Designing an Informal Learning Support Framework

Nikolas Galanis, Enric Mayol, Marc Alier, Francisco José García-Peñalvo

§  EU recognizes informal learning with the Bologna treaty in 1999

§  Initiatives within the EU: •  CEDEFOP •  European Qualifications Framework (EQF) •  Lifelong Learning Program •  The Inventory project

§  CEDEFOP published a guideline on validating non-formal and informal learning in 2009

State of the art

§  Design a framework for:

•  gathering informal learning activities, •  evaluating them and •  showcasing them in the form of a an informal learning

portfolio.

Proposal

§  Learners often underestimate their IL activity

§  Users hate overhead

§  Official competence lists are overcomplicated

§  People like to interact and discover

Lessons Learned

§  Provide a platform for showcasing and promoting IL, where social interaction drives the evaluation and recommendation procedures.

Proposal

Framework Concept

Informal Learning Portfolio

IL Sources Web Search

Video Services Social Networks

Blogs Forums

Chat Rooms etc.

Learner Manually adding

ILAs

Learners

Supervisors

ILOs

Informal Learning Object (ILO)

Informal Learning Activity

Informal Learning Evidences

Quality Rating

Informal Learning Object

Tags

Framework components

Learning Records Store

Social Interaction Component

Recommendation Engine

Evaluation Algorithms

Informal Learning Portfolio

Component interaction

LRS ILA xAPI

Social Tagging

Recommender

Evaluation

Semantic Model

User Interface

Competences

xAPI

ILO

ILO

ILO

§  A database of learning activities

§  xAPI is used to communicate activities to and from the LRS

§  Prototype built using ADL LRS (adlnet.gov/tla/lrs)

Learning Records Store

§  Learners will be able to rate the activities of their peers: •  Directly, by rating an activity •  Indirectly, by adopting an activity

§  Learners will be able to follow other leaners´ activity

Social Interaction Component

Metrics used for recommending activities: •  Learner’s interests (competences and tags) •  IL history (past ILAs, average evaluation) •  Average time investment •  Social interactions •  General learning tendencies in the platform

Recommendation Engine

§  Too early in design to have a clear picture

§  Combination of self and peer assessment and and activity popularity and adoption rate

Evaluation Algorithms

§  Avoid overly complicated formal competence lists like ISCO-08

§  Start with a simple initial competence list containing general areas and competences

§  Allow learners to define their own competences

Competence Catalogue

§  Initial design phase is almost concluded

§  Developing initial prototype based on YouTube

§  Later iterations will add more connectivity

§  Plan to run a couple of pilot phases to gather learner feedback

Current state

Questions