peer activity and online status can help build
community (Wahlstedt et al., 2008; Minocha, 2009;
Fetter et al., 2010). Cho et al. (2002) emphasize the
call for a focus on the communicative processes of
peer interaction rather than learning outcomes in
collaborative learning studies. McInnerney and
Roberts (2004) proposed three protocols to fortify
online social interaction including, most importantly,
a community forming stage devoted to the creation
of a solid classroom community.
The development of location-based services and
the rapid adoption of GPS-enabled mobile devices
have expanded OSNs from standard Web-based
versions to mobile social networks (Krishnamurthy
and Wills, 2010). Using location services, mobile
OSNs are gaining popularity and ubiquity among
mobile users. There has been a dramatic growth in
the number of active users of mobile OSNs with
forecasted growth from 54 million in 2008 to nearly
730 million in 2013 (Holden, 2009). These networks
have potential for community building. Ganoe et al.
(2010) find that providing users with mobile tools
and relevant time and location information regarding
community events can aid in community
engagement. To date, most of these networks are not
specific to education and only few actively
incorporate location information. Gentile et al.
(2007) modify an existing collaborative knowledge
building model to work in a mobile environment and
augment the learning space using geo-conceptual
maps. This is an example showing the benefit of
mobile tools for collaborative knowledge building
but does not address the need for peer support. Jorge
and Profírio (2010) introduce an Academic Social
Network to address mobility issues for European
universities and supply ontology for student profiles.
This work provides a perfect example of an OSN
devoted to education but lacks location awareness.
These advanced mobile applications, while making
resources and peers available, do not account for
problems encountered by feelings of separation and
dislocation prevalent in e-learning.
Reflecting on the aforementioned studies, we
realize the aptness of mobile technologies, location
awareness of peers and resources, and online social
networks in supporting learner’s engagement and
community building.
5 SUMMARY & FUTURE WORK
In open learning environments, learners are in charge
of their own learning. As such, learners need to
perform the precursory task of finding suitable
learning resources and a community of peers in order
to initiate collaboration. The burden of finding
resources or peers can de-motivate learners to
engage in collaboration or take advantage of anytime
and anywhere learning. Location is an important
consideration in selecting a suitable resource or
peers. Mobility of learners is another factor to
consider while developing a solution to facilitate
collaboration for learners on-the-go. Furthermore,
access to a physical resource can be a daunting task
without proper navigational assistance. We view that
online social networks, location information, and
mobile devices can be used together to offer a
learning environment that can facilitate learning
resources and peers in order to support collaborative
learning. In support of our position, we propose the
OnLocEd model and R3 methodology that can be
used to build such learning environments.
This paper is the first step towards addressing the
challenges of collaborative learning in open learning
environments. In this paper, we have identified the
challenges (i.e., finding learning resources and a
community of learners) and set forth our vision to
address the challenges. Our future work includes: (a)
extending the basic OnLocEd model to
accommodate learner preferences and
personalization (b) developing a prototypical system
based on the model and (c) conducting empirical
studies to gauge the effectiveness of our solution.
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