The eVent is our demoday, where the students, researchers and business partners of Institute of Informatics present the coolest stuff we have done since the last spring. This year, the eVent will take place on Tuesday, 17.May 15.00-18.00 in the room M-225. We invite the students and staff to submit proposals for presentations in four different formats:
- 5-minute oral presentation
- 10-minute oral presentation (only if you have audiovisual content to present)
- hands-on demo at computer stand
- poster
All presentations and posters can be either in Estonian or in English.
Registration and additional information can be found on the eVent web page: http://htk.tlu.ee/event
Terry Anderson and Rory McGreal from Athabasca University visited Tallinn University on Monday, 4.April. Rory McGreal is Associate Vice President for Research in Athabasca University, his research interests are focusing on Open Educational Resources. Terry Anderson is Professor & Canada Research Chair in Distance Education. Terry is also the editor of International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning and author of the award-winning book Theory and Practice of Online Learning.
With the interested ones, a joint seminar in room T-201 was held where among other topics possible cooperation between two universities was discussed as well as ongoing projects from both sides were introduced.
Kersti Toming and David Lamas participated on LLP (ICT) project CoCreat‘s kickoff meeting in Oulu, Finland.
CoCreat is a three year long project which expectedly will lead the way in new solutions for promoting creative collaboration in terms of new and innovative learning models based on social media and mobile technology.
Expected results are:
- Models of how creative collaboration can be structured using notions of collaborative learning
- Promotion of creative collaboration with development of collaborative spaces using mobile technology and social media; and
- Practical and methodological guidelines to support the design and evaluation of creative collaboration.
And foreseen impact is to provide learners with the abilities to:
- Act in dynamic learning situations;
- Exploit technological solutions to support creative collaboration; and
- Solve real-life problems in creative and collaborative ways.
HTK will mainly contribute towards the design, implementation and evaluation of two (out of five) collaborative spaces targeting higher education students.
More details are available here.
The new semester for Tallinn University students has started. Among others, there was a chance to listen Emanuele Bardone’s lecture “Philosophy of Cognition”. The course was held for the first time in Tallinn University and became popular among IMKE students. I, as one of IMKE students and participants, have only positive reflections to pass on. Although the course was very intensive with five long evening after hard working day, I always went to the classroom with excitement. The lecture had a frame with specific topics held every day, but eventually turned out as a mix of discussions and dialogues between the students and lecturer. I believe I am not wrong to suggest the course to others as well and hope to see mr. Bardone giving lectures here again.
At the end of the course, I asked on question from mr. Bardone about human cognition. The question was as follows: “Recently you have published the book … and in this book you write interesting ideas about human cognition as a chance seeking system. This viewpoint is well related to our own research in distributed learning enviroments, where each learner can perceive different learning affordances. Would you like to tell about how your ideas could be used in computer-based education with new media, what are your future plans in this area.”
Here is the answer: “Contrary to popular belief, learning is not just storing some piece of information in our mind to be retrieved some other time independently from environmental conditions. I strongly support the idea that learning sort of implies the reconfiguration of the way we are used to engage our environment – our cognitive niche, in my terminology – for solving problems. Basically, as we start learning, we sort of establish a better functional relationship with our environment so that new problem-solving capabilities are successfully unfolded and eventually added up to our cognitive repertoire. But how could we facilitate or favor this process to happen? The very idea is that much of this job consists in seeking chances. A chance is not meant to be just an accident or uncertainty. Conversely, it’s a particular situation or event from which we can get information about how to get further information. In education the great challenge faced by the teacher is to collaborate with the learner so as to explore and exploit such environmental chances. With the advent of computer-based education and digital ecosystems the need to take on this challenge has become more pressing than ever. Consider this: if learning can really be described as a process aimed at establishing a better functional relationship with the cognitive niche, then the challenge learning designers are facing is huge, as they literally become part of the learning process. But what kind of approach should we adopt? So far Peeter Normak and Kai Pata have done a great job in the direction to tackle down this issue. Central to their approach is the idea that the learning process in technologically rich environments is an emergent phenomenon analogous to the way an individual organism as part of a species adapts to a specific environment, namely, a niche. In their analogy, learners are like organisms acting in a ecological niche – the learning space – which dynamically evolves. As a future project, to me it would be absolutely interesting to see how the chance-seeking approach can really be contributing to develop this ecological approach.”
On February 1st, members of the Estonian SIGCHI joined SIGCHI Finland in Tampere to explore possible cooperation.
The meeting was also attended by the current SIGCHI Adjunct Chair for Local Chapters and provided valuable insight into the following issues:
- What can we learn from SIGCHI Finland? What works and what doesn’t?
- What can we do and achieve together?
- How can ACM (and SIGCHI) support our activities? Namely, through the distinguished guests program?
You are invited to the international ICOPER seminar Managing competences in learning design – Projects, specifications and trends in competency based education
Seminar will take place 14 December 14:00 – 18:00 T201 (Narva mnt 25)
Presenters and Topics
Jad Najjar – Institute for Information Systems & New Media – Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
1. How to define and manage learning outcomes – ICOPER LOD specification
2. How to describe and share achieved learning outcomes – ICOPER PALO specification
Mart Laanpere – Centre for Educational Technology – Institute of Informatics – Tallinn University
3. Scaffolding Competence Management and Knowledge Building in Extended Organisation – IntelLEO
Open discussion
4. Future opportunities
Pleas register yourself to the seminar.
The Estonian SIGCHI Professional Chapter of ACM was officially chartered by ACM’s Chief Operating Officer on November 17, 2010 and is now hosted by TLU’s Center for Educational Technology.
The purpose of this local chapter isto promote promote increased knowledge of and greater interest in the development and ethical application of human-centered principles to drive the science and implementation of modern computing technologies.
The local chapter was founded by Vladimir Tomberg, Mart Laanpere and David Lamas and counts with 12 additional member from both academia and industry.
Täna, 24.augustil võõrustab HTK kahte väliskülalist.
- kl 13.00 tutvustab Sebastian Fielder Viini Sotsiaalse Innovatsiooni Keskusest (CSI Vienna) e-õppe valdkonna peamise teaduskoostöövõrgustiku Stellar (http://www.stellarnet.eu/) tegevust ja meie teadurite/doktorantide koostöövõimalusi selle võrgustikuga. Töökeel: inglise
- kl 14.00 tutvustab oma uurimisrühma teadus- ja arendustööd Jevgeni Patarakin (http://ru.linkedin.com/in/patarakin) Nižni Novgorodi Riiklikust Pedagoogikaülikoolist. Töökeel: inglise
- kl 16.00-17.00 teeb Jevgeni Patarakin venekeelse seminariettekande oma e-õppe alastest projektidest, mh. Letopisi.ru ja UbiPlace (http://letopisi.ru/index.php/UbiPlace).
EITSA E-õppe Arenduskeskuse palvel korraldas HTK tiim (Hans, Priit, Kai ja Mart) 16.-18.08 IT Kolledžis haridustehnoloogia suvekooli, millest võttis osa üle 40 haridustehnoloogi erinevatest kutse- ja kõrgkoolidest.
Suvekooli sisust saab kiire ülevaate suvekooli blogist:
http://htsuvekool.wordpress.com/
Marko Puusaar seadis suvekoolis tehtud fotod üles siia:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30472&id=100000195893062&l=63651cf4be
8. ja 9. juulil toimub Barcelonas personaalsete õpikeskkondade konverents PLE 2010. HTK inimesed on juba mitmeid aastaid kasutanud oma kursuste läbiviimisel ajaveebe, wikisid ja muid sotsiaalse meedia vahendeid. Sellistest vahenditest koosnevaid avatud ja hajutatud keskkondi nimetataksegi personaalseteks õpikeskkondadeks. Lisaks personaalsete õpikeskkondade kasutamisele on meil arendamisel ka mitu vahendit, mis sellistes õpikeskkondades kasutamiseks sobivad.
Hans ja Terje tutvustasid konverentsil LeContract keskkonda, mis toetab õpilepingute kasutamist kursustel. Õpilepingud võimaldavad õppijal kavandada oma õpieesmärke ning jälgida nende saavutamist. LeContract projekt on hetkel veel algfaasis. Konverentsiartikkel “Externalization of a PLE: Conceptual Design of LeContract” (pdf) annab ülevaate LeContract disainiprotsessist ja peamistest võimalustest. LeContract idee võtab lühidalt kokku järgnev video.
Terje kirjutas teise artikli koos Sebastian Fiedleriga teemal “Personaalsed õpikeskkonnad: kontseptsioon või tehnoloogia?”, kus autorid teevad kriitilise ülevaate antud teema kirjandusest ning lahkavad kontseptsiooni erinevaid tahke.
