Wearable Enhanced Learning (WELL) at the Learning Ideas Conference 2021 in NY

It was a pleasure to give a keynote and facilitate a workshop on Wearable Enhanced Learning (WELL): Trends, Opportunities, and Challenges at the Learning Ideas Conference 2021 in New York (USA), which tool place online this year due to the pandemic. The Learning Ideas Conference originated as the International Conference on E-learning in the Workplace (ICELW) and was founded by David Guralnick, Ph.D in 2008 to bring together researchers and practitioners from around the world.

My keynote addressed trends, opportunities and challenges of wearable enhanced learning, for which we coined the acronym WELL to describe the potential of wearable technologies to support seamless learning and to contribute to well-being also in the context of learning. In my keynote I provided an overview of wearable sensors and devices which can be used to enhance learning and presented selected case studies from the edited Springer book on Wearable Enhanced Learning (Eds. Buchem, Klamma & Wild) which we published as part of the activities in our Special Interest Group – SIG WELL – at the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning.

In the workshop we brainstormed ideas about how to use wearable technologies for social impact. We have come up with a few exciting ideas in the realm of work-based learning, communication, education, parenting and even helping homeless people.

Here are some links to the recordings that have been done prior and during the conference:

• You can check out this video clip in which I discuss the ways in which wearable technology and emerging digital media can allow learners to be more mobile and free.
• You can listen to this podcast  in which I shares highlights from my conference keynote.
• You can follow this link for more info: https://lnkd.in/enx7QrE
• Here is a post on the SIG WELL website https://ea-tel.eu/sigs/well-at-the-learning-ideas-conference-2021

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Gamification in AR/VR/MR Exergames

“Exergaming relies on technologies that track user body movements and vital parameters such as the heart rate. Exergames in virtual and mixed reality use different types of sensors and inputs to engage the users in an immersive gameplay and to provide real time feedback on performance, e.g. cameras, remote controls, wearable trackers and gym equipment with sensors. This section presents the case study of mixed reality exergames from the BewARe project.”

Buchem, I. Vorweg, S., Stamm, O., Hildebrandt, K., Bialek, Y. (2021). Gamification in Mixed-Reality Exergames for Older Adult Patients in a Mobile Immersive Diagnostic Center: A Pilot Study in the BewARe Project. In: Economou, D.; Peña-Rios, A.; Dengel et al. (Eds). Proceedings of the 7th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN 2021), pp. 139-146. URL: https://immersivelrn.org/ilrn2021/ilrn-2021-proceeedings/

Our paper for the iLRN2021 Conference from the bewARe project presents an immersive system for physical training of older adult patients with hypertension with a set of gamified mini-exergames guided by an anthropomorphic virtual agent in a mixed-reality environment.

The bewARe project is a three-year research and development project founded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the program Interactive systems in virtual and real spaces – innovative technologies for a healthy life.

The paper outlines related work, presents the mixed-reality system design in the bewARe project, the gamification design of the mini-exergames and the pilot study with older adult patients. The study results address the key research question of how older adult users perceived the mixed reality interaction design and which gamification elements contributed to the positive user experience of older adult patients in the three mini-exergames. The paper ends with the discussion of potentials and challenges of gamification in mixed-reality exergames with focus on older adult users and recommendations for further research.

It was great to present the paper in the virtual campus as an avatar (see pictures below).

You can view my slides here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jAEoBtqLMo8R_Ms_JEqKue4qNUGzOJ8O/view?usp=sharing

ilrn2021-buchem-beware.pptxDownload

Digital Skills Workshop Proceedings DeLFI2020

DeLFI 2018 workshop

DeLFI 2019 workshop

DeLFI 2020 workshop

We have been organising digital skill workshops as part of the DeLFI Conference for three years now in different teams. In 2020 we organised the third workshop titled “Digital Skills Workshop: Modelling, Capturing, Cataloguing, Processing and Certification”. The focus of the third workshop was on the scientific challenges in the modelling of semantic competence definitions.

Some of the workshop contributions addressed digital credentials such as Open Badges as an answer to some of the drawbacks of traditional certificates such as incompatibility for machine processing and semantic search as well as an impediment in digitisation of education on all levels including certification. Some of the key contributions touched upon skill matching and skills intelligence through application of ontologies and semantic technologies, as well as different forms of competency modelling.

You can view all publications from the DeLFI2020 workshop on digital skills in the DeLFI2020 workshop proceedings.

DeLFI2020 Workshop ProceedingsDownload

Designing a Collaborative Learning Hub for Virtual Mobility Skills

I have been coordinating a new European project called Open Virtual Mobility (Erasmus+ strategic partnership, 2017-2020) and presented about the design of the collaborative learning hub for virtual mobility skills which we have been developing in the project at the Human Computer Interaction International Conference, 15-20 July 2018 in Las Vegas, USA.

Our paper was published in the Conference Proceedings published by Springer. Here is the abstract:

“Higher education faces high requirements and challenges in today’s global world, including internationalisation as a response to globalisation. Virtual Mobility (VM) has a great potential to contribute to the internationalisation, innovation and inclusion in higher education. While it is feasible to encourage outward and inward student and faculty mobility, the main limitations include high costs of travelling and living in a foreign country, diverse socio-economic, health-related and even political issues. These barriers can be reduced by adding virtual components to mobility programs and actions (e.g. virtual seminars, virtual labs, virtual internships). This paper presents an approach for designing a collaborative learning hub for promoting VM Skills of educators and students in the European Higher Education Area. The VM Learning Hub assists to enhance the Virtual Mobility readiness of higher education institutions, educators and students through achievement, assessment and recognition of VM skills. This paper introduces the concept and the architecture of VM Learning Hub – a Collaborative and Personal Learning Environment with embedded technologies for innovative forms of skill attainment (open education, gamification), skill assessment (test-based and evidence-based e-assessment), skill recognition (open credentials, linked data) and collaboration (based on algorithm-based matching of learning groups).”

You can read our paper titled Designing a Collaborative Learning Hub for Virtual Mobility Skills. Insights from the European Project Open Virtual Mobility. (Authors: Ilona Buchem, Johannes Konert, Chiara Carlino, Gerard Casanova,
Kamakshi Rajagopal, Olga Firssova, Diana Andone) by following this Springer link: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-91743-6_27

And you can view the presentation slides on SlideShare:

Open Badges in South Africa

The Open Education Global Conference 2017 took place 8-10 March in Cape Town, South Africa. I was a great conference with a great number of interesting contributions and superb researchers and practitioners so I was very pleased to attend and introduce Open Badges as elements of Open Education in form of an Action Lab (see program and the Twitter hashtag #oeglobal). Also I presented a poster with the results of the policy research we have done in the Open Badge Network project.

It seems to me that the discussion around Open Education has been often narrowed down to Open Educational Resources and recently MOOCs, not sufficiently taking into consideration other forms of Open Education and Open Learning. I see Open Badges as one of these elements of Open Education which should be anchored in the global discourse on Open Education and Open Education Practices. I hope through these contributions to the conference program, I managed to trigger the interest and discussion about Open Badges for Open Education in this global community.

The OE Global Conference 2017 concluded but the Year of Open continues! The Year of Open is “a global focus on open processes, systems, and tools, created through collaborative approaches, that enhance our education, businesses, governments, and organizations” (learn more).

Here is the abstract of the Action Lab titled “Scaling up Open Badges for Open Education” and the link to my slides in SlideShare:

“This Action Lab aims at exploring and designing Open Badges as elements of Open Education. Open Badges are based on an open standard which enables to anyone to recognise and openly communicate open learning achievements including skills. Open Badges are used as open (micro) credentials and are an important element of Open Education as they enable learners to get their open learning achievements recognised, digitally recorded, validated and communicated to any audience in an open and transparent way. Open Education has been discussed in view of open access and participation in open courses and the production and use of Open Educational Resources. However, the element of recognition and communication of open education achievements has been neglected so far. The European Open Badge Network project is one of the global initiatives to promote Open Badges: http://openbadgenetwork.com.

This Acton & Design Lab aims at incubating ideas and formulating recommendations for scaling-up the use of Open Badges to recognise Open Learning in different open educational contexts. This lab takes 2 hours and starts with a hands-on demonstration of Open Badges as an open technology and educational approach including selected case studies (30 minutes). This is followed by a structured discussion about potentials and challenges of using Open Badges for recognition of Open Learning, using affinity diagramming techniques (30 minutes). The last part is about brainstorming ideas and designing recommendations for scaling-up Open Badges for Open Education (60 minutes). The last part is organised around three key dimensions of scaling-up of Open Badges, i.e. context, content, community. The results of the lab is a list of actions and recommendations for scaling up the use of Open Badges. The list encompasses policy, organisational, teacher and learner recommendations and will be published on the Open Badge Network portal.”

Special Track on Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL)

To start the new year I am happy to announce our Call for Paper of the Special Interest Group on Wearable Enhanced Learning (WELL) at the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning: http://ea-tel.eu/special-interest-groups/well/

Here it is:

Special Track on Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL)
at the Immersive Learning Research Network Conference iLRN 2017
June 26-29, 2017, Coimbra, Portugal
https://immersivelrn.org/ilrn2017/

1 Topic of the Special Track

Wearable technologies – such as smart watches, smart glasses, smart objects, smart earbuds, or smart garments – are just starting to transform immersive user experience into formal education and learning at the workplace. These devices are body-worn, equipped with sensors and conveniently integrate into leisure and work-related activities including physical movements of their users.

Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL) is beginning to emerge as a new discipline in technology enhanced learning in combination with other relevant trends like the transformation of classrooms, new mobility concepts, and cyber-physical systems. Wearable devices play an integral role in the digital transformation of industrial and logistics processes in the Industry 4.0 and thus demand new learning and training concepts like experience capturing, re-enactment and smart human-computer interaction.

This proposal of a special track is the offspring of the SIG WELL (http://ea-tel.eu/special-interest-groups/well/) in the context of the European Association for Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL). It is a follow up proposal for the inaugural session we had at the iLRN 2015 in Prague. In the meantime, the SIG was successful in organising a number of similar events at major research conferences and business oriented fairs like the EC-TEL, the I-KNOW and the Online Educa Berlin OEB. Moreover, the SIG has involved in securing substantial research funds through the H2020 project WEKIT (www.wekit.eu). The SIG would like to use the opportunity to present itself as a platform for scientific and industrial knowledge exchange. EATEL and major EU research projects and networks in the field support it. Moreover, we’ll seek to attach an IEEE standard association community meeting of the working group on Augmented Reality Learning Experience Models (IEEE ARLEM).

2 List of Topics

• Industry 4.0 and wearable enhanced learning
• Learning Analytics for Wearable technologies
• Wearable technologies for health and fitness
• Wearable technologies and affective computing
• TEL applications of smart glasses, watches, armbands
• Learning context and activity recognition for wearable enhanced learning
• Body-area learning networks with wearable technologies
• Data collection from wearables
• Feedback from wearables
• Learning designs with wearable technologies
• Augmented Reality Learning
• Ad hoc learning with wearables
• Micro learning with wearables
• Security and privacy for wearable technology enhanced learning
• Collaborative wearable technology enhanced learning

3 Dates

• Paper submission: February 1, 2017 (How to submit? Check: Author’s Info)
• Notification of authors: March 15, 2017
• Full paper submission: April 15, 2017
• Date of the conference: June 26-29, 2017

Contributing papers have to undergo a peer review process and will be included
in the conference proceedings, depending on the overall quality and special tracks chairs’ decision, either as a long paper (10 – 12 pages) or as a short paper (6 -8 pages). Excellent papers will be deemed full papers (14 pages) and included in the Springer proceedings. Authors of selected papers will also be invited to extend their contribution and to be published in a special issue of the JCR-indexed Journal of Universal Computer Science.

4 Track chairs

Ilona Buchem, Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Germany
Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen University, Germany,
István Koren, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Fridolin Wild, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Alla Vovk, Oxford Brookes University, UK

5 Tentative Program Committee (t.b.c.)

Mario Aehnelt, Fraunhofer IGD Rostock, Germany
Davinia Hernández-Leo, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Carlos Delgado Kloos, UC3M, Spain
Elisabetta Parodi, Lattanzio Learning Spa, Italy
Carlo Vizzi, Altec, Italy
Mar Perez Sangustin, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
Isa Jahnke, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA
Jos Flores, MIT, USA
Michael Fominykh, Europlan, UK
Puneet Sharma, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Yishay Mor, Levinsky College of Education, Israel
Tobias Ley, Tallinn University, Estonia
Peter Scott, Sydney University of Technology, Australia
Victor Alvarez, Murdoch University, Australia
Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, The Open University, UK
Carl Smith, Ravensbourne University, UK
Victoria Pammer-Schindler, Graz University of Technology &Know-Center Graz, Austria
Christoph Igel, CeLTech, Germany
Peter Mörtel, Virtual Vehicle, Austria
Brenda Bannan, George Mason University, USA
Christine Perey, Perey Consulting, Switzerland
Kaj Helin, VTT, Finland
Jana Pejoska, Aalto, Finland
Jaakko Karjalainen, VTT, Finland
Joris Klerxx, KU Leuven, Belgium
Marcus Specht, Open University, Netherlands
Roland Klemke, Open University, Netherlands
Will Guest, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Open Badges – DACH Communities and Events

Open Badges are beginning to gain momentum in Europe. We are just starting to grow our Open Badges DACH Usergroup (OB-DACH) for DACH countries (Germany D, Austria A, Switzerland CH) inspired by the Open Badges ANZ Usergroup for Australia and New Zealand (OB-ANZ).

I would like to invite you to join our Google+ DACH Community and connect with us on Twitter – @DACHbadges.

For all German-speaking users of Open Badges there is also the German Badge Design Canvas.

The original canvas has been developed by DigitalMe in UK to guide the design process of Open Badges.

Here are some of the upcoming events on Open Badges in Germany:

• 7 Sept 2015, 14.30 – 16.30: Workshop “Open Badges for Open Education” with Grainne Hamilton and me as part of Pre-Conference of The Digital Turn Week in Berlin and the Open Educational Ideas
• 30 October 2015, 09.00 – 11.00: Workshop “Europortfolio” as part of the Online, Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference 2015
• 2 December 2015, 9.00 – 17.00: Workshop “Open Badges for Individuals and Organisations. An Interactive Case Study” with as part of the Pre-Conference of Online Educa Berlin 2015

Here is the Open Badge for the participants of the “Open Badges for Open Education” workshop on 7th September 2015 in Berlin:

https://openbadgefactory.com/c/earnablebadge/NU9AMRnHHQnI/apply

I am looking forward to community building and connecting with Open Badges practitioners and researchers!

CfP: Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning

I am glad to announce the following Call for Papers:

Special Track on Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL)
at the Immersive Learning Research Network Conference iLRN 2015
July 13-14, 2015, Prague, Czech Republic
http://immersivelrn.org/ilrn2015prague

 

Topic of the Special Track

Wearable technologies – such as smart watches, smart glasses, smart objects, smart earbuds, or smart garments – are just starting to transform immersive user experience into formal education and learning at the workplace. These devices are body-worn, equipped with sensors and conveniently integrate into leisure and work-related activities including physical movements of their users.

Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL) is beginning to emerge as a new discipline in technology enhanced learning in combination with other relevant trends like the transformation of classrooms, new mobility concepts, cyber-physical systems and the transformation of industries like logistics and industrial production.

This special track is the off-spring of the new SIG WELL in the context of the European Association for Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL). The SIG would like to use the opportunity to present itself as a new platform for scientific and industrial knowledge exchange. It is supported by EATEL and major EU research projects in the field like Learning Layers and Tellme.

List of Topics

• Industry 4.0 and wearable enhanced learning
• Learning Analytics for Wearable technologies
• Wearable technologies for health and fitness
• Wearable technologies and affective computing
• TEL applications of smart glasses, watches, armbands
• Learning context and activity recognition for wearable enhanced learning
• Body-area learning networks with wearable technologies
• Data collection from wearables
• Feedback from wearables
• Learning designs with wearable technologies
• Augmented Reality Learning
• Ad hoc learning with wearables
• Micro learning with wearables
• Security and privacy for wearable technology enhanced learning
• Collaborative wearable technology enhanced learning

Dates

• Full paper submission: March 1, 2015
• Notification of authors: April 15, 2015
• Full paper submission: May 15, 2015
• Date of the conference: July 13-14, 2015

All accepted full papers will be published with IOS Press as part of the workshop proceedings of the Intelligent Environments conference (IE’15). All other accepted contributions will be published as online proceedings linked to an ISSN number. Authors of selected papers will also be invited to extend their contribution and to be published in a special issue of the Transactions of Future Intelligent Education Environments journal (TOFIEE).

Track chairs

Ilona Buchem, Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Germany

Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen University, Germany,

Fridolin Wild, Open University, UK

Special Interest Group

The EA-TEL Special Interest Group on Wearable-Technology Enhanced Learning

Please visit us on: http://ea-tel.eu/special-interest-groups/well/

THE PLE CONFERENCE 2013

This year I was honoured to act as the General Chair of the 4th international PLE Conference, which took place 10-12 July 2013 in Berlin at Beuth University of Applied Sciences with a parallel event in Melbourne at Monash University.

The PLE Conference is dedicated to Personal Learning Environment and is an international scientific conference taking place annually, each time in a different city. Following the successful events in Barcelona in Spain 2010, in Southampton, UK in 2011, Aveiro, Portugal and Melbourne, Australia in 2012, the 4th International PLE Conference 2013 was held in Berlin, Germany and in Melbourne, Australia. The aim of the PLE Conference 2013 is to create a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences and research around the development and implementation of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) – including the design of environments and the sociological and educational issues that they raise.

This year, the special theme for the conference was learning and diversity in cities of the future. The focus was on how to design Personal Learning Environments in order to support diversity, cross-boundary learning and interdisciplinary transformation of urban spaces as part of highly interconnected social and technological infrastructures of smart cities.  As in smart urban spaces, people, organisations and objects become interconnected by means of new technologies and media, innovative, sustainable and inclusive solutions for connected learning become crucial not only in terms of emerging technologies but first and foremost in terms of (i) human knowledge and skills, (ii) diverse and inclusive communities, as well as (iii) learning and knowledge networks.

In search for an intelligent exploitation of networked urban infrastructures for learning and the extension of the current understanding of Personal Learning Environments, the PLE’13 Call for Papers looked for concepts, scenarios, technologies, frameworks as well as educational approaches for constructing PLEs to support learning in smart urban spaces. We are currently working on the Conference Proceedings and the Special Issues – the Special Issue of eLearning Papers (Issue 34) and in the Special Issue of the Journal of Literacy and Technology (JLT) – which will include best papers from the PLE Conference 2013. The publications are scheduled mid September.

I would like to take this opportunity and thank all of you who supported this year’s conference as a member of the Organising Committee and/or as a member of the Scientific Committee!  It has been a great experience and the success of this year’s conference would not be possible without you!!!

We will soon have the recordings of the sessions featured at  BeuthBox campus TV.  For the time being have a look at the pictures from the conference on Flickr, e.g. here + here + here + here + here + here + here +  here + here + here – and have a look at the latest updates including links to slides on SlideShare in our PLE2013 Facebook group.

ePortfolio, gender, identity

The proceeding of the 10th international conference of ePortfolio and Identity – ePIC 2012- have been  recently published. It is great to see here my first research results on “Gender-specific ePortfolio practice and gender-sensitive ePortfolio design” published in the paper with the same title. In 2013 I am planning to conduct further research based on the conceptual framework presented in this paper.

In the proceedings you will find a wide range of publications looking at ePortfolio and Identity from diverse perspectives. the proceedings include special themes, such as ePortfolios in “Healthcare” and “Teacher Education” and  more general sections such as “Identity and Social Recognition”, “Assessment” and “ePortfolio Implementation”.

I especially enjoyed discussions and contributions related to identity and recognitions. My personal highlight of ePIC 2012 was Mozilla’s workshop on Open Badges which really inspired my research this year.

Here is the link to the proceedings of the ePIC Conference 2012.