Content uploaded by Alessandro De Gloria
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Alessandro De Gloria on Jun 22, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
An Integrated Framework for Personalized T-Learning
Abstract and Figures
Broadcasting interactive learning applications through the digital TV promises to open new pedagogical perspectives given the wide penetration of the medium. This case deals with an open, flexible learning oriented technological framework for interactive digital TV. The framework is divided into two main parts: the production side, where the course is created and the client side, where it is presented on interactive digital television (iDTV) through an interactive learning environment. The course production is supported by an ad-hoc designed authoring tool, which has been thought for a use by pedagogical experts, while the runtime user interaction on iDTV is managed by a Course Multimedia Player. Experimental television learning (t-learning) courses were created by pedagogical experts and served as an important test and evaluation bench for the framework.
Figures - uploaded by Alessandro De Gloria
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Alessandro De Gloria
Content may be subject to copyright.
Interactive Digital TeleVision (IDTV) is emerging as a potentially important medium for learning at home. This paper presents a novel affective-aware tutoring platform for IDTV which makes use of automatic facial emotion recognition to improve the tutor-student relationship. The system goes further than simply broadcasting an interactive educational application by allowing the personalization of the course content. The tutor can easily access academic information relating to the students and also emotional information captured from learners’ facial expressions. In this way, depending on their academic and affective progress, the tutor can send personal messages or extra educational contents for improving students’ learning. In order to include these features it was necessary to address some important technical challenges derived from IDTV hardware and software restrictions. The system has been successfully tested with real students and tutors in a non-laboratory environment. Our system tries to advance in the challenge of providing to distance learning systems with the perceptual abilities of human teachers with the final aim of improving students learning experience and outcome. Nevertheless, there is still relatively little understanding of the impact of affect on students’ behaviour and learning and of the dynamics of affect during learning with software. Systems like ours would make it possible to attack these relevant open questions.
How users experience interactive TV (iTV) is determined by various factors; usability is a major one. In industry, usability is often seen as the key element that determines acceptance of new technologies by users. We present some of the results of an MHP-based (Multimedia Home Platform) iTV field trial in Salzburg, Austria concerning usability issues and iTV usage.
We give an introduction to the field trial and an overview of its methods to ensure usability of iTV services and to measure their use. We present results from a usability test, give design recommendations, and discuss whether using iTV is an active or a passive user experience.
Broadcasting interactive learning applications through the digital TV promises to open new pedagogical perspectives, also in a life-long learning perspective, given the wide penetration of the medium. This article proposes an open flexible and composable framework for the development, the delivery and the presentation of t-learning courses in interactive digital TV (iDTV). The framework is divided into two main parts: the production side, where the course is prepared and the client side, where it is presented on iDTV, and where the user can perform the educational interaction. The course production is supported by an ad-hoc designed authoring tool, while the runtime user interaction on iDTV is managed by a multimedia course player providing personalization services and a library of educational and entertainment elements and services. Seven experimental t-learning courses were created by pedagogical experts in several knowledge domains and served as an important test and evaluation bench for the framework, in view of the upcoming extensive end-user testing.
Ease of use is a key factor driving the adoption of interactive services in digital television (DTV). To facilitate the development of easy-to-use services and to distribute information among the industry players and the academia, the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications and the National Technology Agency of Finland commissioned a usability study on 11 DTV services. This paper presents the most topical results of these usability studies. First, we discuss the practical experiences of evaluating differing interactive television (iTV) services. Second, we present 39 guidelines for ensuring the ease of use of interactive services. These guidelines apply to services that are transmitted in the traditional broadcast system, but they also provide a good basis for designing services in Internet protocol television (IPTV).
This paper describes initial conclusions and recommendations of a major global study into the potential use of the various interactive TV solutions for increasing learning opportunities in the home. It describes why it is increasingly important for policy and decision makers to consider the role that interactive TV might have for learning – if they are to meet targets for widening participation in learning. The final report due to be completed by the end of March 2003 will also help educationalists, IDTV developers and service providers understand which aspects of interactive TV are likely to be of most value for increasing learning opportunities in the home. Initial findings suggest the developments towards personalized TV are likely to be of more value than service offerings through broadcast/scheduled TV.
T-learning is a shorthand meaning for TV-based interactive learning. So far, learning via interactive digital TV has been more edutainment than formal learning, but we have moved towards more engaged learning. According to Helsinki University of Technology research and experiences, the Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) standard enables formal learning in digital TV and digital TV can be used to facilitate learning process. Learning opportunities in digital TV are possible to be described with the T-learning model. The model defines different features and functions in T-learning and describes what kind of learning is enabled through digital television (DTV). Furthermore, few examples of different opportunities in learning via DTV are provided. T-learning model is described for formal and informal learning.
The exciting and diverse history of telecommunications for continuing education covers sixty years of work by educators, broadcasters, the federal government, and foundations.
A crucial problem of recent applications requiring a DTV-based solution is that they are designed to solve one specific problem. The aim of this paper is to propose a universal framework for DTV applications that will use sophisticated methods of object sharing, data abstraction and template exploitation. This framework should realize all repeating programmer operations automatically - e.g. template based output, data transfer and validation, multilanguage support, security, authorization, etc. The system should realize maximum tasks (generating output) automatically without additional programming by content developer.
TV still remains the preferred medium for entertainment. With the introduction of interactive digital television (IDTV), new digital services can be now conveyed through this communication technology. In particular, bringing the Web to IDTV may represent an attractive opportunity to inject new fuel into the TV world, thus creating a wider and accessible container of digital services for entertainment. Yet, this raises several technical issues that need to be addressed. While a lot of research has been done with the aim of adjusting the content of a Web page so that it fits to a target computing environment, scarce efforts have been devoted to the specific TV target. Further, effective interfaces for digital TV must be devised which guarantee the same level of usability available through common PCs. In particular, contents must be structured such that: i) their management is facilitated on low-end set top boxes, and ii) their visualization is made effective for standard TV displays. In this context, we propose a new technique for the automatic transcoding of Web contents which enables their delivery over IDTV broadcast channels and allows a proper visualization on IDTV screens. Our system is based on the digital video broadcasting-multimedia home platform (DVB-MHP) standard. We also developed a client application which permits to browse our transcoded contents on a TV set via the remote control. Results gathered from real world experiments demonstrate the viability of our approach
The term t-learning refers to interactive access of video-rich learning materials, primarily within the home, through a digital TV set-top box. The effective development of t-learning systems and applications should be based on existing standardization efforts in the fields of digital TV and e-learning. In this paper we examine the compatibility between the international standard for digital TV (TV-Anytime) and the international standard for e-learning (SCORM). The purpose is to provide a methodology for interoperability between educational applications in digital TV environments and to facilitate the creation of educational metadata for digital TV programs. The approach is also applicable in audiovisual digital libraries providing educational services to their users. We also describe an implementation of the mapping between the two standards. The implementation allows the transformation of TV-Anytime metadata to SCO metadata for the creation of SCORM compatible courses that utilize educational material from TV programs.