Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 135

cf. Lieberman et al., 2006), all of the approaches
have been focused on the classical instructional
design paradigm: learners are executing along
minor adaptations what instructional designers
(mostly teachers) have foreseen. Consequently,
emergence does not play a significant role in these
approaches. The prevailing paradigm is 'rule', not
'environment'!

actors on shared artefacts along different activities
(Wild et al., 2008). Figure 1 visualizes a typical
situation in which one learner is involved into two
activities, a collaborative task for which four tools
are utilized and an individual tutoring situation in
which one tool is used.
From a technological point of view, MUPPLE
requires a flexible, web-based architecture, i.e. a
framework for distributed systems as an enabler
for end-user development of personal learning
environments and networked collaboration. As
sketched in Figure 2, the bottom layer primarily
deals with data-interoperability, for instance, in
the form of RSS feeds or Simple Query Inter-
faces (SQI). The middleware layer includes
typical services between the different systems,
e.g. in form of mediation, retrieval, or feed man-
agement services (Wild & Sigurdarson, 2008),
while the presentation layer on top deals with the
user interfaces of the involved learning tools and
their web application mash-up (Mödritscher et
al., 2008).
We have realized a first prototype in the form
of a web application which allows learners to
manage their learning activities and the personal
environments belonging to them. An online dem-
onstrator is available under http://mupple.org. The

SOLUTION AND RECOMMENDATION

Subsequently, we are going to sketch a new model
for personalized adaptive learning which strongly
focuses on learning environment design in the rich
sense outlined above. We discuss representational
aspects of this model by proposing a learning
interaction scripting language with which envi-
ronment design can be formalized. Furthermore,
we demonstrate the feasibility and illustrate our
approach with an example performed with our
research prototype.
Basically, a mash-up personal learning envi-
ronment (MUPPLE) describes the idea of learners
utilizing an open, heterogeneous set of tools to
connect with each other, content, and tools into
a learning network and to collaborate with other

Figure 1. Exemplary mnash-up personal learning environments for two activities