Personalised Web Services for Activity-Based Mobile

Learning

Wichai Eamsinvattana PhD student, started Oct 2006

Supervised by Dr.Vania Dimitrova

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Presentation Plan

• Mobile Learning Challenge• Mobile Learning at Workplace• Research Goal• Research Questions• Background – PML & WS, PML & Context,

AT & Context• Architecture• Demo – Location Context• Summary and Question for Discussion

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Mobile Learning Challenges

• Definition - The provision of education and training on mobile devices: PDA, mobile phones and smartphones (Keegan, Mobile Learning: a practical guide, 2006) - Learning that take place while using mobile devices and services (Vavoula, A Study of Mobile Learning Practices, MOBIlearn 2005)

• Technical challenges: - Seamless integration of web and mobile access - Web services appear feasible approach

• Need for creative scenarios and applications - Informal and free context (Frohberg, 2006) - Promising applications (Trifonova, 2003):

- access/retrieve knowledge at a certain moment directly linked to the current user activities - educational material collected/available on the field- context is crucial for the learning experience.

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Mobile Learning at workplace

• Learning at workplace fits within the characteristics for promising mobile learning applications

• Learning should be integrated with the work practices

• There are no systematic approaches how this could be done

• Our Approach: Use activity theory to inform the design of activity-based mobile learning

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Research Goal

• The main goal is to examine how information from a mobile environment can be taken into account for supporting personalised activity-based learning.

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Research Questions

• How to model mobile learning context considering individual tasks, community activities, and current environment?

• How to use context in a particular mobile learning scenario in order to provide adaptation to users?

• How to develop a flexible system architecture for personalised activity-based learning?

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Background: PML & Web Services (1)

• Adaptation in mobile learning - Location - Device constraints - There is lack of approaches which take into account the environment and the users’ activities

• Web services - Open standards, modular approach, easy and inexpensive implementation and reducing the costs of application integration

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Background: PML & Web Services (2) - Example

Personal Ambient Learning(Location Based & Context Aware)

Killer Technology for Knowledge Society

Learn eXact from Guinti LabUsing Web Services

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Background: PML & Context

• Dey defines the context as any information from the situation of an entity (a person, a place, or object)

• Schilit divides context into three categories: computing context (connectivity, bandwidth), user context (user’s profile and location, social situation), and physical context (lighting, noise level)

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Background: AT & Context (1)

Tools

Subject Object

Rules Division of LaborCommunity

Outcome

Environmental context

Task context

Social contextSpatio-Temporal contextTask context

Personal context

• Kofod-Petersen

• Activity Model

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Background: AT & Context (2)

Tools

Subject Object

Rules Division of LaborCommunity

Outcome

Tools

Subject Object

Rules Division of LaborCommunity

Outcome

Tools

Subject Object

Rules Division of LaborCommunity

Outcome

• Integrating History and AT in Context• Kaewnampornpan, 2005

T1

Tn

Historyofcontextat Time1

Time

S0 S1 Se

Sn={AT1, .., ATn}

TransformationProcess

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Use of AT to model context in PML: example

(1)

Tools

Subject Object

Rules Division of LaborCommunity

Outcome

Officer

• Mobile phone• Communication structure• Internet

• Position in team• Level of authorisation

• Teams• Best practices

• Regulations for performing tasks

• Current situation• Investigation

• Police Learning Scenario

• Activity Model

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Use of AT to model context in PML: example

(2)

Tools

Subject Object

Rules Division of LaborCommunity

Outcome

Officer

• Mobile phone• Communication structure• Internet

• Current situation• Investigation

• Subject - Tools - Object• The officer can use their mobile to acquire information and to evaluate about situation and events to achieve their goal (evaluation of catching murder, result of investigation)

• Regulations for performing tasks

• Teams• Best practices

• Position in team• Level of authorisation

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Use of AT to model context in PML: example

(3)

Tools

Subject Object

Rules Division of LaborCommunity

Outcome

Officer

• Mobile phone• Communication structure• Internet

• Position in team• Level of authorisation

• Teams• Best practices

• Regulations for performing tasks

• Current situation• Investigation

• Subject – Community - Division of Labour• Each officer may provide or access different information to/from member of the team or other teams depending on the role of that member

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Architecture (1)

Server Side

Client Side

User ProfilesDatabase

User Model andCommunity Model

Web Service

Context ModelWeb Service

PersonalisedInformation

Web Service

Personalised Contentand Context Model

Acquisition

UserInformation(User Entry)

Location(GPS)

Context ModelDatabase

Time,Services and Tasks

UserUpdate

Ontologiesand

Learning Objects ContextUpdate

Community ModelDatabase

CommunityUpdate

Community and Role Entry

Community ModelAcquisition

ContextRetrieveUpdate Important

History

CommunityRetrieve

UserRetrieve

1

Acquire information(in xml format)

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Demo – Location Context

- Simulation and Location Context• Acquire Position Longitude,Latitude (x,y) by GPS• Map to Picture Image

• Send to Servers

xml

Web Services

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Architecture (2)

Server Side

Client Side

User ProfilesDatabase

User Model andCommunity Model

Web Service

Context ModelWeb Service

PersonalisedInformation

Web Service

Personalised Contentand Context Model

Acquisition

UserInformation(User Entry)

Location(GPS)

Context ModelDatabase

Time,Services and Tasks

UserUpdate

Ontologiesand

Learning Objects ContextUpdate

Community ModelDatabase

CommunityUpdate

Community and Role Entry

Community ModelAcquisition

ContextRetrieveUpdate Important

History

CommunityRetrieve

UserRetrieve

2

2

2

1

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Summary & Questions for Discussion

• Using Activity Theory to model the context• Using Web Services provide seamless access web

content and adapt it to the device constraints

• How to model mobile learning context? – individual tasks, current environment, community activity

• How to use context in a particular mobile learning scenario for adaptation to users?

• Thank you!