A Design and Development Approach for Deploying Web and Mobile Applications to Support Collaborative Seamless Learning Activities.

A Design and Development Approach for Deploying Web and Mobile Applications to Support Collaborative Seamless Learning Activities.

In this thesis I address challenges related to the design, development and deployment of web and mobile technologies used to support Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) activities practiced across a variety of learning contexts. The scientific publications at the core of this thesis offer a description of these efforts that took place during a period of 5 years of research evaluated in different studies involving several hundred users.

My research efforts included the elicitations of requirements, as well as the design of a number of web and mobile tools to address those requirements in order to support collaborative seamless learning activities. A web-based environment called CeLS was developed to support the orchestration of CSCL activities. The integration of mobile solutions aimed to extend CeLS’ abilities for supporting educational interactions performed both inside and outside classical classroom settings. These mobile solutions were designed for learning activities that supported data collection, personal response systems and interacting with mobile videos.

The main aim of the research I carried out during these last 5 years was to investigate how to best design tools to support students during the enactment of seamless learning activities and to provide teachers with artifacts to design and assess those. Special emphasis has been given to the exploration of approaches that enhance the flow, reusability and sharing of learner generated content across different learning activities. Several studies have been conducted in order to validate and assess these ideas and concepts. A variety of data collection methods have been used to gather data from different stakeholders during the deployment of the mentioned type of CSCL activities. The outcomes of these efforts have been processed and analyzed resulting in a set of recommendations concerning the design, development and deployment of web and mobile applications to support collaborative seamless learning.