1st International ELeGI Conference on Advanced Technology for Enhanced Learning - Index

Abstract

The 1st International ELeGI Conference on Advanced Technology for Enhanced Learning aimed to bring together researchers, academics, professors, educational scientists and technologists in all areas of ICT and human learning who are interested in exploring methodologies and systems and sharing current research on advanced technology for enhanced learning. At the same time to share work and disseminate the results of first year of the ELeGI project. ELeGI (European Learning Grid Infrastructure) is an EU-funded Integrated Project that aims at facilitating the emergence of a European GRID infrastructure for eLearning and stimulating research of technologies to enhance and promote effective human learning. In current practice, learning processes are based mainly on the information transfer paradigm. Learning is teacher-centred and seen as simple transmission of the knowledge from the teacher to the student who has a passive role of receiving the information. Most of the elearning solutions available on the market only support a specific aspect of the learning process: the content delivery (content centred approach). ELeGI promotes and supports a learning paradigm shift focused on knowledge construction using experientials based and collaborative learning approaches in a contextualised, personalised and ubiquitous way. This new paradigm is based on a learner centred approach: learning is student-centred and seen as personal and active construction of his/her own knowledge. Considering people at the centre, learning is clearly a social, constructive phenomenon. It occurs as a side effect of realistic simulations, interactions, conversations, collaborations and enhanced presence in dynamic Virtual Communities. The philosophy and approach behind Grid technologies show the right characteristics for achieving an effective learning. Indeed, they allow access to and integrate the different technologies, resources and contents that are required in order to realise the new paradigm. They are the most promising approach to realise an infrastructure that will allow learning process actors to collaborate, to take part in realistic simulations, to use and share high quality learning data and to innovate solutions of learning and training. Grid will be able to support learning processes allowing each learner to use, in a transparent and collaborative manner, the resources already existing online, by facilitating and managing dynamic conversations with other human and artificial actors available on the GRID. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who helped to organise this conference. We want to thank the invited speakers for their precious speeches and all the authors for submitting their papers to the conference, which have been collected into three sections: ELeGI Project: main activities and results eLearning: pedagogical approaches, learner models, environment and technologies Grid Technologies: Applications and Interfaces We also thank all the speakers involved in the ELeGI tutorial day, held just before the Conference.