SELF-Platform—A Teacher-Centric Collaborative Authoring System

HBCSE – Gnowledge Lab has developed the SELF Platform as part of the European Commission funded SELF Project # 034595 (2006-2008). A paper on SELF Platform as a teacher centric collaborative authoring system has been published at the NCOSS conference organized by CDAC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, May 2009.

The SELF Platform caters to a teacher to create learning materials.

The full paper is available from the publications page of my blog.

focus group meeting

During the episteme3, our presentations on Refined Concept Maps, gnowledge.org generated interest among few participants. A focus group meeting for more interaction, collaboration was planned after today’s lunch. The members included Dr. Vrunda Prabhu, Dr. Brian, Prof. H.C.Pradhan, Dr. Nagarjuna, Ms. Meena. The group from City University, New York have  a repository of concept maps on mathematics based on their research work, students’ essays, etc. Prof. Pradhan shared his research on concept maps on physics and ways to analyze the concepts based on the links, distance. Our research group (Nagarjuna and Meena) shared our  research work on refined concept maps on biology  domain, and how the gnowledge.org can help build a  roadmap of knowledge from any given domain. The group also discussed on how to use the cognitive distance, semantic proximity for analyzing the concepts in a network.

This seems a useful outcome of the episteme-3 conference for our research group. Let us see how it proceeds.

promising strands for future episteme conferences

Today, on the last day of the episteme-3 conference, we had a round table discussion on two issues: promising strands for episteme conferences; to build a community  of STME research in India. I was involved in the first round table. We reviewed the last episteme -1, episteme-2, and the current epistme-3 for the strands (or themes) of the conferences, and the outcomes. The main strands that episteme conferences will always be based on are: History and philsophy of science: its implications for science education; Cognitive basis of learning, pedagogy and curricular issues. From the discussion, atleast four strands have emerged which the participants are interested in the future epistemes. These have been: classroom based practices; affective factors in learning, science technology studies issues, integrating STME, assessment (to bring into focus), universalization of education.

The other topic also got a good involvement from the participants to building a community for science, technology, and mathematics education in India. Some of the suggestions are: to build research standards, develop knowledge portals, create summer programs, evaluate projects with collaborators, engaging with scientific institutes, universities, etc. etc.

These two topics of the round table discussion would enable us to concretize the strands of our future episteme conferences of HBCSE.

episteme-3

Our research study on Refined Concept Maps for Science Education: A Feasibility Study got presented today in the Episteme-3 conference in HBCSE, Mumbai, India. The main highlights of the paper presentation have been on demonstrating the students’ ease of using the refined concept maps i.e. to apply a minimal set of relation names (linking words), without any loss of knowledge. The RCM method was compared with other two methods: description and traditional concept maps. We applied ANOVA and T-Test for statistical analysis. The study indicated an increase in the number of correct relations for the domain of nucleus and mitochondria. The relation names served as facilitator or an anchoring device for representing knowledge.

Episteme 3 is part of Episteme series of biennial conferences that is organized by HBCSE.

CMC2008

Hmm. While i am writing this post, our paper on Exploring the roots of rigor is being presented in the CMC2008 conference at Tallinn and Helsinki. I am not physically attending the conference. But I am doing the best I can do by sitting in my office here in Mumbai, India. Since the time the detailed program was announced, I have been going through the papers which might be of my interest and relevant to my research work. I am interacting with those researchers and informing them to attend our session on thursday. Even before the conference began, I have been already getting emails from researchers and our discussions have begun. Some are keen to continue the discussion after the conference, as they are busy in this conference week. That is really a good sign and a good outcome of the conference.

Hmm so I am virtually in the conference

refined concept maps – a feasibility study

Our research paper titled Refined Concept Maps for Science Education: A Feasibility Study has been accepted for paper presentation at the forthcoming Episteme3 conference to be held in HBCSE, Mumbai, India during Jan 2009.

Abstract of the paper: Refined concept maps (RCM) comprises of node names and a well ­defined, invariant, minimal set of relation names. Using RCM as a methodology, it can be applied to study the changes in the knowledge structure, as a tool for analysis of forms of representations. In this paper, we discuss the study conducted to test the ease and feasibility of RCM by comparing it with other modes of representations. A homogeneous sample of school students were assigned the same task from a specific domain. The analysis shows that it was easy and feasible to use RCM by the school students. The fixed set of relation names, does not affect the expression of knowledge and at the same time helps in representing accurate knowledge. The constraints in the RCM served as an anchoring and a facilitator for representing scientific knowledge.

I shall post the final version of the paper once it is published in the proceedings.

exploring roots of rigor

Our research paper titled Exploring the Roots of Rigor: A Proposal of a Methodology for Analyzing the Conceptual Change from a Novice to an Expert has been accepted for paper presentation at the forthcoming CMC2008 to be held in September in Estonia and Finland.

Abstract of the paper: During the course of science education one of the recognizable and desirable changes from a novice to an expert is in their language (knowledge representation). One noticeable change is that of weeding out ambiguous expressions bringing in clarity and rigor. However, this happens not by weeding out the concept names but by choosing more and more accurate linking words (relation names). By focusing on the relation names we report the results of a preliminary study that confirms that subject experts increasingly chose relation names (linking words) that come closer to formal descriptions. The significance of this observation to concept mapping community as well as to cognitive development is immense, for it provides a simple and effective method to study conceptual change, validates the use of refined concept maps in place of the traditional technique in science education, and also further strengthens the approach that relationship between nodes determine the semantics, and not the nodes per se.

I shall post the link of the final version of the paper once the proceedings are published. Please see the Publications page/tab of this blog for the fullpaper.

FKFT pre-conference SELF workshop, Barcelona Spain

The SELF consortium has organized a one day SELF workshop as part of the FKFT pre-conference. We are at the Universitat de Oberta Catalunya. The participants are getting hands-on sessions on creating, organizing, editing courses using the SELF Platform and Gnowledge Portal.

FKFT Conference

SELF Project is organizing an international conference on “Free Knowledge, Free Technology: Education for a Free Information Society” in Barcelona, Spain from July 15-17, 2008. For detailed information about the conference please visit http://fkft.eu.

Participation is also open for “Open Documentary Contest”. Please visit here for more information.

Concept maps for eliciting students’ knowledge of science

I presented a poster on the above title at the National Conference on Science Education here in Mumbai on December 13, 2007. The objective of the study was to prove the feasibility of concepts maps for eliciting knowledge of science at the seconday school level. Two homogenous groups were considered for the study. Of these one group was assigned a task to describe the domain of the structure and function of nucleus and mitochondria and the other group was assigned  a task to draw concept maps on the same domain. The analysis was based on the total number of concepts and total number of scientifically valid releations (sentences) in both the modes of representation. The average showed that there was no significant difference which means that even though with concept mapping as a new technique the knowledge structure was similar in both the modes and there was no loss of knowledge. An interesting observation that came out of the study was that in the description mode there were quite a number of misconceptions, incorrect relations, idio-syncratic, non-scientific way of representation. On the contrary, since the concept map model has a structure and constraint, it does not give any scope to  such idiosyncratic or non-scientific mode of representation. With this model it is possible that students can represent their knowledge which can be quite close to an expert’s representation. The concept mapping technique was found to be feasible with the students for representing scientific knowledge.