Researchers at Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) are developing a virtual platform for teaching within the FLEXO project which encompasses contents of different learning management systems and that adapts lessons according to the profile of the student.
Project FLEXO, as its name implies, aims to makes learning scenarios more flexible. “It seeks to offer a virtual platform which provides a wide variety of resources to individuals learning any given subject, and with adaptive resources, that is, resources which can change as an individual advances in his/her educational experience”, explained Abelardo Pardo, head of the UC3M project which participates in this initiative coordinated by Atos Origin with the participation of Indra, Cepal, and the following universities: Complutense of Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, La Rioja and Cádiz. In short, it is a learning platform which offers diverse “a la carte” educational experience, especially adapted to the needs of the user.
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The added value of this project can be divided into two larger categories. In the first place, it aims to facilitate access to contents which are in different learning management systems because “at this point in time we are experiencing a large degree of fragmentation with so many courses in different institutions, and FLEXO offers a sole entrance point for a possible federation of these learning systems”, Professor Pardo, of the UC3M Telematics Engineering Department pointed out. On the other hand, it is oriented so that educational experiences are adaptive, that is, “as the student advances in his/her educational experience, the system reads or measures his/her behaviour within certain parameters and makes adjustments as to the type of resources which are available, the level and type of activities, interactions, etc.”, the expert explained. A simple example is that learning adapts the upcoming activity (a text, a video, etc.) according to what happened in the previous one, after evaluating the quality of the document submitted for evaluation.
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The possibilities of “e-learning”
UC3M is in charge of integrating the different services within this project’s framework. The aim is to obtain a platform which offers a series of tools and applications which allow a student’s personal learning experience to be enriched and optimized in the academic as well as corporate environment. In addition, it allows the integration of these developments into open-coded learning systems such as Moodle, Lams o LRN. At this moment, the system is in a testing phase with another year and a half of development remaining, at which time it is foreseen that a prototype verified with user experiences will be available.
This research is limited to “e-learning”, an area of electronic or distance learning which integrates the use of information technologies and other pedagogical elements for user training, recruitment and learning. “E-learning offers us the opportunity to increase the number of possible learning scenarios”, Abelardo Pardo pointed out. “Until now, one could learn in a school, institute, or a university…but now one can also learn at work, in the community of interest, and including when one is carrying out leisure activities”, he added. This is all topped off with different types of multimedia resources such as audio or video in a combination which makes learning possible at any place and at any time.
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Flexo architecture diagram
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Versión para imprimir