Track 1. New Technologies in Health Education and Research
As we become more integrated into a global world, technological advances and teaching innovation that are grounded in Science have become crucial. Rapid advancements in science education and information technology provide promising resources that require many academic disciplines to work together. Developing new tools and defining new methodologies to share educational experiences, including empirical studies that support their efficiency, constitute a promising approach to improve Health Sciences. The aim of this session is to encourage and enable the exchange of information related with the advance and support of Health Science Education.
Track 2. Educational Innovation
The education sector needs evolution and changes. Evolution in order to apply student-centered learning paradigms with effectiveness and efficiency; changes in the approaches in order to allow including new methods such as the different varieties of MOOCs, in teaching and learning processes. Educational innovation is the tool that permits the evolution and changes in the teaching and learning process.
At present, the education sector tries to implement a set of changes that will shape the near future, not only regarding teaching and learning but the university mission. The introduction of learning paradigms is finding important difficulties to take place. Besides, new models that are believed they might have a transforming effect in the universities (MOOCs for example) are now in full debate, not only about their transforming potential but also about their learning efficiency.
Innovation is a tool that helps to mitigate and eliminate existing barriers and, on the other hand, acts as transforming effect in the educational process.
Track 3. A robot in the classroom
Robotics in Education tries to strengthen different skills for future engineers/scientists by the means of the design, construction and programming of robots. These skills are related to various fields like science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Also, and equally important, the introduction of the robot in the classroom, both at school and college and even as extracurricular activity, promotes a host of outcomes such as technological fluency, creativity, participation, support, collaboration and cooperation.
The purpose of this track is to bring together researchers, teachers and practitioners interested in the Robotics in Education. This track intends to emphasize the exchange of experiences, methodologies and materials to motivate students about science and technology.
Track 4. Gamification ecosystems
The popularity of computer games led to thinking about their application in education. Games become an integral part of modern society. They are the ideal platform for presenting new content and new technology-a lot of people play computer games and accept them as a normal form of entertainment. In contrast to all existing media, games have the opportunity to interact, allowing the user to actively participate, not just passively receive information. In recent years educational gaming has been progressively perceived as a very effective tool for improving teaching-learning activities in higher education (Minovic, 2010).
After initial exploitation of the games in the educational area, new term of gamification emerged, as the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems (Zichermann, 2011; Marczewski, 2012).
According to the new HORIZON 2020 call, given under ICT 2014 section, with the topic of advanced digital gaming/gamification technologies “Digital games and gamification mechanics applied in non-leisure contexts is an important but scattered industry that can bring high pay-offs and lead to the emergence of a prospering market. Digital games can also make a real change in the life of a large number of targeted excluded groups, enhancing their better integration in society. This requires however the development of new methodologies and tools to produce, apply and use digital games and gamification techniques in non-leisure contexts, as well as building scientific evidence on their benefits – for governments, enterprises and individuals.”
Major aim of this track would be to bring actual theoretical and applied research in the field of game application and development in different areas, such as education and training, business, marketing, product development, group problem solving, etc.
Track 5. Endless horizons? Addresing current concerns about learning analytics
In the past years, research on learning analytics has experienced a considerable growth, grabbing more and more attention from scholars and practitioners from many different fields, such as education, computing, statistics, information systems, psychology and sociology, among others. Scientific contributions to the topic are steadily increasing, and it is easy to observe very different approaches to the same problems, as well as identical approaches to very different problems. These advances in research open ways of knowing and discovering, but at the same time they pose new research questions and avenues of research, leading to a spiral of evolution from the interaction between educational research and learning analytics (Conde & Hernández-García, 2015).
In the context of the Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality Conference, the different papers presented in the track on learning analytics in the past two years have been an example of this diversity, despite the focus of the tracks in specific aspects of learning analytics. More interestingly, the subsequent debates with both discussants and the audience that follow the presentations have raised many interesting issues in learning analytics research, confronting visions that could complement but also oppose each other, such as:
• Educational vs. Technical approaches
• Behaviorist vs. Instructional approaches
• Useful vs. Irrelevant information
• Automated vs. Semi-automated vs. Non-automated mechanisms
• Ethical views on the use of learning analytics
• Standard vs. Proprietary systems
• Tiny vs. Big data for learning analytics
Consequently, as new advances are made public the boundaries of learning analytics research are becoming blurrier, in what seems to have transformed the scope of learning analytics into an endless horizon. Adding to this, research on learning analytics has focused mainly on the analysis of educational data from learning management systems (and, more recently, MOOCs), but recent innovations in educational technologies (e.g. multimodal learning) and pedagogical approaches (e.g. personal learning environments, game based learning, virtual worlds) that can also benefit from the application of learning analytics, are pushing those boundaries even further.
Track 6. Mobile Apps and computational systems as learning tools
There is nowadays no need to mention the more and more relevant position that mobile devices are gaining in our contemporary society. Communication possibilities have experienced an exponential growth thanks to the popularization of devices, which, besides their former communicative function, also show a noteworthy pedagogical side.
Smartphones, tablets and notebooks shave become common elements in our everyday live with which users normally fill up time spaces between labour and teaching times. It is precisely in these time spaces, on their way back home or in between classes, when users can benefit from the use of apps and other resources available in their devices to improve their competence in specific fields (such as foreign languages, just to mention one) and get a more rooted and comfortably-acquired knowledge of what has been dealt with in class, thus joining the trend of ubiquitous learning.
In this track, we welcome presentations about on-going researches in which new technologies, and mobile devices in particular, play a major role to enhance knowledge practice and acquisition, and especially when they tackle with the autonomous use of apps and devices to boost the skills practiced in the classroom.
Track 7. Apps for Learning and Learning with Apps
In the early years of the web, the main approach to business on the web was to aggregate all services in one portal. This view started to a winner takes all, zero sum game which led to the dot com financial bubble that burst in 2001. The developments on e-learning also mimicked the portal approach in the development of Virtual Campus software and later on Learning Management Systems and Virtual Learning Environments – and lots of fun discussing on the differences on one thing and the other -. But since 2001 there has been two main revolutions in the Web: First what was called the Web 2.0 acknowledges the user participation, user generated content and social interaction as a strategic and transformative source of value. And later on with the widespread of smartphones we discover new kind of software, completely opposed to the old doomed to fail portal: the App. A small piece of software that only does one thing but does really well. Either native mobile OS App or Web based responsive design Apps, in less than 7 years have become ubiquitous, widespread, pervasive and part of our daily lives. These small apps, rely in interoperability technologies to boost its value by integrating with other Apps and online services, or by making itselves integrable. This clear change in how the web, and the mobile web is conceived and built changes the user’s behaviour and expectations. And students and teachers expect a different approach that the one found in the swiss knife like VLE or LMS of choice. This expectation crystallizes in the concept of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) and (PLN’s).
In this track we want to hear about the design of Apps for Learning and of how we can Learn with Apps.
Track 8. Evaluation in education and guidance
Nowadays, the educational evaluation constitutes a key element to improve the quality of any programme or, in its broadest sense, of the educational system within a country or region scope. In this track we seek to share methodologies and research results about different assessment objects, which aim is the improvement of the educational system, both at University level and other levels. On the other hand, this track will present some research experiences in the evaluation and educational orientation field.
Electronic edition or E-edition is a convincing reality in all occidental countries. If scientific journals opened the door, consolidating themselves as irreversible digital paradigms in the academic scope, the scientific monographs, and also the most commercial ones, have started a way that is holding on gradually after many years with contradictory signals in which ones advances and backwards were linked to the technological successes and failures. The international reports and studies confirm this situation. The e-books production and demand growth ratio has increased a 20% approximately in last years.
In academic scope, e-edition in general and e-books as specific case actually are the most natural and usual way to reach the final users. Thus, the user, as the final link of the editorial chain, is a very significant and critical element for every product introduction, and they are showing a growing receptivity degree regarding the new editorial media and products. The surveys developed by Springer, Publishers Communication Groups, Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER), the Joint Information Systems Committee, etc. confirm this assumption. The survey respondents in different contexts are manifesting a great and increasing interest about electronic formats just in order to make digital documentation searches oriented in both academic and recreational reading areas. Besides, these surveys are presenting also an increasing and definitive use of the digital media for the next years.
This way, e-edition has been consolidated as the most natural option in the consumer practices of a significant amount of citizens, both in academic and general-interest scopes. Therefore, the educational proposals according to this new scientific communication media are more usual right now, making easier the accessibility, the mobility and the online reading.
Track 10. Transferring knowledge and experiences from informal to formal learning contexts
The purpose of this track is to analyse problems experienced with the validation of informal learning and to propose alternative approaches. There is a mismatch between the enthusiasm of policy makers and other actors for informal learning initiatives, and the lack of adoption of systems in real workplaces. The use of managerial tools, such as validation and competence catalogues, has demonstrated the danger of constraining the scope for informal learning. We’d like to advance and explore other different approaches to achieve the challenge of defining a very transparent framework in which both formal and informal learning are considering as important components of the own person’s knowledge base.
Track 11. Project presentations
TEEM Conference encourages living or recently ending national and international projects coordinators and researches to make a presentation about the advances and main outcomes of their projects related to the Knowledge Society researching lines.
Track 12. Learning the sustainability and social compromise skills
The professional skill sustainability is generally accepted as essential in the modern world (despite some detractors), but raises concerns between teachers due to the lack of knowledge about it. It is very common, when discussing the skill, to hear questions such as: What is sustainability? What is its relationship with my subject? What should my students learn? How to evaluate the skill? There are not easy answers, but if we really wish to develop skills for Sustainability as part of any degree, it is necessary to change our way of thinking. Objectives such as equity; local, international and inter-generational solidarity for the conservation of natural resources, and the preservation of cultural diversity must be included in our curricula. Universities must always be prepared to meet new challenges and adopt roles that focus on solving current social crises (energy, ecology, food, finance, etc.). Therefore, preparing students to take up their active role in society so that they are able to participate and to solve any challenge at a local, regional, or international level is one of the university’s foremost responsibilities.
Sustainability learning requires new ways of thinking and new ways of teaching. Intellectual development, critical thinking and a systematic approach are necessary in order to progress from “ignorant certainty to intelligent confusion”. There are methods closely related with the very concept of sustainability, like Service Learning, a method of learning that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience. There are good practices and very interesting experiences introducing sustainability in the curricula. In this track we want to hear about how can we help students to develop a sustainable vision of the world in which they are to live, since they themselves will play a vital role in the evolution of that world.
Track 13. Engineering and technological learning in educational and professional contexts
This track aims enhancing discussion around Engineering Education especially concerned with young professionals. Different perspectives are welcomed, namely from the point of view of young engineers and/or senior students, educators, tutors and senior engineers.
The sharing of successful practices between communities is essential to gradually improve the success of young engineers. It is intended to address problematic like:
•How may teachers improve the development of key competences in engineering students?
• How can the impact between academic and professional worlds be minimized?
• Which contributions can professional institutions provide for a better linkage with the academic structures to smooth transitions?
• How can technology improve this interrelation?
• Are these concerns multicultural?
On the other hand, with Bologna declaration implementation, several countries undertook serious modifications in their course curricula. How did these modifications contribute to the rapprochement of these two worlds?
In its own beginning, this Conference has a very strong link with a PhD Programme. This way, it will be a very important challenge that the PhD students may share their research advances with the highly valuable international researches involved in the TEEM Community receiving an invaluable feedback about it.
The TEEM 2015 Doctoral Consortium provides an opportunity for Doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests in an interdisciplinary track, under the guidance of a panel of distinguished researchers. We invite students who feel they would benefit from this kind of feedback on their dissertation work to apply for this unique opportunity to share their work with students in a similar situation as well as senior researchers in the field. The strongest candidates will be those who have a clear topic and research approach, and have made some progress.
The Doctoral Consortium has the following main goals:
Provide a support for feedback on students’ current research and guidance on future research directions.
Offer each student comments and fresh perspectives on their work from researchers and students outside their own institution.
Promote the development of a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research.
Contribute to the TEEM goals through interaction with other researchers and conference events.
Authors are invited to submit full, original, unpublished research papers that are not being considered for publication in any other forum. All submissions will be refereed for quality, originality, and relevance by the Program Committee.