EC-TEL 2010 Call for Workshops

EC-TEL 2010
Fifth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning
Sustaining TEL: From Innovation to Learning and Practice
[www.ectel2010.org]

28 September - 1 October, 2010, Barcelona, Spain

Description and scope

EC-TEL 2010 will bring together people researching, working on and working with technological developments, learning models, and implementations of new and innovative approaches to training and education. The conference will explore how the synergy of multiple disciplines, such as Computer Science, Education, Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Social Science, can provide new, more effective and more sustainable technology-enhanced learning solutions to learning problems. The conference welcomes researchers and developers from all countries and all industries to present their recent advancements from technologies, applications, and learning models in all areas of technology enhanced learning.

In addition to the main program, EC-TEL 2010 will host workshops on topics related to the conference theme. Workshops promote scientific exchange amongst junior and senior researchers from different settings (i.e. universities, high-school, lifelong learning institutions, foundations, SMEs, companies, technology platforms). The workshops provide a face-to-face meeting point for exchange of information and experiences (i.e. project results, ongoing research, outstanding topics) related to Technology Enhanced Learning and the many sub-topics which embrace it.

General Information and Criteria

* Co-located workshops should cover topics falling within the general scope of the EC-TEL conference (refer to http://www.ectel2010.org), in September 28th, 29th
* Face-to-face contributions are encouraged. A workshop is not intended to be a paper session, symposium or set of slideshows. The more that people contribute in a pro-active and inter-active way, the more chances to get a highly successful workshop. Organizers should explicitly indicate in the methodology section how to support this interaction and active contribution between participants
* You might consider online contribution from people abroad. Should you have this setting in mind, please indicate technical requirements and you will elicit contribution from this group
* The minimum number of participants, including organizers is 10
* There is a clear main focus-topic, in addition to a well-defined target group
* Workshop duration can be either a half day or a full day
* Furthermore, as organiser, please provide detailed information about the review process, the name and affiliation of the reviewers, and the kinds of submissions you expect from participants (i.e. abstracts, short papers, full papers). In addition, suggestions and contacts of scientific journals to publish the workshops proceedings are welcome. Participation without a submitted paper is also possible
* In order to ensure the quality of the workshop contributions and their alignment with the general conference, we will follow a two-step process: 1) When an individual workshop is approved, the workshop organizers will manage the submission and internal review process of its participants and submitted papers; 2) All accepted papers in a workshop should be submitted to the workshop chair before the workshop so that they can be accessible on the website
* The most relevant papers will be invited to submit an extended version for further publication in a scientific journal

Submission process

1. Write a 2-page proposal with the following sections: Title, link (if appropriate), duration (half day, full day), main person responsible (full name, email address, phone number, a 2-line CV), other organizers (full names, email addresses, phone numbers, a 2-line CV), reviewers (full names and affiliation), workshop description, main topic, expected number of participants, target group (i.e., participant profile), expected outcomes, methodology, timetable, technical requirements, other considerations (e.g. related to a project or association)
2. Make a PDF-DOC file. Only PDF or DOC files will be accepted
3. Go to the EC-TEL 2010 website -> Submissions -> Workshop Submissions: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ectel2010workshops
* Watch: there is a separate submission website for papers, posters and demonstrations at: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ectel2010
4. Register at the EasyChair System.
5. Login with your EasyChair username and password
6. Choose "New Submission" in the top menu
7. Fill out all details in the form
8. Please specify all the required fields
9. Upload your workshop proposal as a PDF or DOC file; you can add an attachment too
10. Register into the conference

Important dates

1. Workshop proposals: 11 April 2010
2. Workshop acceptance: 11 May 2010
3. Paper deadline submission to workshops: 27 June 2010
4. Final paper acceptance: 31 July 2010
5. Workshops: 28, 29 September 2010

For more information

Contact the Workshop chair:
Daniel Burgos, TELSpain/ATOS Origin
www.telspain.es, www.atosresearch.eu
daniel.burgos@atosresearch.eu (subject: [EC-TEL2010] Workshop + your reference)

Tim Berners-Lee on Open Data [Video]

In this video, Tim Berners-Lee talks to the TED audience about Open Data and shows some results when the data can be mashed up. In a TEL context, this data can also be leveraged to build mashup personal learning environments.

LaaN as a Bridge between KM and TEL

LaaN represents a vision of learning, where the line between Knowledge Management (KM) and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) disappears. In LaaN, work/learning is viewed from a knowledge worker/learner perspective, and KM and TEL are seen as being primarily concerned with a continuous creation of a personal knowledge network (PKN). This ensures that the differences between KM and TEL are converging around a knowledge worker/learner-centric work/learning environment and makes that the roles of KM and TEL are blurring into one, namely supporting the knowledge worker/learner in continuously creating and optimizing their PKNs. In this sense, KM and TEL are not the two ends of a continuum but the two sides of the same coin.

Moreover, LaaN enables the seamless integration of work and learning. The view of learning as the continuous creation of a PKN makes learning and work so intertwined that learning becomes work and work becomes learning. As illustrated in the figure above, TEL in LaaN is no longer regarded as an external online training activity separate from the work flow, but rather as a learner-controlled evolving activity embedded directly into work processes.

LMS vs. PLE

As illustrated in the table above, In contrast to Learning Management Systems (LMS), Personal Learning Environments (PLE) have the following characteristics:

• Personalization: A LMS follows a one-size-fits-all approach to learning by offering a static system with predefined tools to a set of many learners around a course. A PLE, by contrast, is responsive and provides a personalized experience of learning. It considers the needs and preferences of the learner and places her at the center by providing her with a plethora of different tools and handing over control to her to select and use the tools the way she deems fit.

• Informal learning and lifelong learning support: A LMS is not supportive of informal or lifelong learning. It can only be used in a formal learning setting, managed and controlled by the educational institution. And, in a LMS, learning has an end. It stops when a course terminates. A PLE, however, can connect formal, informal, and lifelong learning opportunities within a context that is centered upon the learner. A PLE allows the learner to capture her informal and lifelong learning accomplishment and develop her own e-portfolio. In a PLE learning is fluid. It continues after the end of a particular course.

• Openness and decentralization: Unlike a LMS, which stores information on a centralized basis within a closed and bounded environment, a PLE goes beyond the boundaries of the organization and operates in a more decentralized, loosely coupled, and open context. A PLE offers an opportunity to learners to make effective use of diverse distributed knowledge sources to enrich their learning experiences.

• Bottom-up approach: Within a LMS there is a clear distinction between the capabilities of learners and of teachers, resulting into a one-way flow of knowledge. In contrast to a hierarchical top-down LMS, shaped by command-and-control and asymmetric relationships, a PLE provides an emergent bottom-up solution, driven by the learner needs and based on sharing rather than controlling.

• Knowledge-pull: A LMS adopts a knowledge-push model and is concerned with exposing learners to content and expecting that then learning will happen. A PLE, however, takes a knowledge-pull model. Learners can create their very own environments where they can pull knowledge that meets their particular needs from a wide array of high-value knowledge sources.

• Ecological learning: A PLE-driven approach to learning is based on personal environments, loosely connected. A PLE is not only a personal space, which belongs to and is controlled by the learner, but is also a social landscape that offers means to connect with other personal spaces in order to leverage knowledge within open and emergent knowledge ecologies. Rather than belonging to hierarchical and organization-controlled groups, each learner has her own personal environment and network. Based on their needs and interests, different learners come together for a learning experience. They work together until the learning goal is achieved and thereby do not have a permanent relationship with a formal organization or institution. The distributed PLEs can be loosely connected to build a knowledge ecology. Unlike LMS- driven groups/communities, which are closed, bounded, structured, hierarchical, and organization-controlled, a PLE-driven knowledge ecology is open, distributed, diverse, emergent, self-organized, and learner-controlled.

CfP: EC-TEL 2010

EC-TEL 2010
Fifth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning
Sustaining TEL: From Innovation to Learning and Practice
http://www.ectel2010.org

28 September - 1 October 2010 in Barcelona, Spain

The last decade has seen significant investment in terms of effort and resources (time, people, money) in innovating education and training.
The time has come to make the bold step from small scale innovation research and -development to larger scale implementation and evaluation. The time has come to show the world (government, industry, general population) that we have matured to the stage that sustainable learning and learning practices – both in schools and in industry – can be achieved based upon our work.

What not long ago was seen and experienced as a novel technology (Internet and WWW) has become for much of the populace mundane and commonplace (Web 2.0 and social software). What not long ago was expensive and exotic (computers and broadband computer networks) is now inexpensive and ordinary (netbooks and omnipresent wireless). And what in the past was proprietary and inaccessible (information and learning
materials) is now generic and open (open educational resources).

The TEL community is faced by new research questions related to large scale deployment of technology enhanced learning, support of individual
learning environments through mashup and social software, new approaches in TEL certification, etc. Furthermore, for new approaches are required for TEL design, implementation, and use to improve the understanding and communication of educational needs among all stakeholders, ranging from researchers, learners, tutors, educational organizations, companies, TEL industry, and policy makers.

ECTEL 2010 will bring together technological developments, learning models, and implementations of new and innovative approaches to training and education. The conference will explore how the synergy of multiple disciplines, ranging from Computer Science, Education, Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Social Science, can provide new, more effective and more especially more sustainable, technology-enhanced learning solutions to learning problems. The conference welcomes researchers and developers from European and Non-European countries and industries to present recent advancements from technologies, applications, and learning models in all areas of technology enhanced learning.

*** CONFERENCE TOPICS ***
From both research and experience perspective the following topics of interest to the conference include, but are not limited to:

Technological underpinning
* Large scale sharing and interoperability
* Technologies for personalisation and adaptation
* Context-aware systems
* Social computing and web 2.0
* Semantic web and web 3.0
* Mobile technologies
* Intelligent games
* Network infrastructures and architectures for TEL
* Sensors and sensor networks
* Roomware and ubiquitous computing
* Data mining and information retrieval
* Natural language processing and latent semantic analysis
* eLearning specifications and standards

Pedagogical underpinning
* Problem- and project-based learning / Inquiry based learning
* Computer supported collaborative learning
* Collaborative knowledge building
* Game-based and simulation-based learning
* Story-telling and reflection-based learning
* Instructional design and Design approaches
* Communities of learners & Communities of practice
* Teaching techniques and strategies for online learning
* Learner motivation and engagement
* Evaluation methods for TEL

Individual, social & organisational learning processes
* Cognitive mechanisms in knowledge acquisition and construction
* Self-regulated and Self-directed learning
* Social processes in teams and communities
* Social awareness
* Knowledge management and organisational learning
* Sustainability & TEL business models and cases
* Business-learning models

Learning contexts and domains
* Applications of TEL in various domains
* Formal education: initial (K-12, higher education), post-initial (continuing education)
* Workplace learning in small, medium and large companies
* Aggregated learning at the workplace Distance and online learning
* Lifelong learning (cradle to grave)
* Vocational training
* Informal learning
* Non-formal learning
* Ubiquitous learning

TEL in developing countries
* ICT Inclusion for learning
* Digital divide and learning
* Generation divide and learning
* Education policies
* Rural learning

TEL, functional diversity and users with special needs
* Accessible learning for all
* Visual, hearing and physical impairments
* Psycho-pedagogic support for users
* Educational guidance for tutors
* Adapted learning flow, content and monitoring process
* Standards about accessibility and learning


*** DEMONSTRATIONS ***
The EC-TEL Demonstration is your chance to fully engage EC-TEL attendees at a personal level by letting them see, touch, squeeze, or hear your visions for the future of TEL. We expect that your Demonstration will be a reliably running prototype of your vision ready to be tried out, questioned, interacted with, … In particular, we encourage Demonstration submissions that complement an EC-TEL Paper submission, so that attendees can get a direct experience of your work in addition to the scientific presentation.

Demonstration submissions consist of three parts: (1) short paper, (2) video trailor or remote access to prototype, and (3) description of
technical requirements (see website for more details).


*** WORKSHOP ORGANISATION ***
EC-TEL 2010 offers the opportunity to host several workshops. Parties interested to organize a workshop are asked to submit a proposal of
max. 4 pages outlining the theme of the workshop, workshop format, expected participants and domains addressed, dissemination activities,
programme committee, and organizational requirements. A separate call will be published in parallel. Proposals should be submitted via the EasyChair system of ECTEL.


*** IMPORTANT DATES ***
Paper & demonstration submission: 11 April 2010
Paper & demonstration acceptance: 31 May 2010
Camera-ready final papers: 30 June 2010
Workshop proposals: 11 April 2010
Workshop acceptance: 11 May 2010
Workshops: 28/29 September 2010
Conference 30 September /1 October 2010


*** SUBMISSION FORMATS ***
All papers will be reviewed through a non-blind review process. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Proceeding will be published by Springer within their “Lecture Notes in Computer Science” series which is ranked in the ISI Web of Knowledge.
The use of supplied template is mandatory:
http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-7-72376-0

* Full Papers (max. 16 pages)
* Short Papers and Posters (max. 6 pages)
* Meetings: contact the local organisation chair

*** CONFERENCE ORGANISATION ***
General chair: Vania Dimitrova, University of Leeds, UK
Programme chairs: Martin Wolpers, Fraunhofer FIT, Germany; and Paul A. Kirschner, Open Universiteit Nederland
Workshop chair: Daniel Burgos, TELSpain/ATOS Origin, Spain
Poster and Demonstration chair: Stefanie Lindstaedt, Know-Center Graz, Austria
Industrial session chair: Julio Alonso, TELSpain/International University of La Rioja, Spain
Local organization chair: Marta Enrech, TELSpain/Open University of Catalonia, Spain
Doctoral Consortium chairs: Katherine Maillet, INT, France; and Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen, Germany