Positioning technologies in learning
\cite{Casas02}
In this paper a positioning system called UNIZAR is discussed with particular attention to learning applications. The system uses radio frequency and ultrasound technology to measure dintance from welll known position-beacons to the mobile object. Potential learning application discussed are the following: (a) gesticulations and kinetics as communication (movement patterns); (b) relationship between people (and within the group); (c) relationship between the objects, and among combination of those with their virtual representation; (d) relationship of the user with the environment. Three context are suggested: 1. The worktable; 2. Micromobility; 3. Hyperpresence.
Found 2 solutions for mobile positioning: CI+TA+NMR (Cell-Id, Timing Advance, Network Measurement Report);
GNSS. The accuracy in the first case seems to be around 50 mt.
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Recent technologies in mobile learning offer few perspectives into smart mob devices. No new feature are implemented nor suggested by researcher into this new field of study. The main feature of being mobile is the notion of location, or as Nicolas prefer to say, is the notion of place: knowing that I am at home is more meaningful than knowing my geographical position. Also the position concept can be related to the human features behind it. So, knowing a relative position may be more important than knowing my absolute position: I am closer to you than to the other person?
When talking about possible application for mobile learning I start thinking about using the feature of moving around as one of the major reasons for having mobile learning tools. So the scenarios I have envisioned so far are:
1. participatory simulations: I use the mobility to embody the simulation features and act with my group with the goal of reaching the goal of understanding the concepts behind the simulation.
2. data logging: I walk around with my mobile to gather data that can be used to build a simulation or an understanding of the world. In this case the collaborative aspects are less defined, because I can build the simulation for myself without the sharing with other people.
Other features offered by mobiles is that they can provide you information which cannot be available everywhere and that mobiles are pervasive into a person’s life so that they can follow you closely listening to what you are listening, seeing what you are seeing.
The field I want to put together are: Mobile learning, CSCL, Location-awareness.
What do you mean by ‘collaborative learning’?
\cite{Dillenbourg99}
The authors did not agree on a single definition of `collaborative learning’. However they propose this definition: it is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together. In this definition all the elements can be interpreted in different ways: (a) “two or more” may be interpreted as a pair, a small group (3-5 subjects), a class (20-30 subjects), a community etc.; (b) “learn something” may be interpreted as “follow a course”, study some kind of material, perform learning activities such problem solving etc.; (c) “together” may be interpreted as a face-to-face, computer mediated, synchronous or not, frequent in time or not.
Under these different aspect of CSCL we encounter firstly a variety of scales: from the number of people in the group to the amount of time spent during the interactions, the methodological approaches may be completely different.
One of the question raised by Schwartz (\cite{Schwartz95}) is that: “The question is not how individuals become members in a larger cognitive community as they do in apprenticeship studies. Rather, the question is how a cognitive community could emerge in the first place.” The author highlight how in the comparison between dialogue with oneself and dialogue with a peer, the main difficulty is not to be able to identify similarities but instead to establish what exactly differs between the two process. In this sense the group can be viewed as a unit and a unit as a group, coming back to the change of scales.
Learning has also multiple meanings: (a) any collaborative activity within an educational context; (b) activity is a joint problem solving, and learning is expected to occur as a side effect of problem solving, measured by the elicitation of new knowledge or by the improvement of problem solving performance; (c) collaborative learning is a development, cultural or biological process which occurs over years.
Collaborative is a pedagogical method or a psychological process? The pedagogical sense prescribes that the collaboration will improve efficiency, the psychological sense describe it as the mechanism which caused learning.
The author argue that collaborative learning is neither a mechanism, nor a method: (1) collaborative learning is not one single mechanism (groups perform activities which trigger some learning mechanisms [induction, deduction, compilation,…]). In addition, the interaction among subjects generates extra cognitive mechanisms [knowledge elicitation, internalisation, reduced cognitive load, …]. (2) Collaborative learning is not a method because of the low predictability of specific types of the interactions: the collaborative situation is a kind of social contract.