Ubiquitous Learning Environment: Smart Learning Platform with Multi-Agent Architecture

Abstract

Ubiquitous learning (u-learning) has become popular nowadays in education area. The key factor of u-leaning is that the learners are situated in a context-aware learning environment and they may not even be conscious of the learning process. This paper aims to develop the ubiquitous learning environment (ULE) being able to provide the content to the learners appropriately and adaptively. The developed ULE consists of several leaning objects (LOs) having the multi-agent architecture to achieve adaptability. Each LO consists of three different agents coordinating together including a personal agent for keeping the users' profiles and their historic actions, a content agent for selecting LO to the learners, and a representation agent for presenting the content to the learners. Two empirical studies are conducted in this paper including architecture and learning mode empirical study. For both empirical studies, the learning efficiency enhancement and students' satisfaction in terms of functionality and adaptability are evaluated. The results show that the developed ULE with multi agent architecture can enhance the students' learning efficiency significantly for both individual and collaborative learning modes. Additionally, the students satisfy their learning through the developed ULE in the "satisfied" level in terms of functionality and adaptability for both empirical studies.