This story is a little bit older. It was a comment on a blog entry Mathias Lux has written. He inspired me to start this competition for the EC-TEL.

Magic? Technology? Who knows the difference?

Here are some impressions from the Doctoral Consortium at EC-TEL 2007 which took place yesterday.

CEUR Workshop Proceedings, ISSN 1613-0073, online CEUR-WS.org/Vol-280

Best regards,
Martin

Nevertheless, we will syndicate the images in this blog and in the EC-TEL website www.ectel07.org

No more waiting for presentations authors promised they would send you, or no more searching in vain for the demo of the system you forgot to write down the name of, etc! Ask people to upload the stuff you ant to the wiki…

(Only three days left for the first workshops!)

Come join us for the 2nd European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, from 17 to 20 September in Crete, Greece: four days of Serious Fun!

In one week almost 200 professionals, researchers and visionaries in the field of technology enhanced learning will meet in an unique atmosphere. To facilitate discussions and debate about creating new learning experiences on a global scale the conference has created exciting opportunities to communicate and contribute.

ONLINE PROCEEDINGS

- The conference proceedings are available to registered participants for four weeks around the conference week. Thanks to Springer for this opportunity.

- The workshop proceedings are online on http://www.ectel07.org

- The doctoral consortium proceedings are online on http://www.ectel07.org

WEB 2.0

- The EC-TEL 2007 blog is available at http://ectel07.wordpress.com

- The EC-TEL 2007 wiki is available at http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/ec-tel07/index.php/Main_Page

- Following Wired Magazine we are announcing a 6 word short story competition about the future of technology enhanced learning in a science fiction manner. A special price for the best story will be awarded by Bruce Sterling and Hermann Maurer. Please post your stories on http://ectel07.wordpress.com

KEYNOTES

- Bruce Sterling, professor at the European Graduate School and “visionary in residence” at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
http://blog.wired.com/sterling/

- Hermann Maurer is professor of computer science at the Technical University Graz in Austria.
http://www.iicm.tugraz.at/maurer

This year’s exciting program includes the following highlights:

- RESEARCH FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
Several high ranking officials from the European Commission will present their views on technology enhanced learning, with a specific focus on research funding, the Framework Program 7 calls and other funding instruments.

- GLOBE
The GLOBE consortium of learning repository networks (http://globe-info.org/) will use its panel session to hold a public dialogue about your requirements for share and reuse and how it can address these. This will be a unique opportunity to learn more about this global community of repositories.

- INDUSTRY MEETS RESEARCH
There will be almost a full day of industrial sessions, where participants from IMC, BT, EADS, IDS, Synergetics and Giunti will present their experiences and lessons learned.

- TEL WORKSHOPS
Two days of workshops will precede the actual conference days: with topics ranging from social information retrieval to collaborative open environments for project-centered learning these workshops provide excellent opportunities for more in-depth presentations and discussion of specific TEL topics. Additionally a couple of project meetings will take place around EC-TEL 2007, e.g. the EducaNext Steering Committee Meeting and the PROLEARN Academy Meeting. If you are interested in ask for further arrangements.

- DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM
The 2nd doctoral consortium will take place at Tuesday and offers an overview about innovative research approaches in Europe. The consortium is open and free of cost for all EC-TEL 2007 participants.

NOW IT IS UP TO YOU

If you have any comments or questions, then please do not hesitate to contact us!

Wolfgang Nejdl
General Chair

Erik Duval, Ralf Klamma
Programme Chairs

Konstantin Makropoulos
Local Organisation Chair

Martin Wolpers
Organizing Chair

Barbara Kieslinger
Publicity Chair

Frans van Assche
Workshop Chair

Volker Zimmermann
Industrial Session Chair

Katherine Maillet, Denis Gillet, Tomaz Klobucar, Ralf Klamma
Doctoral Consortium Chairs

9:00 – 9:30 OPENING SESSION

Welcome and Introduction to the Doctoral Consortium, Doctoral Consortium Chairs

9:30 – 10:30 TOOL DESIGN AND REPOSITORIES FOR TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING

• Integration in Generic Tool Learning Design to Support Complex Learning Methodologies, Luis de la Fuente Valentín
• Lifecycle Information Management for Learning Resources and Knowledge Documents, Lasse Lehmann

10:30 – 11:00 COFFEE BREAK

11:00 – 12:30 TECHNOLOGY FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL NETWORKING

• Mobile Social Software with Context Awareness and Data Uncertainty for Technology-Enhanced Learning, Yiwei Cao
• A methodological proposal to analyse interactions in online collaborative learning environments, Manuela Repetto
• Organizational Collaborative Model of Small and Medium Enterprises in the Extended Enterprise Era, Lessons to Learn from a Large Automotive Company and its dealers’s network, Nouha Taifi

12:30 – 14:00 LUNCH

14:00 – 15:30 PLATFORM ARCHITECTURES FOR TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING

• Model Driven E-learning Platform Integration, Zuzana Bizonova
• Service-oriented Knowledge Architectures –Integrating Learning and Business Information Systems, Katrina Leyking
• Knowledge Repositories for Rural Communities of Learning, Argiris Tzikopoulos

15:30 – 16:00 COFFEE BREAK

16:00 – 17:30 OPEN PhD FORUM

• Future research trends in TEPL
• Cross-domain research in TEPL
• PROLEARN Roadmap
• Evaluation

Nicola Henze, L3S, Hannover, Germany

Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aaachen, Germany

Katrina Leyking, IWI, Saarbrücken, Germany

Stefanie Lindstaedt, Know-Center, Graz, Austria

Wolfgang Nejdl, L3S, Hannover, Germany

Gabi Reinmann, Universität Augsburg, Germany

Andreas Schmidt, Forschungszentrum Informatik, Karlsruhe, Germany

Klaus Tochtermann, Know-Center Graz, Austria

Stephan Weibelzahl, National College of Ireland, Ireland

David Wiley, Utah State University, USA

Volker Zimmermann, IMC AG, Germany

Best regards,
Martin Memmel, Martin Wolpers, Eric Ras
workshop organisers

3rd International Workshop on
Learner-Oriented Knowledge Management
&
KM-Oriented E-Learning

(LOKMOL 2007)

“Using Context and Web2.0 Approaches to Bridge the Gap”

Workshop affiliated to the European Conference on
Technology Enhanced Learning
(EC-TEL 2007)

18 September 2007, Crete, Greece. 9am-12.30am
(three invited talks and three paper presentations)

http://www.ectel07.org/Workshops

MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUND

In spite of the close relationship between learning and knowledge, there is still a lack of cooperation between the fields of e-Learning and Knowledge Management (KM). Accordingly, LOKMOL 2005 brought together researchers and developers to discuss about the perceived connections between KM and e-Learning that are not yet sufficiently operationalised, i.e., the integration-ideas are rarely implemented in practice. The discussions showed that KM addresses learning mostly as part of knowledge sharing processes and focuses on specific forms of informal learning (e.g., learning in a community of practice) or on providing access to learning resources or experts. Last year, the focus lied on the use of techniques and applications arising in the Web2.0 context:
e.g., social software that enables individuals to tag content and act both as producers and consumers of content. So far, these technologies seem to have a positive impact in terms of community building, knowledge sharing, and content creation – even if their success hasn’t been empirically proven. First questions arose during the workshop, to what degree these systems (e.g., Weblogs, Wikis, XML/RSS based content syndication and aggregation) support certain learning processes.

Technology-enhanced learning approaches develop more and more towards responsive environments that are embedded into the working process of individuals and existing organizational structures. Research has shown so far, that we have to cope with the challenge of gathering, describing, and using resources as well as context (information) about their creation and (re)use in order to drive the integration of KM and e-Learning technologies. Research has already been tackling the domain of context, for example related to context description, context matching, or context-based information delivery, but still needs a better integration into KM and e-Learning.
The aim of this year’s workshop is to bring together experts who are willing to share their experience about their work about the (re-)use and repurposing of arbitrary types of existing resources and who provide insights about how context could help to develop forthcoming technology-enhanced approaches that integrate KM and e-Learning solutions for strategic as well as individual and (in-)formal competence development.

The workshop is based on the insight that KM technologies need to take into account findings from social sciences such as pedagogy or psychology, to be effective in terms of learning and that learning can profit from KM technologies. In fact, there is a gap between well organised, but monolithic and inert e-Learning material such as courseware on the one hand and dynamic and flexible knowledge bases that are often not able to activate learning processes on the other hand. An integration of KM and e-Learning, especially by using context-based technologies, could dramatically change today’s understanding of further education towards lifelong learning fed by dynamically changing public and organizational knowledge repositories.
This workshop will continue the series of LOKMOL workshops and will build upon the results of the previous ones.

GOALS AND WORKSHOP QUESTIONS

The LOKMOL workshops is organised around three main types of questions, which have shown up as a good motivation and structure for discussion in the previous workshops.

* Methods: Which pedagogical approaches are suitable to facilitate learning from (heterogeneous) knowledge repositories? How can KM systems be enhanced to suit the learners’ needs as well as pedagogical principles such as informal and self-directed learning? What kind of pedagogical theories, principles, and methods can be applied to compose learning material (semi-) automatically from knowledge chunks? In which way can context and Web2.0 approaches support current learning methods?

* Standards and technologies: Up to what extend do current KM and e-Learning technologies and standards (e.g., IMS Learning Design, SCORM reference model, LOM, Semantic Web standards) support an integration of learning and KM? What are the requirements of KM technologies in order to support personalisation by addressing the learners’ needs and individual learning processes? What kind of technologies exist that combine stored knowledge (e.g., resources existing in the World Wide
Web) to learning material based on, e.g., instructional design models or didactic concepts? Which KM technologies, especially the ones focusing on the support of technical and organizational components, are useful to support professional e-Learning? How did context-based technologies influence e-Learning so far? How do Web2.0 technologies such as lightweight APIs enabling Mashups of existing services support the integration of KM and e-Learning?

* Empirical results and studies: Which empirical findings demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of learning material created in accordance with these methods and technologies? Are there any studies that describe the success or failures of the application of context and Web2.0 approaches in e-Learning?

TOPIC AREAS

* incorporating arbitrary types of resources for KM and e-Learning:
metadata concepts to represent resources and different views; (re-)using resources from heterogeneous repositories; frameworks and techniques to repurpose resources;

* context of creation, (re-)use and repurposing of resources:
representing and visualizing content; tracking context; contextual attention metadata; matching contexts; exploiting context information (e.g., for adaptation and personalisation);

* connecting content and components:
using (lightweight) semantic descriptions such as micro-formats to enable data exchange and interoperability; services and service-oriented architectures; mashups;

* users as content consumers and producers:
collaborative knowledge building and sharing; tools and architectures for authoring, annotating, storing and retrieving of user generated content; aspects of quality assurance; use of Wikis, Blogs, social bookmarking tools and folksonomies; encouraging user participation; establishing self-sustained communities;

TARGET GROUPS

The workshop intends to bring together researchers and practitioners from relevant communities (technology enhanced learning, knowledge management, knowledge representation, information systems, personalisation, user modeling, psychology and pedagogy, etc.) to share their knowledge, results and expertise about their research on cross-disciplinary research approaches for e-Learning. In more detail, the workshop aims to discuss how suitable technologies (e.g., Web2.0, context-based methods) and designs can be used to integrate e-Learning with KM more efficiently and effectively.

The workshop language will be English.

WORKSHOP ORGANISERS

Martin Memmel, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH (DFKI), Trippstader Straße 122, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany martin.memmel[at]dfki.uni-kl.de

Eric Ras, Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Fraunhofer-Platz 1, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany eric.ras[at]iese.fraunhofer.de

Martin Wolpers, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200A, 3001 Leuven, Belgium martin.wolpers[at]cs.kuleuven.be

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Andrea Back, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

Nicola Henze, L3S, Hannover, Germany (tbc)

Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aaachen, Germany

Katrina Leyking, IWI, Saarbrücken, Germany

Stefanie Lindstaedt, Know-Center, Graz, Austria

Wolfgang Nejdl, L3S, Hannover, Germany (tbc)

Gabi Reinmann, Universität Augsburg, Germany

Andreas Schmidt, Forschungszentrum Informatik, Karlsruhe, Germany

Klaus Tochtermann, Know-Center Graz, Austria (tbc)

Stephan Weibelzahl, National College of Ireland, Ireland

David Wiley, Utah State University, USA (tbc)

Volker Zimmermann, IMC AG, Germany