Search

This volume of Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) contains the post-proceedings of HELMeTO 2022, the fourth International Conference on Higher Education Learning Methodologies and Technologies Online, which took place during September 21–23, 2022 in Palermo, Italy. The conference was organized by the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Palermo and by the Institute of Educational Technology of the National Research Council of Italy. The 2022 edition of HELMeTO also marked the return of the event in presence, as the previous two editions had been held entirely online due to the Covid-19 emergency

In spite of the impressive number of adolescents using social media, only a minority is aware of the risks associated with the use of the Internet. Hate speech, violation of personal rights, psychological attacks, deceiving people with fake accounts, as well as cyberbullying, harassment and insults are some examples of toxic content that can jeopardize adolescent well-being on the Web. Social Media literacy paths in school contexts provide students with the proper defence instruments to face these problems. Furthermore, it is important to underline the role of social media on both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of adolescents which has short-and long-term influences when using these virtual environments. However, traditional teaching approaches are not enough to engage students, and the need for innovative learning activities and tools emerges. In this paper we present an online platform specifically designed to support the development of competences related to Information and Data Literacy, Communication and Collaboration and Digital Content Creation. These competences are connected to the most recent versions of the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, and the Global framework of reference on digital literacy skills promoted by UNESCO. The platform is based on PixelFed, an open-source alternative to Instagram, so that adolescents can practice with an environment they are familiar with. Our platform extends the PixelFed environment with functionalities designed to implement use cases that make students aware of the mechanisms behind social media, such as the use of artificial intelligence algorithms to filter the content they have access to. This platform has been experimented during a pilot run with secondary school students, by proposing them educational activities based on our platform, aimed at educating and supporting students to increase their awareness and counteract the problems that arise within social media.

Il volume riporta i risultati della ricerca “Abitudini e stili di vita dei ragazzi e delle ragazze a Palermo”. La ricerca, tenendo sullo sfondo il tema della povertà educativa, si è mossa sostenendo l’ipotesi che analizzando gli stili di consumo culturale e mediale, di fruizione del tempo libero, e altri indicatori specifici, sia possibile fornire una definizione più ampia e complessa di povertà educativa, come molta della più recente letteratura sull’argomento sta peraltro già sostenendo.

In this paper, we present SaR-Web, a multimodal web search tool that provides automatic support to searching as learning processes. Inspired by the work of Richard Rogers and the Digital Methods Initiative, SaR-Web compares the results of queries across search engine language domains, and visualizes search results with a semantic added value, thus facilitating cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparisons of results. The comparison between search results in different languages is enabled through the visualization of semantic concepts extracted by means of a NER tool from the search results. The SaR-Web system has the potential to support highlevel learning activities described in Bloom's taxonomy such as: identifying and analyzing patterns, comparing, integrating, and creating new ideas.

This chapter focuses on a research activity aimed at investigating the impact of mobile technologies on Italian educational contexts. In particular, the authors report on three mobile learning projects they have carried out over the past four years at the Institute for Educational Technologies (ITD) of the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy.

What moves the young Italian school graduates to enroll at the university? What are the reasons why a growing number of students prefer universities outside their own region? These are the questions that we aim to answer in this paper, taking into account the territorial differences in Italy. The estimated probit models show that, with respect to the geographic areas, the type of high-school attended influences the decision of the Italian students to continue their studies transversally. This brings us to focus on the role of the family context in decision making. Even though the type of school is an «inertial» common factor in decision making, it tends to differ substantially on local basis. In most advanced regions of the country the decision to continue studies seem to suffer most from the external socio-economic context, while in areas with economic development delay, the decision seems independent of the external context and linked to students academic performance and gender differences. The decision path which leads students to prefer universities far from their home region appears more linear. Looking at students who have already decided to start their degree course, «quality» emerges as a strong and statistically significant cross-factor: the lower the quality of the regional universities is, the higher is the possibility that students migrate to other regions. This is a result which clearly calls into question the actual or perceived utility of the «legal value» of academic qualifications.

In this paper we present a Multi Agent tutoring dialogue system. The Chat Agent Tutoring System is an attempt to produce incremental gains in learning using a community of chat agents, which have specific competences and are able to carry out natural language conversation. The system has been developed by integrating two emerging technologies: Java Agent Development Environment (JADE) and ALICE technology.

The social web paradigm has modified the way people behave on the Web. Amongst the many consequences of this change the amount of online resources directly produced and shared by users has increased considerably. In this scenario the importance of methods to evaluate the educational relevance of the resources raises up. In this poster we propose an approach based on recent advancements of Linked Open Data.

User-generated Open Educational Resources represent an important opportunity for schools. Since 2005, our research team has been working towards the exploitation of this opportunity. During three consecutive European funded projects, we have co-designed and run online courses for teachers on the production of Open Educational Resources using Web 2.0 tools and environments for the production of Learning Objects. Online courses have involved around 800 teachers from Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey. The central idea of the three projects has been that educational content can be effectively designed, developed and shared directly by the community of teachers who will use them. This goal can be achieved provided that teachers are supported through specific training programs. The main lessons learned during the projects are presented in this paper.

Nell'ambito dei network nazionali,previsti nel progetto PNPV ciascun partner ha proceduto alla selezione dei soggetti che hanno partecipato all'attività di testing del nuovo modello. I gruppi target sono: studenti, formatori/docenti/orientatori, e associazioni d'imprese ed imprenditori (nella qualità di mentori).

Even though the number of repositories for Open Educational Resources increases continuously, people still widely use Web 2.0 social tools to share and find open contents to be used in educational settings. Slideshare, Youtube, Flickr, Prezi, Scribd, Vimeo are examples of Web 2.0 sites through which people share digital contents; they are general purpose, not focusing on any specific knowledge area, and they generally declare not to impose any specific IPR licenses for materials submitted by users. Consequently, copyright and copyleft resources co-exist in the same site. During the last 6 months, we have analyzed several web 2.0 sites widely used by people belonging to the open content community in order to answer the following questions: Do these sites suit the OER requirements? Do they provide specific support in searching materials published under open license for IPR? Do they help users to select the correct license for their submitted resource? Do the service providers guarantee and respect the users' wishes about the IPR licenses? On the other hand: do the users chose the IPR license model which really keep the submitted works open (rather than closing it)? Answers to the previous questions are reported on the paper.

The efficacy of the use of digital games to improve some skills or knowledge is presented in several scientific papers and they are considered more and more positively also by teachers. At the same time, the introduction of digital games in the classroom activities is rather slow and it does not depend only if the games are commercial or free, or if they have specific educational purposes. The factors to be considered in choosing a game are numerous and they are strictly connected to the methodology that the teacher wants to adopt or define. In this chapter we focus on the design of an on line game to create an environment which would enhance entrepreneurial mindsets in young students.

The OSLO conference and agenda on "Entrepreneurship Education in Europe: Fostering Entrepreneurial Mindsets through Education and Learning", highlight the main experiences in Europe and their outcomes regarding the promotion of entrepreneurship in education. Education and training should contribute to encouraging entrepreneurship by fostering the right mindset, providing relevant skills for self-employment, raising awareness of career opportunities as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship learning has taken place almost everywhere at secondary school in Europe, but there are no shared entrepreneurship oriented models for different educational levels and systems. Entrepreneurship is defined (European Commission 2002) as "a dynamic and social process where individuals, alone or in collaboration, identify opportunities for innovation and act upon these by transforming ideas into practical and targeted activities, whether in a social cultural or economic context"; therefore, entrepreneurship in education includes economic, social and cultural factors. For this reason it is important to identify educational models to support students in the development both of personal qualities and attitudes and of formal knowledge and skills, and in particular: - Personal qualities and attitudes increase the probability of a person recognizing opportunities and acting on them. - Knowledge and skills concern what must be done to establish a new enterprise, and how to be successful in developing an idea into a practical, goal-oriented enterprise? Our research focuses on the study of ICT solutions concerning on line entrepreneurial environments based on social networking. Entrepreneurial networking is more than just collaboration since it stimulates the ability to find and create new relationships, the ability and the know how to identify the key competencies that can be useful in developing entrepreneurial mindsets.

In this paper we illustrate a dynamic approach in the use of the metadata and how this concept can dramatically improve the management of Learning Objects. Specifically, the ideas elaborated in this paper rise from the experiences in managing Learning Object Repositories during three European funded projects: Sloop, Tenegen, and Sloop2desc.

This paper describes the approach followed by three European Founded projects in order to reduce the gap between teachers and Net Generation students. The students use the Web 2.0 environments to share, comment and tag different types of media collaboratively using social network sites. The evolution of the Sloop project results in the following Tenegen and Sloop2desc projects leads teachers to produce, share, comment, tag and modify Open Learning Resources, as their students are used to do on the Web 2.0. In fact, one of the most interesting challenges faced in the three projects was how to train teachers from traditional schools on the use of new tools and environments that support collaboration and sharing in a Web 2.0 perspective. The projects promote the use of social network activities with the aim of encouraging the collaborative production of learning objects thus developing collective intelligence.

In this paper we illustrate a solution to reduce the gap between teachers and the Net Generation. In the framework of an European funded project called Tenegen, based on a former project called Sloop, we encourage teachers to produce, share, comment, tag and modify Open Learning Objects, as their students are used to do on the Net with different types of information. In such a way, teachers are involved in network social activities, use Web 2.0 tools, and their learning objects are the examples of application of collective intelligence. To sum up, teachers emulate their students' learning behavior.

The informal learning opportunities created by the Web 2.0 applications and theincreasingly use of social networks, allow users to interact and collaborate in newways. Students use new learning environments which are structurally different fromtraditional e-learning environments, in which the boundaries between the learningcontexts and social spheres disappear. In these informal unstructured learningcontexts, the definition of the students' competences plays a central role. The use of software environment to model learner profiles using semantic technologies appearsmore and more important. In this paper we propose to extend the FOAF ontology,used to describe people and their personal relationship, with an ontology related tostudent portfolio used to model competencies. In particular, we integrate FOAF withthe IMS Learning Portfolio model in order to support the creation of new Web 2.0learning environment based on social networks and competencies. This type of environment is useful to manage the evolution of student educational experiences inthe informal learning activities carried on in social network.

In this paper we illustrate how a dynamic vision of the metadata concept can dramatically improve the management of Learning Objects. Specifically, the ideas elaborated in this paper are contributing to the improvement- in terms of effectiveness and usability of Learning Objects - of FreeLOms, a Learning Object Management System we have developed in the framework of the EU-funded SLOOP Project, Sharing Learning Objects in an Open perspective.

Setting up an enterprise requires enthusiasm, creativity and perseverance, while afterwards the gradual expansion of a company calls instead for management skills like efficiency, efficacy and reliability. Since both personality and management skills are decisive factors in determining success, personal skills connected to an entrepreneurial spirit should be taught early on and cultivated up to university level,where it will be possible concentrating on the acquisition of management skills. Recently, the European Commission has revealed that most member states are involved in several ways in promoting the teaching of entrepreneurship within their own educational systems. Our research starts from the Oslo conference and agenda on "Entrepreneurship Education in Europe: Fostering Entrepreneurial Mindsets through Education and Learning", highlighting the main experiences in Europe and their outcomes regarding the promotion of entrepreneurship in education. The main research objective is to define an educational model to support students in the development both of personal qualities and attitudes and of formal knowledge and kills. The model will adopt entrepreneurial environments based on social educational games. Entrepreneurial networking is more than just collaboration since it stimulates the ability to find and create new relationships, the ability and the know how to identify the key competencies that can be useful in developing entrepreneurial mindsets.

L'obiettivo principale di FreeLOms (www.freeloms.org) e del progetto SLOOP (www.sloopproject.eu) è la creazione di una comunith di insegnanti mediante una piattaforma on-line che li supporta nella ricerca, nella modifica, nel riuso e nella condivisione di insiemi di risorse digitali per I'apprendimento. Celando gli aspetti tecnici e garantendo allo stesso tempo una piena compatibilità con gli standard in maniera trasparente. FreeLOms permette ai docenti di concentrarsi sul contenuto da sviluppare come learning object. FreeLOms sostiene il progetto SLOOP realizzando l'idea che non solo il software può essere sviluppato da una comunith di pratica, ma anche i contenuti digitali per I'apprendimento possono essere sviluppati da una comunità di docenti ed esperti del settore. Questa visione B rinforzata dall'adozione del nuovo modello di learning object chiamato Open Learning Object (OpenLO). FreeLOms non è l'ennesimo strumento per sviluppare e memorizzare learning object; è I'implementazione di una nuova categoria di strumenti che noi chiamiamo Learning Object Management Systems.

In this paper, we introduce the concept of Learning Object Management System (LOMS), an extension of the Learning Object Repositories (LOR) (Neven, 2002). LOMS are integrated solutions that can support a community of practice in cooperatively managing sets of digital educational resources; through a LOMS, not only can users share LOs as in a traditional LOR, but they can also modify the LOs at different levels, and download them into a LMS. Then, we illustrate the main features of a LOMS, called FreeLOms, that has been developed at our Institute within the framework of a project named SLOOP- Sharing Learning Object in an Open Perspective, co-founded by the European Commission in the Leonardo Da Vinci program (Ravotto, 2005)

In this paper we present an experience of using concept maps to design learning activities in the framework of an educational project based on hand-held devices, named MoULe - Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning, run at the Italian National Research Council, Institute for Educational Technologies After an introduction on the potentials of concept maps in education and on the MoULe project, we illustrate how teachers from two high schools have collaborated to produce two concept maps to be used by students in their respective schools. The different pedagogical orientation of the two schools is clearly reflected in the produced maps, thus proving the potential of concept maps to communicate explicit as well as tacit knowledge.

In questo lavoro verrà presentato il sistema MoULe (Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning) sviluppato presso l'Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche del CNR di Palermo. MoULe è un sistema per il mobile & ubiquitous learning, fruibile su rete Internet e su rete wireless mediante dispositivi mobili, con sistemi di localizzazione e integrato con motori di ricerca specializzati per la ricerca di risorse utilizzabili a fini educativi. I1 sistema MoULe fornisce un ambiente di apprendimento in grado di integrare attività tradizionali attivabili mediante piattaforme e-learning come Moodle, con attività didattiche basate sull'utilizzo di dispositivi mobili. Da un punto di vista metodologico, particolare enfasi viene posta sull'approccio socio-costruttivista all'apprendimento, e ai modelli pedagogici che da essi traggono ispirazione. La possibilità, infatti, di disporre di strumenti "portabili" con cui comunicare ed interagire con chi sta condividendo esperienze analoghe fa si che I'interazione sociale alla base della costruzione della conoscenza si sposti sempre più dall' aula verso i luoghi comuni di vita dove l'esperienza quotidiana costituiscestimolo ineguagliabile all'apprendimento. I1 fruitore del sistema (docente, studente, tutor) segue le dinamiche di apprendimento pib adeguate al luogo in cui si trova e alle specifiche esigenze connesse a fattori tecnologici (disponibilith o meno di connessioni wired, wireless) nonché metodologici (apprendimento on-site, in aula, etc..). Per la realizzazione delle attività, il sistema mette a disposizione dello studente di volta in volta gli strumenti di comunicazione e collaborazione necessari; in particolare permetterà al docente di usare un specifico modulo plug-in sviluppato per Moodle al fine di specificare il tipo di attivith che deve essere svolta dagli studenti. In base all'attivith scelta il sistema predisporrh automaticamente i servizi in grado di supportarla. Fra le principali funzionalità che potranno essere selezionate possiamo individuare: ricerca delle informazioni localizzata (con coordinate spaziali), creazione di contenuti condivisi (mappe concettuali e wiki), annotazioni localizzate (con coordinate spaziali) supportate da meta-tag, e strumenti di comunicazione sincrona e asincrona.

Il modello attuale dei Learning Object si è rivelato insufficiente a garantire una efficace riusabilità delle risorse didattiche, sollevando parecchi dubbi sulla validità stessa, dal punto di vista pedagogico, dei LO. In questo lavoro presentiamo il modello di Open Learning Object (OpenLO) che favorisce un uso più consapevole dei LO da parte degli insegnanti, restituisce a questi un ruolo attivo nella creazione e nella evoluzione delle risorse didattiche, e consente di estendere il concetto di riusabilità e renderlo pedagogicamente sostenibile. Introduciamo quindi il concetto di Learning Object Management System (LOMS), strumenti che, estendendo gli attuali Learning Object Repository, forniscono i meccanismi necessari per implementare il modello di OpenLO proposto. Viene presentato FreeLOms, un LOMS sviluppato nell'ambito del progetto Sloop, Sharing Learning Objects in an Open Perspective. Vengono infine prospettati i vantaggi che il modello OpenLO può apportare al modo della didattica.

This paper presents the Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning project (MoULe). This project aims to support students using context sensitive handheld devices in collaborative knowledge construction. To achieve this aim, a learning platform called the MoULe environment has been designed, which permits users to edit and share documents and conceptual maps using desktop computers and smartphones equipped with GPS. Teachers can use this environment to organize situated learning activities which connect digital resources to geographical locations. The MoULe project intends to facilitate the creation of learning communities who collaborate in the construction of an augmented reality where digital objects are related to physical places. The digital objects created by the students are wiki pages and conceptual maps and all the information in these documents are location based. The initial testing phase of the project involved teachers and students from four high schools in Palermo (Italy). In the paper the MoULe project and the MoULe environment are presented with some preliminary considerations about the didactic activities carried out.

According to the social constructivism paradigm, knowledge is not transferred from teachers to students, but is the result of collaborative activities; when these activities take place in a mobile environment, it is extremely important to consider how the temporal and spatial factors can influence the collaborative process. In this work we define a model for mobile Knowledge Building Process (mKBP); starting from this model, we propose to analyse the evolution of a mobile collaborative learning experience through its interactions with the social, the information and the geographic spaces. Finally, we present the methodologies and the tools used to investigate the data gathered during a specific mobile learning experience carried out at the Institute for Educational Technologies of the Italian National Research Council, in the framework of the Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning (MoULe) project.

In this paper we present the results of research work, that forms part of the activities of the EUfunded project SLOOP: Sharing Learning Objects in an Open Perspective, aimed at encouraging the definition, development and management of Open Educational Resources based on the Learning Object paradigm (Wiley, 2000). We present a model of Open Learning Object (OpenLO) for a greater awareness in the use of LOs by teachers, giving them a more active role in the evolution of educational resources; the OpenLO model extends the concept of reusability, providing pedagogical sustainability. Moreover, we compare FreeLOms, a Learning Object Management System that implements the proposed OpenLO model, to traditional tools for handling LOs.

Negli ultimi anni le comunità di docenti hanno mostrato notevole interesse nell'utilizzo di Learning Object di supporto alle attività di apprendimento; questa è una ragione per cui numerosi strumenti sono stati sviluppati per gestire le diverse fasi del ciclo di vita dei LO. Vi è però una chiara mancanza di strumenti integrati per supportare gli insegnanti nella gestione dei LO nel loro ciclo di vita. Di conseguenza, un insegnante che vuole sviluppare un LO ha bisogno di acquisire tutte le competenze richieste per utilizzare diversi strumenti nelle varie fasi. Inoltre il modello attuale di utilizzo dei LO presenta degli ostacoli per un loro riuso pedagogicamente valido. Il modello di OpenLO proposto in questo articolo consente di superare tali limiti. Infatti, la nostra visione di riuso pedagogico non è basata sulla semplice combinazione di LO, ma è centrata sulla possibilità di far evolvere un LO per soddisfare specifiche esigenze didattiche

Information and Communication Technologies offer huge potential for moving towards the implementation of the concept of Universalisation of the University. Firstly, ICT provides solutions for virtual mobility, which means giving new opportunities to people who otherwise could not enrol on traditional university courses. Another opportunity offered by ICT for the Universalisation of the University, is that it gives students fram ali over the world the chance to access open repositories of contents available on the Net. Similar considerations can be made about the availability of university professors world wide. This implies that new models of Universal Universities, with both students and teachers geographically distributed, can be activated through ICT. The aim of this paper is to describe strategies that could be adopted in order to achieve the "Universalisation of university" goal. In particular, we discuss the potenti al and problems of using ICT for this purpose. The ideas reported are the result of a research activity we have carried out in Italy concerning the e-Iearning market at University and the obstacles to the growth of this market according to a survey involving students of the last year of high school.

The recent mobile access technologies have proved to have great potential for activating innovative learning processes based on effective learning paradigms; amongst others, the Situated Learning model can be straightforwardly implemented by adopting accurate technical solutions in the design of mLearning. The situated learning paradigm states that the presentation of knowledge in authentic situations where the learning process takes place, dramatically enhances the learning capabilities of the learner; in addition, it stresses that learning is a process of social participation. In this paper we present a mobile and ubiquitous learning environment called MoULe (Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning), based on an educational model closely related to the situated learning paradigm. In order to expand learning opportunities offered to the users, the MoULe project combines the functionalities typical of a Learning Management System with specially designed mobile activities. In such a way, MoULe allows users to carry out learning activities in different ways online as well as on site, using applications on mobile equipment.

In this paper we present our experience of the use of a Wiki environment to support blended learning activities at university level. In particular, we have designed an on-line environment aimed at activating collaborative learning strategies in the context of two university courses on the programming languages C and Java, run at the University of Palermo, Italy. Students attending the courses have been encouraged to access the environment and play an active role in building up their knowledge of the course subject. The on-line environment designed for the courses is based on the Wiki available in Moodle. At the end of the courses, we analysed how our environment has been used; specifically, we compared the use of Wiki to the other collaborative tools present in Moodle: preliminary results are illustrated in this paper

In this paper,we report a particular application of the weblog in the educational field,in porticular, we present our experience ef the use of weblogs to support blended learning activities at university level, with the specific aim of activaring ICT-mediated collaborative learning strafegies amongst students. In fact, even though the roots of collaboraiive learning supported by ICT date from many years ago, experience in the field has shown that the recognition of the potential of ICT tools for collaboration in a learning setting is not an easy task. Advantages of the selected approach, innovative aspects, and the results of the experience are reported in the paper.

In this paper we present FreeLoms a collaborative environment for sharing and creating Learning Objects in an open perspective. FreeLoms combines the functionalities of a Learning Object Repository with those of a collaborative environment. An abstract Learning Object model was implemented in order to facilitate the management of different typologies of learning materials. Our work was conceived within SLOOP (Sharing Learning Object in an Open Perspective), a project co-financed by the European Commission, under the Leonardo Da Vinci programme.

The issue of quality in Distance Learning is one of the most debated topics at an international level, from the point of view both of research and regulations. In fact, elearning requires innovative approaches and changes in the university system, and this transformation must be guided by specific rules in order to guarantee high standards of educational quality. During the last few years, in ltaly the number of on line courses at university has grown rapidly, highlighting the problems of their certification and, above all, of their quality. In ltaly a decree issued by the Ministry of Instruction, University, and Research in 2003, tried to set out some guidelines concerning some technological and methodological criteria which on line courses should follow. Similar initiatives have been activated in other contexts (e.g. in continuous distance learning courses in medicine) stressing different aspects of e-learning processes and highlighting the complexity of the topic. Besides, in a study carried out by our lnstitute we observed the perception of quality that students have concerning university on line courses. In this paper we compare the different perspectives, highlighting the main differences found.

The educational benefit of any technology is the result of the way we use it in the c1assroom; this is particularly true for hypertext applications, since they are based on very strong theoretical issues. With this in mind, a training mode! for teachers is proposed, that integrates specific activities to foster the comprehension of the theoretical aspects of the hypertext paradigm, and creates the potential for an effective approach to hypertext-based didactic activities in the c1ass. The focus ofthe paper is on the training activities that, in the author's experience, have proved to be extremely effective in training both new and experienced teachers.