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The Learning Apps project aims to reduce this dispersion by creating an Internet store like the Apple Apps Store but focused on educational applications. In other words, Learning Apps pursues to build a space where teachers and educational institutions can easily find these tools and build – with a single click – their own e-learning environment in the cloud (on the amazon cloud computing infrastructure). Learning Apps will be a further step toward the technological model based on flexibility and interoperability between tools and e-learning platforms. This model has been promoted over the past 4 years by the Office of Learning Technology at the UOC and evolved thanks to projects like the Open Source Campus, SUMA and Campus 5.0. The UOC is leading the technological development of the Learning Apps project, a project which will take 27 months and a budget of three million. If you want to read further about Learning Apps, you may want to access the following article published in the Spanish Magazine “Cinco días”

It is, actually, a self-teaching and self-assessment environment for the students but it gives an idea to teachers about the quality of the materials of the course.
The pilot test is, basically, made up of two tools:
(a)   Checking Results Tool (php);
(b)   Verifier Tool (java).

Since the pilot test needs some interaction with the UOC Campus for using user information and session, it is very useful an interaction through the Campus Services Implementation.

The mechanisms used for this interaction are two:
(a)   Use of a specific web application designed to perform the authentication process;
(b)   Use of  the Components and OkiBus PHP OKI libraries.

With this services and some documentation, teachers have been able to integrate their pilot test within the course “Fonaments dels computadors” successfully.

The experience of this integration has been very useful, as well, for us because has forced us to refine the implementation of the campus libraries.

As a member of the IMS Consortium, UOC is looking to follow and implement the guidelines and specifications of this institution. We are currently working with the IMS LD and IMS Basic LTI.

The  IMS Basic LTI is a specification that defines a mechanism to integrate diverse tools such as wikis, blogs, etc. within very different eLearning platforms such as Moodle, Sakai, Blackboard or desire2learn. We have provided some plug-ins to integrate tools like wordpress and mediawiki and the UOC’s Campus implements this specification.

The IMS LD is a specification for designing courses. Both at Computer Engineering  and Psychology studies,  there are people studying the possibilities of this specification. Now we have initiated a project to define a model of the UOC- classroom oriented to activities. This new classroom will use this specification.

Chuck Severance, Member of IMS,  defines the contributions of the UOC within this organization:

“The Open University of Catalonia has made many contributions to the
research and engineering around IMS Learning Tools Interoperability.
Those contributions include the ground breaking work connecting tools
to open learning systems in the Campus project as well to their work
in the last few months adding support to the popular Basic LTI
MediaWiki and WordPress open source learning tools. I look forward to
Continued from UOC contributions as we work together using standards
to enhance teaching and learning around the world. ”

The meeting took place in Austin, Texas and we had the opportunity to meet and talk to colleagues all round, basically from the United States. In the audience we could find: Academic administrators, Academic technology directors, Teaching and learning center directors, Learning technologists, Librarians and Faculty. The sessions were varied, but all highlighted the future of learning, the technology and learner-centered strategies to yield new learning environments.

Our paper focused on the User Centered Design, the Technical Aspects and the Emotional Aspects of “My UOC”, the new online learning environment from UOC. This approach consists of implementing design processes in which end users influence how a design takes shape. There is a spectrum of ways in which users are involved in UCD and the key issue is that users are involved in the definition, design and evaluation of UOC’s applications and online environment. It is both a broad philosophy and a variety of methods. We consider that the three aspects, user, technique and emotion are fundamental for a good effective result. The three are linked together with the emotional aspects.

We also went into explaining some engaging elements such as: Choices for everyone, Humanizing interactions, Including innovative and ‘cool’ aspects, Allowing external modules etc. The bottom-line of the session was: “Instead of 1 design for everyone we now have as many designs as number of students (47.000). One design does not fit all”
On the whole it was a very profitable trip and hope to make the most of the contacts and projects we got to know.

This semester we have worked on the following elements:

1. Enhancement of the syllabi editor tool: the previous editor has been changed and the edition process is much more efficient and comfortable.

2. Enhancement of the “copy” functionality: this option allows professors and tutors to copy the elements from previous semesters for the same subject and / or from one subject to the other. This reduces the amount of redundant information that they have to enter; making the process more efficient and satisfactory.

3. New wiki tool: all professors and tutors can now add a wikispace to their classroom. Wikispaces (www.wikispaces.com) is an easy-to-use wiki that has a rich visual editor, allows discussion for each page and provides functionalities such as RSS to keep updated.

These functionalities are available from the classroom design tool. This tool allows tutors and professors to easily modify and adapt the students´ learning environment to their teaching and learning needs.

The TechTalks is a cycle of conferences organized by tthe Office of Learning Technologies (UOC) that aims to deepen into the technology - society binomial  by means of international experts, innovators and revolutionaries within the field of new technologies. Moreover, the TechTalks pursues to share this knowledge with all of you. And for this reason  this initiative is accompanied by the accessible-to-all YouTube-channel “UOC TECHTALKS“, created not to only host Colaço’s talk but all future sessions.

We hope you enjoy it!

The FTA is an initiative that started last April with the support of the European Union, and the following institutions are currently collaborating: the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL), the University of Agder (UiA) and the UOC. Its aim consists of creating an advanced virtual campus which offers course modules about free software that can be followed entirely on-line by using open educational resources.  In addition, any student involved in this international educational program will be able to follow course validation procedures at the OUNL and the UOC.

With regard to the FTA, the Office of Learning Technologies has been working on the integration of tools like Mediawiki and wordpress on a Moodle platform via OKI connectors, tools that will allow students to easily create blogs and wikis. Teachers, staff members from UOC and UOC educational materials will also be part of this innovative project which also offers a full master program that can be concluded at one of the universities integrated in the project.

In case you are interested in the FTA, you may want to click the image below for further information: