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The aim of this project is to promote creative thinking through the learning activity of concept mapping. A specific design is required so that a learning environment can support this aim. Serendipity, modular development, and reflective activities are three key elements, in which our design is based. In this paper, we describe a framework for the development of such a learning environment, a use case scenario and the specific methods that were implemented. These methods exploit findings from the field of computational linguistics as well as algorithms from the area of network theory.

In order for a user to develop rich and valid knowledge structures, not only is considerable predefined content required, but other equally important types of knowledge as well. In other words, to display real understanding and to build and extend their knowledge structures, users have to call on several resources as well as representation, retrieval and construction mechanisms. Apart from the specific content, on which traditional educational environments focus on, a user depends heavily on general content knowledge and on systems of knowledge that is more abstract and elusive than typical content. In this article, we document our myCourse approach presenting three application scenarios. In these scenarios, knowledge creation is a process of emergence and co-evolution of the individual, the social group and the wider society.

This paper proposes an easy and natural way to create ontologies through concept mapping. We also present the well-grounded theoretical framework, which supports concept mapping as a valuable educational activity and as a navigational tool

We adopt the direction towards new educational and pedagogic paradigms, where learning is a process of emergence and co-evolution of the individual, the social group and the wider society. In this direction, Service-Oriented Architectures are becoming a popular system paradigm for e-learning. In this article, we present our research and development efforts to provide a social networking learning platform for developing services which address the personal learning needs of the users and enable them to create value. We also present the specific characteristics of our community driven service framework and discuss our approach in comparison to other similar approaches and frameworks.