Social web in support of informal learning by Teemu Arina

I've been workshop-hopping for the whole day. I know it annoys some people when I leave or enter rooms between the presentations, but the fact is that as I'm responsible for my own learning, I can choose what I will listen and what not. Many speakers are just dead-boring. Btw, having screens and audio outside of the workshop room would be very beneficial for conference folks like me.

As Teemu A. was speaking about social web supporting informal learning, I was chatting in Skype with my buddy Sebastian Fiedler at the same time. I've been giving him little updates about the conference, he was not able to come here. Then I opened a Skype audio call with him so that he was also able to listen to Teemu in real-time. (Teemu will make his audio available on his blog at http://tarina.blogging.fi/)

Teemu A. talked about how learning environments are affected by the approach that we take for learning. He put hierarchical approach and network approach of learning on the two end of the dimension, pointing out how connections form in groups. Informal learning is a lot about social interactions, and collecting and using social capital in networks. He mentioned "Connectivism" by George Siemens that outlines that relations are more important in learning than what goes on in the "pipe".

Teemu went on talking about how informal learning among young people take place nowadays. He talked about the shift from mono-chronic learning to polychronic learning where many things take place at the time, plans change rapidly, learning is multidimensional where learners commit to relationships and prefer using asynchronous tool to have layered communication going on.

At the end, Teemu concluded in an anecdotal note that content (I guess for both, formal and informal learning) should be put on the Web, made visible on Google, preferable in rss or any Web-feeds with Creative Commons license. Fun!

euel06

eLearning Conference 2006: session on Foresights in eLearning

I was happy the see "Foresight for learning" as one of the strands of the conference. It's about time to start preparing for the future, instead of only looking in insights and hindsights in the past. It's good to focus on impact studies and what ICTs have actually brought into education and learning, but preparing for the future seems really crucial too.

First presentation laid the ground for the strand. Mr. Punie from the European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies talked about the trends with some interesting figures. He, for example, mentioned that peer to peer (P2P) was currently one of the most used way to network, that MySpace was more accessed daily than some of the search engines, etc. I hope the slides will be available soon.

Secondly, a Finnish Member of the Finnish Parliament, Jyrki J.J. Kasvi , gave some insights into the work of the Finnish parliamentary committee on the Future foresights . Interestingly, Parliament initiated this committee in 2000 to pro-actively address issues that are important now to shape the future. Mr. Kasvi talked about societal changes that technology has brought and said that what we are seeing now is only the beginning of the "revolution".

Lastly, Mr Pedro from the OECD discussed the impact of ICTs on educational outcomes. He stated that little evidence, both research-based and comparative, is there to show the impact. However, it seems that we can show, for example, that pupils who have access to computers not only in schools, but also at home (frequency of home use is also critical), have more positive learning outcomes. Also, experience in using computers seems to have an important impact in learning outcomes. Some UK data was made available in another session on this too("Children and Young people's home use of ICT for Educational Purposes" Defs 2005).

Home use of computers, of course, brings in the socio-economical status of learners and brings in the issue of digital divide. Interestingly, Mr. Pedro had data from France showing that low-cost technology such as SMS, was used across economic-social status, so the hope is there if frequently used.

Tag: euel06

What do I know about Turkey

...to watch this pretty sunset
Originally uploaded by vuorikari.

Watch these pics, they tell more than I can put in this Blog post.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vuorikari/tags/prolearnsummerschool2005/

In the black hole of learning

P1010001
Originally uploaded by sebastian fiedler.

I think the photo speaks for it self pretty well. Nice shot, Seb!

Learnip2006
LEARNIP2006

More than a third of EU25 population have no basic computer skills

Eurostat reports the following. Imagine this as a setting for teachers in Europe!

Large differences between the generations

In the EU251, in 2005, 37% of people aged between 16 and 74 had no basic computer skills2. This percentage was slightly higher for women (39%) than for men (34%). Among Member States for which data are available, the survey showed notable differences between countries. Large differences also existed between age groups and between different education levels.

These figures are published3 by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

LEARNIP2006

Reflections on the brainstorm of the 26th

I took some time today to sit down with Sebastian to discuss what we could do together in the future. It is one thing to know that someone is fun to talk to and hang-out with, but the other thing is really to discuss seriously whether any of those interesting discussions can lead into any, say, more serious outcome such as sharing ideas of one's research project in terms of co-authoring a paper or something else that directly can contribute to My thesis dissertation. After all, this is what I was expecting from this Summer school: somehow help me to advance my thesis.


I think the most interesting lead to work together would be around the third sub-question which is:

How can tags, bookmarks and playlists (like a playlist in iTunes, a list of resources that you want to "play" in certain order) enhance the discovery, re-discovery and re-use of learning resources?

In my thinking teachers might be interested in using bookmarking tools to keep the interesting learning resources that they find in a repository marked-up, so that they can access them easily later or handily share them with their students through a tag-cloud, for example, like Martin S. suggested today.

A run-down of the topics discussed:

Everyone is producer vs. it is ok not to produce (for example tags) but just to consume them?

So, this is one of the philosophical questions, if you wish, where do you position yourself on the produce-consume dimension? Look for example places like old academia ideology or pure open source development where everyone is supposed to contribute and take advantage of them, too. Check some stuff on this on Himanen's Hacker's ethic.

Own tool or use of an existing tool

One argument related to this is the whole "not invented here" syndrome: no one wants to reuse and everyone wants to develop their own. In the case of EUN repository, for example, why not use some existing services like delicious (.. here are the 2 commas to add it, I always get 'em wrong), why make one's own tool? Apart from other bookmarking services, there are quite a few repositories that use (social) bookmarking tools to allow teachers to create their own collections...this, of course, raises the question about the interoperability - it should be guaranteed for all the available bookmarking tools. There should be an interoperable scheme between them, which I unfortunately know is not the case. Just check all the different export schemes.


Personal Knowledge Management helping social recommendations

From my personal point of view, bookmarks are in the first place a personal management tools that helps me to keep found things found, and to put in some important and meaningful keywords that make sense for me. Secondly, and thanks to the "social" aspect of bookmarking, they can also be used to allowing other people to view my collections of bookmarks. Tags can be used to, well, to create tag-clouds, among many other things that I have in mind.

What to work on...?

So, what should I work on with Seb still remains a questions. One question to seek to answer would be "what does it take to foster the active participation in creating tags?"; How could one design a better workflow, that would be somewhat neatly integrated and consolidated? What could be requirements for such tool? Here, thinking of teachers everyday work and practices should be important. Is the web-based way to go )(Flock-kinda way) or maybe a client that works on a local computer? What would better accommodate teachers' needs; are they really around computers hooked to the Net at all times (benefits: you can access all the stuff from any computer (home, school, different venues,.., drawbacks: no good connection like we've seen here!) or is it that they all have own laptops that they are bringing around so that working by using an integrated client locally would be better?

Moreover, do teachers have different needs and practices, for example, depending where do they teach, among compulsory education or hi-ed? Or, if, for example, a generic tool was used in both environments, would it produce different usage? Is it needed to differentiate the needs and requirements for different levels, i.e. compulsory education and higher ed?


Requirements to express networks in the educational setting

We talked about the use of FOAF or XFN to express different relations that there are in educational settings between different actors (teachers, tutors, facilitators, learners,..) and what way of expressing them would be good. What would you want to express, first of all; what would you use this expression for, etc?


One way of doing it vs, many ways of doing it

We also talked about how many possibilities should be given to users to do things. I personally would love to have about million different ways doing things - I think now that we have the technologies to do things we should give users many options to do things. The counter argument is that too many options is confusing. Then again, like Seb pointed out, don't think that the users are stupid, they know what and how to choose.

LEARNIP2006

What is a good blog made of?

I came across this post that suggests some hints on how to make your blog more attractive for readers.

Of course, every one has their own style, but might be a worthwhile to reflect upon your own blog posting style according to these points.

What comes to my own blogging and these...I must say that as I do blogging solely for myself, I don't really give a dam how it would read for other people. My blog is rather my own diary of things, than a means of communicating my ideas out to the world. Well, this summer school is an exeption, of course!

From Dave Pollard on the art and science of Weblogging:

1. Engaging (Style): Light, friendly, conversational, down-to-earth. Real, not preachy. Personal, passionate, fun, fresh. Doesn't take itself too seriously. Creates a sense that "we're all in this together". 
2. Accessible: Simple, tight, articulate, interesting, easy to read. Compare Kathy's writing to mine using established readability criteria:

	How to Save the World	Creating Passionate Users
Average Characters per Word	5.1	4.6
Average Words per Sentence	25 (ouch)	18
Average Sentences per Paragraph	5	3
Flesch Readability Score (target 60-70)	35	62
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade (target 8-9)	12	9

3. Useful: Practical, broadly applicable, not just informative. Actionable.
4. Original: Unique, fresh, stuff you can't find anywhere else.
5. Uses Images Effectively: Graphics that are attractive, valuable, easy to understand, amusing.
6. Thoughtful and Thought-Provoking: Brings
   a unique point-of-view. Provides context. Not afraid to be provocative,
   but not in your face about it. Not knee-jerk or dismissive. Carefully
   worded. A conversation-starter -- gives you something to talk with others about, and to send to others to invite them to a conversation.
7. Generous: Respectful, giving, modest, no bullshit or condescension. 
8. Focusing on What's Important: Asks and answers the questions others are asking themselves, or should be asking themselves. Gets to the point.
9. Positive: Upbeat. Enthusiastic. Energized. Makes the reader feel good, empowered.
10. Credible: Not beyond the author's competencies. Reinforced with relevant, valuable first-person stories.
11. Just the Right Length: Not cryptic, cute, obscure or verbose.
12. Honest: Not afraid to tackle complex issues or admit not having all the answers. Candid. Reasonable. Balanced. Open. Genuine.

LEARNIP2006

"no-bolts" for learning environments, No 2

LEARNIP2006
Originally uploaded by vuorikari.

Room after some learning has taken place. What happened to those neat rows of chairs? Guess what, leanring manifests itself in different shapes, and the environment has to be able to support it!

Sources of information for "Haapsalu"

P1010003
Originally uploaded by sebastian fiedler.

best place to start looking for info from Haapsalu is to go to
to Flickr, I like starting out in a visual way, seeing pictures of what is out there.

Also the tag "LEARNIP2006" reveals a lot on the internet, check at
http://www.technorati.com/tags/LEARNIP2006
, or the travel guide, huge wiki about traveling, at: http://www.world66.com/europe/estonia/haapsalu

"no-bolts" rule for learning environments

Is it so that people who are interested in technology and virtual (learning) environments forget about the importance of the physical environment around them?

I'm continuously amazed about the old-fashioned set-up of lecture halls and class rooms, especially in the institutes of higher education. Maybe it's that I haven't spent a lot of time in higher education environments since 1999, and it just struck me how they have not changed at all. I think schools (that is my interest area) are more innovative in what comes to that (at least in Nordic countries, see the links at the end).

So sitting in the Tallinn University lecture hall (traditional set-up, see the first day pic) and in the staff room (U-shaped) the second and third day of the summer school, I was thinking that there should be a "no-blots" rule for learning environments.

"no-blots" rule for learning environments

This would mean that non of the tables, chairs or structures in the learning environments should be bolted on the floor, but they should be movable around according to learners' and teachers' needs. It is almost impossible to get good conversation going on, do any group works, or even create a good learning "ambiance" when one is stuck in a given set-up such as a traditional lecture hall or a U-shape management-level meeting room.

This made me think of Wallenberg Hall at Stanford (not that I ever got to visit it, but seen a presentation, check the link at the bottom). They call it a High Performance Learning Space. Sounds flashy, and so it is: full of expensive computers, big screens, projectors - one of the goals is “layering” of media. Other goals are:
- easy transitions from lecture to small groups to individual and back,
- ability to easily change classroom configuration
- sufficiency at multiple scales

Ok, it can all sound very expensive... Interestingly, when asked what could be done with little money, Sam Steinhardt, the executive director of Center for Innovations in Learning in Standford, gives this basic rules:
put wheels on all furniture to push them around.

This makes me also think of, ah, LMS and other institutional virtual learning environments that so many e-learning decision-makers seem to love as a single solution. These massive, do-it-all-learning environments typically depict the same idea, let's bolt everything on the floor and don't let learners to construct their own learning environments. Very top down - and nearly impossible to change.

Ok, look at the photo here (to appear soon) to see the classroom after our social software interest group: looks like some learning took place here! Chairs have been moved around, people have grouped them according their needs in pairs, pushed the ones not needed away to make more room and so on...

I'll attach here a few links on the current movement that aims to design schools that are more suitable for learning. There is one in Helsinki, Finland, in Iceland, in the Netherlands and also in Sweden, to my knowledge.

Center for Innovations in Learning in Standford:
http://scil.stanford.edu

On Hight Performance Learning Spaces:
http://www.cti.ac.at/online-lab/ICL_Archive/2005/presentations/High%20Performance%20Learning%20Spaces.pdf

Architecture combined with strong pedagogical ideas:

A Finnish example:
http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/school_innovation/learnenv/fischool.htm

A Swedish example:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Celebrate_LearningObjects/content.cfm?lang=en&ov=20635

Some links to a Swiss workshop on the topic in French:
http://www.educa.ch/dyn/9.asp?url=151369%2Ehtm

About use of social software for education and e-portfolios

This is a paper that I wrote last year combining the idea of the use of social software and e-portfolios. If you were left intrigued after the presentation this morning, it might be of interest to take a look at this page. There is a little table when you scroll down the page, a few links to the applications that we discussed about this morning and some simple examples of how you could use them for educational purposes.

Can personal digital knowledge artefacts' management and social networks enhance learning?

"Digital knowledge artefacts are any digital traces of learning such as writings, images, multimedia files, blogs and other reflections over the time of lifelong learning. European Schoolnet's latest Special Insight Report presents a new report on the use of social networking software and e-portfolios. The report, entitled "Can personal digital knowledge artefacts' management and social networks enhance learning? " suggests that through sharing one's digital knowledge artefacts with other learners one not only brings online learning in a social context that it is sometimes missing, but also allows new paths of learning with peers to emerge."

LEARNIP2006

Back to school...surfing my way away (first day)

P1010051
Originally uploaded by sebastian fiedler.

Back to summer school... what happened, did I flunk last year?

In Tallinn University in Estonia, about 30 Masters and PhD students have gathered together for about 10 days to study current, and recurring, issues in the field of e-learning. We are asked to write personal diaries about our daily-learning. Some random thoughts and rants...


We were given the whole outline of the summer school, how the daily schedule would run, etc. Also, to my delight, on the agenda some special interest groups (SIG). But again, we were told the topics of SIGs by the organisers, like they could somehow know what we are interested in...? However, the organisers were pretty flexible letting us to discuss the SIGs and seems like there will be one on my favorite topic of social software/networks'n'e-learning.

After the day a pal asked me whether my first impression was any different from the last year's summer school conference (which I really hated and considered a total flop from the organisational point of view). I had to say that this pretty much reminded me of my last year's experience (sit in an auditorium for 4 days in a row and get a power-point-presentation-poisoning, slowly drifting away.. checking the Web and answering long overdue mails). This, again, gave me a creepy feeling that I am in a wrong place...however, I said that I remain positive and try to be (pro)active in my learning.

LEARNIP2006

Weekly PhD Report 06, week 12 13 14

An update long overdue.

Things done:

• Worked on analysing some LO evaluation models - this contributes to a book chapter that is due at the end of May 06. It's about reuse of LO evaluations, annotations and ratings in the context of social information retrieval.
• Worked on creating a new social networking concept for an EUN tool called "school basket". Part of these ideas are under development into a short paper with Jehad and Martin. This will look how school basket type of data can be described in CAM.
• Attended CALIBRATE meeting (http://calibrate.eun.org)
• Attended the EUN meeting on learning resources issues. My summary on EUN event on Learning Resources Exchange, at http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/interoperability/monthlyinsight/lre_presentations.htm
• see more about this at http://lre.eun.org
• Hung out with Griff Richards to exchange ideas on the common work done on LO evaluations and cognitive mapping. Envisaged to make a period of studies in Canada, why not?
• Sent out the Community Consultation on Industrial property (stuff about software patents) to the Commission, text available at: http://wiki.ossite.org/index.php?title=No_eLearning_Patents_Consultation.
• FYI, almost 500 people have signed the petition by now. We plan to continue the campaign, as it seems that a lot of e-learners are not aware of the ramifications of such EU-wide directive.
• Finalised a chapter for an "open source for education" book on ten (10) European educational authorities actions regarding FOSS and open content.
• I've enrolled in the Summer school at http://www.eudoraportal.org/Learn/ip2006/schedule2006/
  

planned to-dos

• finalise the paper and the chapter sometime soon
• plan some work with teachers on folksonomies for the upcoming MELT project
  

other stuff:

• Worked on my apartment, if interested, some pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vuorikari/tags/asunto/
• I'm still waiting to have a meeting with my PhD committee to pass on to the doctoral programme, never ending...

Work on defining open content

open source
Originally uploaded by vuorikari.

Interesting LOMI seminar, we talked about open content. The confusion that it creates with people makes me think a bit like talking about FOSS with people some years back - everyone talked about open source software, but they mixed all the terms and everyone had a different idea in their heads; while some meant using stuff like Mozilla on Windows, others were musing about how it is so difficult because running Linux is so dam hard.

I love the graph from Chao-Kuei that clearly puts things in places. I want to see something like this for open content, too. We have to elaborate on the concept of open content and allow it to expand to cover different variations; what happens when the content is of public domain, what can be done when Creative Commons are used, etc.

Open content made available under Creative Commons license, for example,
might allow you to access it and use it, but not to make any derivative
works. That means you can't rip, mix and mash it the way you would like,
let alone release it out to anyone else. Having content under CC pretty
much, though, goes under the understanding of open content. The "source
code" might be made available for reviewing, but not for modifications!

The same availability of source code would suit for the cases of "freeware" content, the free stuff that is made available by publishers, for instance, but can't be ripped, not can't be modified, as no source code is made available. This is kind of "read only" content that can be very valuable, however, has no re-use aspect for modifications and re-distribution. Someone mentioned in the LOMI seminar that free/shareware never made it big, but it does have its marketing value. And that is the stuff that publishers are eager to give away for free, however there is no way a user can play around ripping and mashing it. So, defining what is free/shareware of open content would be useful.

Also, it should be addressed whether there can be open content that is
commercial in the same way that there is commercial open source
software. Some might be interested in developing products and services
around that idea. Hec, I want to see someone making money of WikiPedia! Thus, to define open content one should not use the price as an identifier. Rather, if commercialisation of open content is
allowed, a better starting point for the definition of open content
should better be, for instance, proprietary or non-proprietary content?


In the LOMI seminar we also talked about open content and tried to define it through three different degrees: Open for access; open for modification and re-distribution; open for ....I cant remember. As open source software, most participants agreed that it is important to allow modification and re-distribution. However important that is, and however important the FSF thinks it is, for the average user like me and my mom, it is not that important. I don't have any knowledge to modify the code nor do any modifications, I just want stuff that works. That why for me "access" is important! If I can't have it, I can't use it.


Rambling thoughts, by no means written in stone! I'm very willing to work on defining open content by working on its concept based on Chao-Kuei's graph. I like the idea of displaying a variety of choices and having something to show and give a common group for discussion.

openeness in content as in FOSS

Edublog award nominees - the women

Ok, I kinda missed it, it was International Women's day and there was all kinds of happenings going on. For example Josie asked all the people, especially gals, to blog and mention "International Edublogging Women's Day 2006".

I went to see her nominations today and this is an honor! Although she misspelled my name (many do, no hard feelings...), here is what she had put in the end of the posting "I can't wrap up without a shout out to Rinna Vuorikari of the Flosse Posse - the most kick-ass woman in open source;" Yeah, that's me :)

PRESS RELEASE: Don’t allow software patents to threaten technology enhanced learning in Europe – Sign the petition!

March 14 2006 (Brussels, Belgium) Sign now the petition that aims to alert European authorities and policy-makers to the dangers of software patents, and particularly to the negative impact they could have on e-learning that uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance education.

All the European and international e-learning practitioners, as well as other concerned citizens, are welcome to sign the petition which will be sent to the European Commission as an input for the “Consultation on future patent policy in Europe” by the March 31st. Moreover, the petition will be distributed to other European and national decision-makers to rise awareness on the issue of EU-wide software patents and how they threaten to inhibit innovation among European e-learning developers and practitioners.

“Money spent on software patent and defending against litigation would be better spent on development, education and training” states the petition that is drafted by a community of e-learning practitioners after the first European Conference on Open Source for Education in the Netherlands in Nov 2005.

“The software patents present a clear danger for the whole field of e-learning, not only for its open source community, but for each developer and decision-maker who is responsible for delivering better education with the support of ICTs.” states Ms. Vuorikari from Flosse Posse.

The petition “Don’t allow software patents to threaten technology enhanced learning in Europe” aligns itself with the policy of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). The topic of EU-wide directive on software patents is rarely mentioned with regards to the field of e-learning, although its ramifications could be quite serious. Therefore it is important that this issue is brought to the attention and discussed by those in the field, so that those who oppose it can convey a common and unified position to the decision-makers across Europe.

If you are a concerned teacher, learner, parent, researcher, decision-maker, e-learning practitioner, developer or citizen, read and sign this petition on-line:
http://www.noelearningpatents.net

Make sure others know about it!
We are aiming to raise awareness and gather as many signatures as possible by Thursday 30th March 2006.

For more information address: info@noelearningpatents.info
-----------------------------------------------------------

Background information: In July 2005 the European Parliament rejected the proposed European software patent law (i.e. the directive on Computer Implemented Inventions) after years of "ping-ponging" between European institutions and fierce lobbying by both the pros and con sides. This directive sought to regulate the scope of patentability of software within the EU.

In July 2005 the proponents of software patentability agreed to drop the directive and push for the Community Patent instead. The Community Patent plan doesn’t even mention the subject of software, although, make no mistake about it, software patentability is one of the main drivers of these plans.

Seek more information and points of argument at the following site:

No Software Patents!
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com

Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure
http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html
http://swpat.ffii.org/log/intro
http://patinfo.ffii.org/faq.en.html

FLOSSE POSSE:
http://flosse.dicole.org

Thoughts about "the Search"

So I've been reading the book with a quite interest, and I'll blurb about a few things that stuck and might be worth mentioning. In the very beginning J.Battelle (can't find the page number now, that dam Ctrl+F does not work with paper,..wait a minute, maybe I should go to Amazon and search inside the book!) mentions that about 25% of searches that people make are intended to find or re-discover something that they've seen or read before. That's a lot! When reading it I thought of myself and how many times that has happened. Of course by that Battelle makes the case for the clickstream and how it will be the key element of search in the days and years to come. I kinda also like the social bookmarking aspect to it, "keep found things found", but this requires intent and action from the user, which can be avoided by just saving every click you take. Comes close to one of the themes of my interest, the level of user input required.

I especially liked the parts where Battelle was visioning and letting off his obsession of Google personalities (he talked in quite a few occasions about them, them, them, like they were some bloody simiantwins with a weird management style. Shows that the author is a freelance journalist, aren't all the bosses power obsessed freaks!?). The parts where he talked about personalised search (p.259) and how search would be linked to all types of services around was inspiring (p. 167). Everything would be indexed, even your kids and car keys. Imagine: "Honey, can't find my kids, can you Google them for me?" Well, seriously, I really dig the idea that if I make a search on the Web the rendered results would not be the same as the results that the guy next to me gets even for the same search term.

The whole deal with AdWord and purchasing the keyword for marketing purposes makes me think of "tags" and how could we use that idea for better things in education. It was something that I was thinking of last summer when writing this, but now reading about AdWord and such, it all became clearer to me. People tagging their own content, photos, blog posting, school assignments, etc, would not only tag it for their personal knowledge management purpose, but also like an advertiser buying a keyword to match it with other's demand, the tagger would better match hers own content to what ever is out there that might be relevant to her. For the educational purposes, both for formal and informal education, the possibilities could be enormous. And I'm not talking about matching people selling you an on-line course in French, but matching other people with similar interest to you, creating social networks where they previously didn't exist and allow learning to take new turns.

Towards the end of the book (p.137) J.Battelle talks about the differences between Google and Yahoo!. That was a very insightful part, and something that we've seen coming. Think of the difference between Google search results (algorithm+ adWord) vs. Yahoo! with some editorial touch adding Yahoo!'s search shortcuts, Google news (algorithm) vs. Yahoo! News (editorial), and now the whole service that Yahoo! is offering with 360 degree (hmm, not much hype there anymore and still in beta!). MySearch is about adding a social layer of Friends and Friends-of-a-Friend on the top of your search "to better understand the intent of your query" (p. 259). I love that last phrase!

This, to me, brings me back to quite a few discussions that I've had with my professor about the way my research should take. He seems to be the Google guy, whereas I see something more interesting and, ahem, intentional, in Yahoo!'s approach. I want to be able to give the steering wheel to user and say, "Fine, point me to the direction that you want to go and I'll refine the search and give you the best stuff!", instead of trusting a Good-mighty-algorithm to trust that it knows better what you like than you even think you do. I see this polarisation appearing in many places, services and applications on the Web, and I think it's great. I always think that with all the technologies that we have today we should be able to serve people's different preferences, was it then the Google guy or the Yahoo! guy.

Finally, I want to highlight this about how search pretty much still works these days: "Like DOS before Windows or the Mac, search's user interface is pretty much command driven: you punch in a query, you get a list of results." I think there is much to impove out there (like I think there is much to improve with anything that requires command line, e.g. installing most applications on Linux and how it sucks deeply), and the good thing is that, like the book says in one page, the search as a research area is still pretty uncharted, some estimate that we've covered only one digit % of it so far. Good, more to do for me :)

Weekly PhD report week 5-6

Work done:

• Defined my research questions (below). Of course this is a piece of work that undergoes constant modifications, but at least this is now what I'm focusing on.
• Worked on the plan for the Social Information Retrieval chapter. This is something that I'll be working on for the next 3 months.
  
• The idea is to review some 20 LORs that use reviewing and ratings for LOs, look into classifying them using EQO model and repository, and eventually creating xml schema that allows saving them in a format that is interoperable. This was not only the metadata about a LO is interoperable, but also the annotation part.
  
• This becomes be part of the work Jehad is on.
  

Things to do:

• Continue by paper reviews
• Continue the LOR annotation reviews
• Enjoy the Idaho snow for the upcoming 2 weeks (20.2.-7.3.)

PhD research questions

Last weeks I've been trying to concentrate on defining my research questions. It's not an easy task. Firstly, there are so many things to look at, and then once you start framing the questions, they all becomes slippery and unclear, redundant and such. However, this is my last take on it:

Main question: What are the main barriers to discovery, re-discovery and use learning objects and how can Social Information Retrieval help?

• Subquestion 1: Are there any specific requirements for the recommender system for LOs?
  Do we need to have any kind of “pedagogically aware” data or is it enough to use the existing models (such as movie, book recommenders) based on CF and content filtering methods?
  
  
• Subquestion 2: What is the role of explicit information input such as ratings, reviews and annotations to enhance the discovery and and use of LOs? Related to "classical" collaborative filtering using ratings, reviews. (these are the reviews that people do mainly to help other people)
  
  
• Subquestion 3: How can tags, lists and bookmarks enhance the discovery, recovery and use of LOs? e.g. “Playlist”, a feature in teachers' basket that allows them to make lists of LOs for a lesson, course, etc. “sequencing” This is stuff that people do for themselves, as part of PKM.
  
  
• Subquestion 4: When using social information retrieval (SIR) techniques, what are the differences between anonymous (such as classical collaborative filtering using ratings, reviews) vs. self-manifested, explicit social networks (e.g. Yahoo MyRank2) as input for a recommender system? How do users perceive these, are there preferences, what type of interactions, etc? What would be the hybrid model like?