ParticipatoryClassificationofEducational

Resources

CesarA.A.Nunes,DiegoA.Ferreyra2,MrciaP.Lotito3,andElenaGarcia4

1
Oort Tecnologia and Ncleo de Pesquisas em Inovao Curricular - USP, Brasil,
cesaraanunes@gmail.com
2
Educ.ar, Argentina, srdiego@gmail.com
3
Instituto para o Desenvolvimento da Inovao Educativa - OEI, Brazil,
marciapadilha@oei.org.br
4 Red Latino Americana de Portales Educativos RELPE, Argentina, elena@educ.gov.ar

Abstract: Aparticipatoryclassificationschemecenteredonstudentactivitiesis
proposedtoclassifyeducationalresourcesaccordingmodelsofuse.Educators
andauthorsmayproposeamultitudeofmodelsofusecharacterizing different
pedagogicalapproachesforusingthesameresource.Theschemeproposedturn
explicit the tight relation among infrastructure conditions, social dynamic and
studentactivitiesineachmodelofuseofaresource.Thevisualizationorcreation
ofdistinctmodelsofusehasaformativeimpactonusersandcontributestothe
creation ofacritical community,helpingalsotoidentifythenecessityofnew
resources. The scheme proposed creates a bridge between formal accepted
schemes like LOM and informal social tagging. The scheme was successfully
testedwithresourcesfromthreenationalportalsfromRELPELatinAmerican
NetworkofEducationalPortals.Someideasfortheimplementationofa large
scaleclassificationofresourcesfromallportalsofRELPEarepresented.

Keywords: Classification scheme, social tagging, metadata, educational

resources,repositories.

1.ContextandMotivation

In the realm of educational portals and repositories catalogation has still to

achieve a more useful role. Internationally accepted schemes like LOM and
DublinCorehavetoomanyfieldsthatareeithernotfilledornotusedduring
searches.Likeothercountriesorregions,LatinAmericahascreateajointproject
congregating several educational portals, at the nation level. More than 18
2 C.A.A.NunesD.Ferreyra,M.P.Lotito,andE.Garcia

countriesoftheregionparticipateandacommonclassificationschemeextracted
fromDublinCorewasadoptedmanyyearsago.
UsingtheclassificationadoptedsofarinRELPEitispossibletomapresources
accordingtosubject,type,rightsandlanguagecommontoDublinCoreandone
extrafieldcallededucationaltype,similartothelearningresourcetypefromLOM
thatcharacterizestheresourcewithrespecttoitseducationalformat,e.g.activity,
webquest,conference,teachersguide.
The intention with the classification scheme proposed in this paper is to
establishatightrelationoftheresourcewithpossiblepracticalusesofit.Sofarit
ishardtoidentifytheintentionoftheauthorofaresourceortobenefitfromgood
experiences handled by other educators while using the resource in their
classrooms.
Theideathatothereducatorsbesidestheauthorsalsoclassifytheresource,or
inotherwords,createmodelsofuse,derivesfromthesocialmovementsanduser
participation successfully demonstrated in the so called Web 2.0. Social
bookmarksandsocialtagslikethoseintroducedine.g.deliciousorflickraregood
examples of the benefits one has in inserting own tags or bookmarks and
searchinginthebigcommunity.Also,ifsuitableandfuntoolsareusedforthe
classification of educational models of use of a resource, one may surpass
eventual resistances. The example of the Fold It project, www.fold.it, is
illustrative:userscombinestructuresinafun,gamelike,waytobuildcompact
proteins.Theparticipationisvoluntaryandsofarverysuccessful.
Itisimportanttoemphasizethatthenewmetadatawepropose,collectively
called a model of use, characterize and describe in a meaningful way the
educationaluseoftheresourceinsteadoftheresourceitself.Althoughthemodel
ofuseforaresourcemaybeconsideredaclassificationoftheresource,itcould
alsobeconsideredanaddendumtoit,anenrichment,addedeitherbytheauthoror
byothereducators.
Asimilarmovementoffocusingineducationalactivitiesinsteadofresources
hasbeendefendedbythecommunityofEML(EducationalModelingLanguage)
(Koper,2001,Koperetal.2004)andLearningDesign(Hummeletal.,2005).
There is however a difference in the granularity in what is proposed here.
According toEMLthedescription ofalearning activitythat uses educational
resources includes the pedagogical theory, the educational strategy, the
combinationofresourcesandroles,thenecessaryinfrastructureAlthoughitis
very rich, the creation of such designs is usually an overload for a common
educator.Theassociationofamultitudeofmodelsofusedirectlytotheresource
asproposedinthispaperhasthemainadvantagesinitssimplicityandinthe
possibilitytoaddthemodelsdirectlytoresourcesfromexistingrepositoriesand
portals.
Whilestudyingcatalogationschemes,portals,repositoriesandlearningdesign
creation tools special inspiration was obtained by us from DialogPlus
(www.dialogplus.soton.ac.uk) (Davis et. al, 2007), from Laurillards work
(Laurillard,2001)andfromthepedagogicalvocabularydefinedatJISC(Currier
ParticipatoryClassificationofEducationalResources 3

et.al,2005).Wedecidedtofocusourproposalofclassificationontheuseofthe
resource. For that we adopted the list of verbs that describe user tasks in
DialogPLUSwithsomeminormodificationsasexplainedbelow.

3. Metadata for the Classification of Models of Use of

EducationalResources

Themainreasonforustoproposeanewclassificationschemeistoenhance
andstimulatetheuseofdigitaleducationalresources.Inthissenseweintendto
give educators a feeling of student tasks while using the resource in a very
intuitiveandvisualwaybyjustlookingatagraphicalinterfacethatcondenses
informationonstudenttasksinagivencontextcharacterizingamodelofuse.
Studenttasksare represented throughverbs ininfinitiveextracted from apre
definedlist(read,compare,create).
One resource may have several models of use: different pedagogical
approaches, different infrastructure conditions (one computer per student,
projector, one computer for the teacher, etc.) and different social dynamics
(individualwork,smallgroups,pair,etc.)wouldallowfordifferentmodelsofuse.
Suchdiversityisrichandmayfulfillneedsandconditionsinavarietyofregions.
The idea is that the model of use is characterized by metadata that are
aggregatedtotheresourcethroughitsURIand,inthecaseofRELPE,maybe
implementedinamodular,distributedandfederatedway.
Followingarethemetadataoftheclassificationschemethatcharacterizesa
modelofuseanditarticulationandfillingrules.
ModelofUseIdentificationData
o URIofidentificationofthemodelofuse
o URIoftheassociatedresource
o Registrationdataofthemodelofuse
o Author/Responsibleforthemodelofuse
o Languageofthemodelofuse
ModelDescriptionData
o Totaltimefortheexperienceofuse
o unormalizeddeclarationofthetotaltimeexpectedfortheuse
oftheresourceaccordingtostudentstasks.
o Optimalsocialcontext
o social dynamic predicted for the use of the educational
resource.Thisfieldallowstheregistrationofjustonesocial
context per model (e.g. if the activity is to be realized
individuallyitisnotpossibletoregisterittobemadealsoin
pairs).Iftheactivitycanberealizedwithanotherdynamic
4 C.A.A.NunesD.Ferreyra,M.P.Lotito,andE.Garcia

and social interactions a new model of use should be

generatedtodescribeit.
o Minimaltechnologicalinfrastructure
o Minimaltechnologicalenvironmentfortherealizationfothe
activitythatusestheeducationalresource.Theselectionof
morethanoneconditionimpliestheconcurrentnecessityof
all of them (e.g. one computer for the teacher and a
multimedia projector; other example: one computer per
studentandwirelessconnection).Ifitispossibletorealize
the activity using another technological configuration an
additionalmodelofuseshouldbegeneratedtoaccommodate
it.
o Competencies/skills/habits
o competencies, skills and/or habits (CSH) that should be
developed or used during the experience of use of the
educational resource. Verbs (in infinitive) are used to
describestudentactionsthatdependordevelopCSH.There
isnoworryinthemodeltoestablisharelationamongwhich
verbsrelatetowhichCSH.Onlyverbsrepresentingconcrete
actionareused,i.e.,verbsthatgeneratevisibleactions(e.g.
apply,compare, create, criticize, etc.).Themodel contains
theproportionaltimededicatedtoeachactioninrelationto
thetotaltimeoftheexperience.
o Observations
o free and not normalized optional text that brings relevant
detailsoraspectsrelatedtothemodelofuse.

3.1TestofConcept

Theconceptualtestofthemodelwasmadebyinvitingtwospecialists 1inthe
fieldto,independently,classify60resourcesrandomlychosenandprovidedby
portalsfromRELPE2.Asimplewebtoolforstorageandmanagementofmodels
ofusewasdevelopedandimplementedforthepilotclassification.
Fromthepilotandthespecialistsreportssomeadjustmentsweremadeinthe
classificationscheme.Followingarethemainresultsfromthepilotprobe:
o Themodelsofuseelaboratedbythespecialistsforthesameresources
differamongeachotherrepresentingdistincteducationalconceptions
anddidacticexperiencesfromthespecialists.

1 RogrioBoarettoandAnaCarolinaLpez
2 Educ.ar(Argentina),PortaldoProfessor(Brazil)andPeruEduca(Peru)
ParticipatoryClassificationofEducationalResources 5

o Itisnecessaryandcriticaltodisposeofagraphicalinterfaceforfilling
theregistersthat expressthecohesiveandorganiccharacter ofthe
threedimensionsofmodelofuse(socialcontext,infrastructure,and
competencies). The same interface must be dynamic, useful and
motivating for users to understand existing models of use and to
participatefillingnewmodelsofuse.
o Asuitableimplementationarchitectureisneededtocontemplatethe
differences in a federation of portals like RELPE: different scales,
levelsofstructureandtechnologicalspecifications.Similartoastudy
conductedbyHunter(Hunteretal,2008),itispossibletoevaluateat
least three possibilities: local management of models of use; local
management of the models of use with a central repository
periodicallyupdated;centralizedmanagementofmodelsofusewith
synchronicwebservicestotheportals.
o Itwaspossibletoassuretheviabilityoftheproposedschemeandits
capabilityofdescribingeducational resourcesinameaningfulway.
Theprobesshowedthepossibilityofestablishingreflectionsaboutthe
educationalpracticethroughtheseveralmodelsofuseandthroughthe
relationsamongcompetencies,socialcontextandinfrastructure.

4.Conclusion

Theclassificationschemebasedonmodelsofuseofeducationalresourcesproved
tobepowerfulandusefulinclassifyingandinducingreflectionsontheuseof
educationalresources.Thepotentialparticipationofusersasclassifiersextendthe
reachofthemodelbenefitingfromthecollectiveintelligenceandenrichingthe
use of educational resources by creating new and explicit models of use for
distinctrealitiesandeducationalconceptions.
Analyzing models of use it is possible to infer pedagogical conceptions of
community of authors or geographically related people. It is also possible to
followtheevolutionofmodelsofuseforresourcesthataretimeconstrained(e.g.
newsthatbecomeoldfashioned).
The participation of teachers in the process of creating models of use for
existingresourcesisaformativeexperiencethatleadstoametacognitiveprocess
of thinking about the educational practices and their didactic models. Such
metacognitive processes, in a lower level, happen even just by searching and
visualizingmodelsofusecreatedbydifferentteachers.
The next steps are the definition ofan implementation architecture and the
creationofasuitableinterfaceforaclassificationtool.Theimplementationand
use of the tool should happen after discussion and validation among RELPE
Portalsandinternationalplayersinthisfield.
6 C.A.A.NunesD.Ferreyra,M.P.Lotito,andE.Garcia

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