i-collaboration: um modelo de colaboraÃÃo inteligente personalizada para ambientes de EAD

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

Although there is an ever increasing offer of virtual learning environments in the market, little has been done to motivate students to use them. As a matter of fact, the available virtual learning environments have presented the same basic functionalities over the years, which has led to a general feeling of isolation. Moreover, users do not feel cared for, since systems generally do not take their particular needs into account. Consequently, there are evasion rates in Distance Learning Environments. The virtual collaboration has been increasingly adopted in such environments as an attempt to contribute to the solution of these problems. The environments look to promote interaction between its users and thus provide a motivation to learn. However, the actions taken in attempt to reduce these problems have been inadequate and had not yet satisfactory results As a way of overcoming these problems in virtual learning environments, trying to decrease the evasion rates, this work introduces a new model of collaboration, called intelligent collaboration or i-collaboration. This model is composed by a learning companion agent integrated with collaborative tools in virtual learning environments, so that it can act in promotion and in mediation of collaborative interactions in the environments. In i-collaboration, the learning companion agent provides a unique view (perception) of the environment to each user. This view is based on the userâs own needs and preferences. Thus, the model seeks to provide each student the motivation to continue learning virtually. In summary, the goal of this work is to help virtual learning environments in promoting collaboration between their users, exploring and providing new learning resources that allow students with different personalities to learn anytime, anywhere. The model was developed and implemented within the Environment Cleverpal, whose domain is Project Management. In order to deal with professional managers, who often have very little spare time, various learning resources (exercises, simulators, contents, tips, chatterbot, glossary...) were already present in the environment even before the integration with the model. However, before the integration, the environment had no collaborative tools available to its users, which remained isolated in the environment. The environment was ideal for the model application. To investigate whether or not the model was interesting, an experiment was carried out (where we integrated the i-collaboration model to the Cleverpal). In this experiment, users have interacted with the environment during the course of one week, studying project management contents. All seven participants interacted with the learning companion agent, received customized tips from it and used the added collaborative tools of the environment. The obtained results of this experiment indicate that the intelligent collaboration model contributes to the promotion of collaboration between users of virtual learning environments. Furthermore, it was possible to perceive, through the collected data, that the learning companion agent successfully motivated users in the environment, monitoring the individual activities of each student, contributing to the learning of these. The Cleverpal presented friendly access and navigation. In other words, the obtained results indicate that the i-collaboration model reached its goals, helping and motivating the students in attractive and customized way

ASSUNTO(S)

i-collaboration colaboraÃÃo educaÃÃo a distÃncia ambientes virtuais de ensino e aprendizagem ciencia da computacao learning companion agents i-collaboration collaboration virtual learning environments companheiros virtuais distance education

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