learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Peter Mikulecky
exploit software agents in order to construct such a profile. More in particular, each student is
associated to a software agent which monitors his Web activities, and when the student accesses an
e-learning site, his agent exploits the student’s profile interacting with the site. In this interaction, the
site can use both content-based and collaborative filtering techniques to provide recommendations to
the student’s agent by adapting the site presentation.
4. On the way to the Annette and Solomon scenario
Quoting (Weiser 1991), the most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave
themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. As a matter of fact,
ubiquitous learning could be a good example of such a technology.
Without any doubts any AmI application bringing new ideas and approaches into educational process
at every level of education deserves a special attention. One of educational applications is the Smart
Classroom project (Shi et al. 2010). It aims to build a real-time interactive classroom with teleeducation
experience by bringing pervasive computing technologies into traditional distance learning.
The goal of Smart Classroom project is to narrow the gap between the teacher’s experience in teleeducation
and that in the traditional classroom education, by means of integrating these two currently
separated education environments together. The used approach was to move the user interface of a
real-time tele-education system from the desktop into the 3D space of an augmented classroom
(called Smart Classroom) so that in this classroom the teacher could interact with the remote students
with multiple natural modalities just like interacting with the local students.
A more general overview of the AmI possibilities in education brings our recently published book
chapter (Mikulecky et al. 2011). The objective of the paper is to identify and analyze key aspects and
possibilities of AmI applications in educational processes and institutions (universities), as well as to
present a couple of possible visions for these applications. A number of related problems are
discussed there as well, namely agent-based AmI application architectures. Results of a brief survey
among optional users of these applications are presented as well. The conclusion of this research
was that introduction of Ambient Intelligence in educational institutions is possible and can bring us
new experiences utilizable in further development of AmI applications.
The scenario Annette and Solomon was considered in the time of its origin as a long term future.
However, we presented a lot of examples and arguments in favour of the idea, that the scenario can
be nowadays implemented, as the relevant technology has matured enough.
5. Conclusions
Taking advantage of AmI technologies educational institutions can become real “knowledge centres”,
which are formed by intelligent applications, devices, or technologies. Such a technologically intensive
system, whose significant attribute is an intelligent interaction with its users, can support following
activities:
Plan classroom instructions in a way that increases individual attention in critical areas,
Identifying training needs for teachers,
Aim to develop competence (opposed to awarding certificates, which cannot be an end in itself),
Enable students to learn in a way that promotes interest in learning & continue learning in
environments other than the institute which imparts formal education etc.
The idea of enhancing educational environment by suitably chosen AmI solutions has been already
sketched e.g. in (Mikulecky 2009) and for the case of e-learning education more elaborated in a
number of sources we mentioned (see e.g. (Bomsdorf 2005), (Bureš, Čech, and Mls 2009), (Mhiri and
Ratté 2009) and others). In this paper, we presented a whole range (from here to there) examples of
smart environments, which certainly can be implemented and used by any modern university which
uses nowadays information and communication technology. The basic principle of any further
development lies, apart of its technological basis, also in understanding and using new approaches,
new ways how these technologies can be utilized. We are deeply convinced, that AmI solutions are,
among other recent approaches, the right way of achieving a new quality of educational process,
which will be both motivating and effective for anyone.
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