Learning roadmap studio : new approaches and strategies for efficient learning and training processes

Abstract

Learning systems have emerged in a set of different information systems, oriented for different kinds of organizations and institutions, such as learning management systems, knowledge management systems and learning content management systems, which can be integrated or merged with others. From past experience, it has been denoted that strategies and pedagogical processes are tasks that can be created, enriched and boosted by actors who participate in learning and training processes: course managers, teachers and students. The challenge posed to the different actors involved also accelerates the changes that have been happening in education and training, empowering a society based on knowledge. Initiatives such as eLearning (EU Comission 2000), eLearningEurope, eTwinning and Education Observatories are an evidence of this challenge. Platforms, applications, tools and systems must respond to challenges that those actors face nowadays: heterogeneous target audiences, in terms of student profiles, number of participants, differentiated contents and schedules to achieve knowledge, outcomes and competences. Thus, a prototype application, named Learning Roadmap Studio (LRMS), has been developed and deployed at Aveiro Norte Polytechnic School of the University of Aveiro, in order to suppress gaps in learning processes and to power better learning and training. It represents a new challenge for the University of Aveiro for higher education and is already being tested. At its core is the concept of “learning roadmaps” that act upon two fundamental axes: education and learning. For the teachers, it aims at becoming a self-supporting tool that stimulates the organization and management of the course materials (lectures, presentations, multimedia content, and evaluation materials, amongst others). For the students, the learning roadmap aims at promoting self-study and supervised study, endowing the pupil with the capabilities to find the relevant information and to capture the concepts in the study materials. The outcome will be a stimulating learning process together with an organized management of those materials. It is not intended to create new learning management systems. Instead, it is presented as an application that enables the edition and creation of learning processes and strategies, giving primary relevance to teachers, instead of focusing on tools, features and contents.