Presentation at PLE Conference2013 - Berlin

1. ThirdSpace : orchestrating collaborative
activities in PLEs for formal learning
Yvan Peter
Université Lille 1 – LIFL
Yvan.Peter@univ-lille1.fr
Eloy D. Villasclaras-Fernández
The Open University - Institute of Educational Technology
Yannis Dimitriadis
Universidad de Valladolid, GSIC/EMIC

2. Context & motivation
Formal & personal...

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LMS vs. PLE
Learning Management System Personal Learning Environment
Uniform Rationalised
Structured
Institution is in control
Ad hoc Social
Self-regulated
Learner is in control

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Formal & personal
● Building an effective PLE is hard
– Digital literacy issues
– Personal knowledge management skills
● Formal learning
– Provides organisation and scaffolding to
facilitate knowledge acquisition

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Widget based PLEs
(Marín et al., 2012)
(Pedro et al. 2012)
(González-Tato et al., 2012)

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Structuring learning
activities
Collaborative learning in personal space

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Collaboration scripts &
patterns
● CSCL scripts
– Organise learning activities so as to enable
collaborative interactions
– Handle activities, actors and ressources
● Collaborative Learning Flow Patterns (CLFP)
– Provide ready to use best practice CSCL scripts
– Graphical representation & IMS-LD export

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Collaboration scripts &
patterns

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Supporting activities in
PLEs
● Orchestrating activities
– CLFPs modeled as business processes
– Workflow engine responsible for the
management of the activities
● ThirdSpace
– Publish & monitor activities in the learners'
PLEs

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Thirdspace : platform
➀ design & deploy
➁ process instanciation
➃ activity publication
& monitoring
➂ get & terminate activities
➀ define learner's tools

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Use case
Think Pair Share script

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Thirdspace : use case
Task published
in learner's blog
Task completion as a comment
Awareness
● Learner's define their learning
tools
● Thirspace
● retrieves activities
● publishes in learner's PLE
● upon completion
● notifies the workflow engine
● publishes event in social
network

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Conclusion

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Conclusion
● ThirdSpace provides collaborative activities
orchestration within learners' PLEs
– Learning path
– Leverage Web 2.0 & social software
● Need to balance structure and learner
centredness
● Need to support learners in appropriation of
the environment