EDUWEB 2.0

iCamp & N-Gen Educational Web

Antonio Fumero

Department of Telematic Systems Engineering, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación

(ETSIT),Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Avenida Complutense s/n, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040, Madrid, Spain

Keywords: Web 2.0, Internet, eLearning, TEL, Education.

Abstract: This article presents iCamp – innovative, inclusive, interactive & intercultural learning Campus – as the first

implementation of an actual Next Generation Educational Web, supported by the emergent Web 2.0

paradigm and the technologies surrounding it. It is intended to show you how the key elements under this

blurry umbrella-like concept of Web 2.0 permeate the educational domain, allowing us to develop a brand-

new learning environment upon a series of innovative pedagogical models, designed to be the basis of

Higher Education in an enlarged Europe.

1 INTRODUCTION

Since blog phenomenon exploded, many other

emergent processes have been considered as an

integral part of a new evolutionary stage of World

Wide Web that has been labeled as Web 2.0. This

working concept can be useful for developing a new

theoretical framework to fit new pedagogical models

within. Among the different approaches and various

efforts in that direction, iCamp could be the first

pedagogy-driven project for designing and

developing an actual learning virtual environment

from the Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL)

point of view.

2 WEB 2.0

It does exists a multi-faceted phenomenon that is

driving the evolution to “a whole new Web” (Hof,

2005) known as Web 2.0 or Next Generation Web, if

you want to accept this analogy with the Next

Generation Internet motto generally associated with

the IPv6 deployment.

Within that phenomenon, we can identify a series of

technologies and services that are been built through

a growing number of user innovation processes. We

are talking about a certain kind of user, the super

user or digerati – some kind of “digital literati” –

capable of leading the way in the prosecution of new

technological frontiers.

Blogs are just the tip of Next Generation Web

“iceberg”. Wiki phenomenon – responsible for the

Read/Write Web dream renaissance – syndication

standards and aggregation services, tagging services

(folksonomies) or social networking services like

Orkut, Linked or eConozco are all of them an

integral part of the same process.

We could refer to all that technologies – in a ‘wide-

sense’ – as Social Software (Boyd, 2003). It can be

considered as a supporting layer for the growing

amount of services that are emerging just right now,

paving the Web 2.0 way.

The blogosphere itself could be understood as a

“communication sub-space”, where the

conversational nature of human transactions is

amplified by the network effects that emerge in the

“World Live Web” that is being built from the

current World Wide Web. The key points of the blog

phenomenon are far beyond the weblog as a web-

publishing format with its characteristic updating

frequency, hypertext density or its inverse

chronological order.

This is a process of socialization, in the sense that

the Web (its content and its dynamics) is acquiring

“human” significance. It’s not about being online

anymore but living online. It’s about the things we,

the users, do when we’re connected. We can create,

edit, publish, share... content (every kind of content)

by collaborating through the Internet in a social

manner i.e. giving our actions a social significance;

hence, the socialization of the Web. Among the

myriad of new services, we can find different

299

Fumero A. (2006).

EDUWEB 2.0 - iCamp & N-Gen Educational Web.

In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and

e-Government / e-Learning, pages 299-304

DOI: 10.5220/0001239702990304

 SciTePress

blogging services like Blogger, TypePad or

WordPress; we can share our photos in flickr,

defining our different social circles (friends, family,

colleagues); we can define, manage and extend our

social (personal or even professional) networking

(contact networks) with Linked, eConozco or Orkut

services; we may also collaborate online with project

management tools like BaseCamp or wiki services

like SocialText or eApuntes; if you want to, you can

publish your videos or audio clips in OurMedia, or

broadcast your podcasts through Odeo; You can

access to encyclopedia-like articles with an

outstanding update frequency in Wikipedia... the list

grows to the infinite.

It's time for the real productive consumers – beyond

the DIYers-like prosumers of the third wave

announced by Alvin Toeffler – to lead the way.

Anybody can contribute to a global categorization

effort, the collaborative semantic tagging process

that is taking place all over the world through

folksonomies services like Blogmarks, del.icio.us,

de.lirio.us or Wists. This kind of project is not viable

for any centralized computing resources you could

ever imagine before.

We can try to visualize the Web 2.0

conceptualization in a layered scheme (Figure 1),

where the Web itself appears as the technology

platform supporting a growing and emergent amount

of new applications and services we can consider as

belonging to a single (wide-sense) social software

concept. Upon this social software layer, we can

realize the existence of a processes layer where the

emergence of new human-technology interactions

takes place shaping new habits, routines and

information “prosumtion” patterns. Finally, we find

the social networks people are building within a new

(cyber)social environment that resemble some kind

of “real virtuallity”, bridging the current gap people

usually see between their lives in the real world and

their different “avatars” within the Internet.

If we open up each of these layers (Figure 2) we're

talking about, we'll find a growing amount of

different components; a series of elements, each of

them with its own domain, but contributing - as a

whole - to the new “platform” that is been built upon

the New Generation Internet. In the technology

layer, we can identify microformats like xhtml or

FOAF (Friend-Of-A-Friend) that could be

generalized as semantic web technologies (with

small letters, to be differentiated from Semantic

Web efforts from W3C), Web Services acronyms

(UDDI, WSDL, XML, SOAP, XSLT), SOA as THE

architectural paradigm or AJAX as a new

technology combo aiming the developing of a new

generation of rich user interfaces.

The majority of them appear in the detailed figure

below, while you can miss some acronyms. Don't

worry about it; it's the same with the upper layers: in

the social software one, you have blogs (all kinds of

weblogs), wikis, folksonomies... and the you can see

processes like blogging, tagging, sharing... and the

corresponding actions in the social layer but, at the

end of the day, the key driver to have such a kind of

layered architecture “up and running” must be

innovation, USER INNOVATION, and its

representation at every level in the scheme. That is

the actual engine of this conceptualization, the only

one that can support the conversational dynamic and

emergent nature of this Next Generation Web.

3 EDUCATION 2.0

The history of the pedagogical models behind the

traditional learning systems and tools has been built

upon a series of well-known theories that have to put

up with the new challenges the network society is

realizing. If we briefly review these theories, in

chronological order, we’ll be able to establish some

kind of evolutionary path to end up with the “E-

learning 2.0” (Downes, 2005) that could be

considered as the iCamp conceptual framework.

Behaviorism is related with a passive learner and a

traditional transfer mode for teaching in a one-way

unidirectional (verbal) communication. This model

is based on the “know-what” paradigm.

Cognitivism is related with an active learner and a

not so traditional tutor mode for teaching in a bi-

directional (mostly verbal and unbalanced)

communication. This model is based on the “know-

how” paradigm.

Constructivism is related with a so-called creative

learner and a hardly seen coaching mode for

teaching in a two-way bi-directional (mostly visual

and almost balanced) communication. This model is

based on the “knowing-in-action” (“learning-by-

Figure 1: Web 2.0 layered scheme (I).

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doing”) paradigm. The formalization of

constructivist learning theory is attributed to Jean

Piaget, who suggested, “Through processes of

accommodation and assimilation, individuals

construct new knowledge from their experiences”.

Social Constructivism is a way of extending the

constructivist approach and its “interpretivism”

epistemological background with some kind of

internally driven social interaction. Social

constructivists view learning as a social process.

“Vygotsky favored a concept of learning as a social

construct, which is mediated by language via social

discourse” (McMahon, 1997).

Reality cannot be

discovered: it does not exist prior to its social

invention; knowledge is also a human product, and

is socially and culturally constructed. Meaning is

created through the individual’s interactions with

each other and with their environment. They accept

the existence of some kind of “inter subjectivity”, as

a shared understanding among individuals.

Connectivism (Siemens, 2005) is intended to unify

chaos, networks theory and complexity yielding a

new theoretical framework for explaining not only

individual but also social and organizational learning

processes too. This approach goes beyond the

constructivism itself and even the latest “versions”

of social constructivism including social interactions

without avoiding the same inside-out limitations of

the original theory.

The starting point for this concept is that the

knowledge exists by itself. Individuals mustn’t build

it. They are supposed to realize that knowledge by

connecting the nodes where it's located; being that

nodes other individuals, organizations, different

clusters weakly tied... “It is changing the Know-

How and Know-What for Know-Where the

Knowledge is” (Siemens, 2005).

Some of the connectivism key principles are

expressed as follows by its author.

• Learning is a network forming process

• Capacity to know more is more critical than

what is known

• Learning rests in aggregating diverse, often

opposing, views.

• Content is often the by-product of the learning

process, not the starting point.

• Connections, not content, are the beginning

point of the learning process.

• Learning can reside in non-human appliances.

• Knowledge can rest within our network, not

only internally in ourselves.

• Ability to see connections (pattern

recognition) between ideas and concepts

critical to learning.

• Currency (up to date knowledge) is the intent

of properly created learning networks.

• Decision making is in itself a learning process

4 ELEARNING 2.0

N-Gen stands not only for Next Generation, but also

even for Network Generation as a reference to the

Millennial Generation that was grown up with the

Internet as an integral part of their lives.

The connection between these two facets of the

same emergence process is the eLearning 2.0

metaphor described in (Downes, 2005) based on

some principles and paradigm shift heritage from

Connectivism and Web 2.0:

• Learner-centered design

• N-Gen students

• Teachers and Learners (Students) as peers

within social networking environment

• Social Software as services built upon a Web

platform

• “From a web of documents to a web of data”

with the emergence of “microcontent”. Hence

the emergence of micro- and nano- learning.

• “From a Web as Media to a Web as platform”

• “From Communities of Practice to Social-

Networking”

• From traditional learning applications and

systems managing learning objects within a

pre-defined learning architecture to an open

learning environment composed of

interoperable loosely coupled open-source

platforms and tools aimed to support the social

interactions of peers on the N-Gen EduWeb,

the Educational Web 2.0.

It's not about matching traditional models with

existing tools (Baumgartner, 2005) anymore; it’s

Figure 2: Web 2.0 layered scheme (II).

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301

about developing a brand-new pedagogical model

and implementing the Next generation Web

environment upon it.

5 iCamp

The project – iCamp – starts in October 2005, with

the participation of ten associated centers from nine

different countries as consortium partners:

• Jozef Stefan Institute (JSI), Slovenia.

• Tomas Bata University (TBU), Czech

Republic.

• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM),

Spain.

• University of Leicester (ULE), UK.

• Tallinn University (TLU), Estonia.

• Centre for Social Innovation (CSI), Austria.

• Vienna University of Economics (VUE),

Austria.

• University of Science and Technology (AGH),

Poland.

• Kaunas University of Technology (KTU),

Lithuania.

• Isik University (ISIK), Turkey.

The project will be coordinated from Austrian CSI.

Some of these partners belong to PROLEARN

Excellence Network for eLearning development.

5.1 Project Objectives

The main objectives of iCamp is to create an open

virtual learning environment for university students

across Europe by connecting different open source

learning systems and tools, and provide

interoperability amongst them. This new learning

environment is a learner-centered space where

students and educators will work collaboratively on

assignments across disciplines and across countries.

The objectives in iCamp are driven by

pedagogical, technical and social challenges and

can be summarized as:

• Investigate, develop and validate innovative

pedagogical models for social instruction that

support learners in achieving their learning

goals in a self-directed manner and to establish

social networks

This information has been published in the iCamp

Project website, (http://www.icamp-project.org).

• Provide a validated portfolio of constructivist

learning tools that support these innovative

learning models

• Provide an open virtual learning

environment consisting of a network of

learning tools, platforms and repositories

• Develop and describe open source code for

connecting to the iCamp network and to

provide interoperability amongst different

systems.

• Document and describe best practices to be

derived from the validation trials for

universities that may benefit from iCamp in

the future.

• Assess the actual and potential impacts of

the iCamp network on Higher Education

Institutions at different levels and from

different perspectives

5.1.1 Pedagogical Objectives

The pedagogical approach in iCamp starts from the

constructivist learning theory, with a focus on an

independent and self-organized learner. The iCamp

project emphasizes social instruction through a

social networking model, with educators playing

the role of mediators and mentors. The new

environment we envision – iCamp Space – will

provide tools to facilitate the mentoring and

mediating role of the educators in an open learning

environment and peer mentoring amongst students

to support social learning.

The iCamp model of scaffolding self-organized

learning will support the learners in identifying their

needs and to plan and carry out learning projects in

non-formal and informal settings. Individual

learning contracts (as an integral part of a learning

incentive model supporting the motivation of

students for self-directed learning) and learning

diaries will be drafted and combined with an easy

access to distributed and networked resources, and

personal and collaborative web publishing tools and

practices that are used for blog authoring.

The collaboration amongst students across countries

also implies cultural differences in learning and

these have to be respected and supported by the

learning environment. Diversity and localization

issues will be addressed in the design model. In this

context, a further analysis of emerging personal and

collaborative web publishing practices such as

weblog authoring will provide insights into the

codification and standardization of cross-cultural

and cross-disciplinary social networking and

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information sharing in open, networked

environments.

5.1.2 Technical Objectives

In terms of collaboration and communication iCamp

will focus on the potential of new tools that support

the creation of social networks amongst the students

and other peers. These new tools shall support the

personal preferences of the students.

iCamp will offer the students as well as any

academic staff access to large content repositories

that go beyond the currently existing learning object

repositories. The challenge for iCamp is to further

explore ways to retrieve important information from

the deep web by extending the Simple Query

Interface (SQI) and thus provide interoperability

amongst the various systems.

iCamp will also develop strong interoperability

amongst different open source learning platforms.

Some of the known learning tools and repositories

that have already been identified for potential

integration and usage are Educational Repositories

(EducaNext and PROLEARN network of

educational nodes, Universal Brokerage Platform

(UBP) based repositories, EMDEL, EUDORA

portal, LIEDM (Lithuanian Distance Education

Network), Slovenian catalogue of learning

resources), Learning and Content Management

Systems (Moodle, Drupal, Plone, DotLRN, IVA

from Tallinn University), Digital Libraries (Central

and Eastern European Online Library),

Videoconference Tools (VIPS - Interactive Video

Presentation and Lecturing System - ISABEL,

FlashMeeting), Synchronous & Asynchronous

Communication Tools (Instant Messaging, E-mail,

VoIP), Wikis (TikiWiki, MediaWiki), Authoring

Tools (CDK Course Development system from

Kaunas University), Blogs (full CMS based as Plone

or specific platform based like WordPress).

An iCamp Space will then be designed and a set of

iCamp Building Blocks that most contribute to the

iCamp pedagogical goals selected. The selected

tools will be adapted for integration and support of

the functions and mechanisms that foster

collaboration:

• Personalized search functions for peer

learners and learning resources that most

contribute to the learning needs.

• Mechanisms for decentralized sharing of

experiences and reflection on the learning

process and resources with other peer learners.

• Personal learner portfolios.

5.1.3 Social Objectives

In order to assess the potential of iCamp in

supporting and fostering the creation of social

networks the project will apply a social network

analysis approach. The research questions tackled

are related to the theory of social capital, with

experiments in the iCamp educational environments

carried out to examine its explanatory power in a

cross-cultural setting.

During the validation phase of iCamp the question

of how an eLearning community evolves as a social

network over time shall be addressed by analyzing

certain influence factors: the size and shape of the

network or its interaction patterns.

The cooperation and collaboration of students from

different countries in an enlarged Europe also

implies social challenges related to cross-cultural

aspects and diversity. It is the objective of iCamp to

provide a careful exploration and evaluation of the

social interactions that emerge in this kind of virtual

collaboration environments.

All these objectives must be translated into specific

results via the definition of a series of project goals.

These goals can be summarized as follows.

1. iCamp Space: an open virtual learning

environment consisting of a network of

learning tools, platforms and repositories

2. iCamp Interoperability & Collaboration

Patterns: description and open source code

for connecting to the iCamp Space

3. iCamp Building Blocks: a portfolio of

constructivist learning tools

4. iCamp Models: validated models for

scaffolding, social instruction, cross-cultural

collaboration, and learning incentives

5. iCamp Best Practice: experiences gained and

validated by trials in various universities

across Europe will be documented in the

iCamp evaluation reports

6. iCamp Exploitation Model & Plan: ensure

sustainability beyond the project consortium

by investigating and establishing Public

Private Partnerships (PPP), active awareness

building and trailing outside the consortium

partners, elaborating Revenue Models,

creating a supporting infrastructure, and

integrating existing open-source and

standardization initiatives

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5.2 Contributions to Standards

Standards play a crucial role when it comes to the

set up of semantic networks. For iCamp the

following rather newly developed standards are

relevant:

• Learner profiles: IEEE Personal And Private

Information (PAPI), IMS Learner Information

Package (LIP).

• Learning Artifacts Metadata: Learning

Objects Metadata (LOM), Dublin Core, IMS

Learning Design (LD).

• Digital Rights Management: Creative

Commons (CC), Open Digital Rights

Language (ODLR).

• Seamless access: Security Assertions Markup

Language (SAML), eXtensible Access Control

Markup Language (XACML).

The iCamp consortium has identified the following

areas where standards are lacking and the project has

the potential to significantly contribute to the

evolution of such:

• Standardized APIs for Querying and

Metadata Replication: SQI could be an

effective solution for achieving

interoperability between heterogeneous

repositories. However, still a lot of work

remains to be done in order to enhance the API

with methods for collaboration, query process

management or personalization. An extension

of the API that supports metadata replication is

also needed. The project will be in strong

collaboration with standardizing bodies and

other driving forces of the field such as the

Network of Excellence in E-Learning and

Semantic Web and aims at contributing to the

further development.

• International Standards for Collaborative

Technology: iCamp will contribute to the

JTC1 ISO/ICE SC36/WG2 on interoperability

of collaborative learning systems. This

working group is a Joint Technical Committee

between ISO and the International Electro

technical Commission (IEC) and is engaged in

the gradual evolution of learning systems from

stand-alone systems to collaborative learning

environments.

6 CONCLUSION

I would like to highlight – as a concluding remark –

the key points that explain the emergence of a whole

new breed of TEL projects like the one we’ve just

presented here:

• Many things have changed in this first decade

of Web history, and we are entering a different

evolutionary stage where the Web is becoming

– more than ever before – an actual “social

environment”. Hence, this transformation

impacts every industry, economic sector or

social segment without any exception.

• We have new theoretical frameworks – far

beyond the traditional epistemological

pragmatism as the philosophical basis for

cognitive constructivism – for dealing with

that change, allowing us to integrate

technology itself and social issues within our

models.

iCamp could be useful as a pioneering project and a

case study for future efforts in developing such an

ambitious learning space.

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