabled search and browsing </li></ul><ul><li>Integrating knowledge from various heteregenous sources </li></ul><ul><li>Interconnecting different digital library systems </li></ul><ul><li>Repository of knowledge </li></ul>

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Other informal sources of knowledge <ul><li>Online chats: Skype, Jabber </li></ul><ul><li>Video streaming: YouTube, Google Video </li></ul><ul><li>Slides repository: slideshare.net </li></ul><ul><li>Social bookmarking: del.icio.us </li></ul><ul><li>Photo services: Flickr </li></ul><ul><li>Online calendars: upcoming.org </li></ul>

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SIOC (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities) <ul><li>Framework/ontology for connecting different online community sites and expressing information collected from them </li></ul><ul><li>Allows instant import/export of the data to the semantic character for further use </li></ul><ul><li>Still developed to cover more Web 2.0 community sites </li></ul>

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Didaskon project <ul><li>Developed in DERI </li></ul><ul><li>Deliver a framework for assemblying an ondemand curriculum from existing Learning Objects (LOs) provided by e-Learning services </li></ul><ul><li>Connection between formal and informal learning: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Repository of couses prepared by specialists (formal LOs) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Transform data collected from SSIS into LOs (informal knowledge) </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Used o ntolog ies link user needs and the characteristics of the learning material </li></ul>

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Didaskon project <ul><li>LOs described with LOM ontology, composed into a learning path for a specific student </li></ul><ul><li>User profile (knowledge level in different domains and goals/expectations from the course) described with FOAF ontology – preconditions </li></ul><ul><li>Didaskon: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>returns learning material customized for specific user’s needs </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>allows more scalable helper features for students supervision </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Produced curriculum: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>reflects user requirements </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>introduces new interdisciplinary, extensible and robust meaning of e-Learning </li></ul></ul>