Associate Prof. Ig Ibert Bittencourt and Prof. Seiji Isotani visited the Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education (AICFE) during 14th-18th November. At 15th November, two speeches are held respectively named ‘Gamification and Intelligent Learning Environments: From Theories to Evidences’ and ‘Advancements in Intelligent Support for Collaborative Learning’ by two influential researchers in the field of educational technology in Brazil. Associate Prof. Yu Lu hosted the two speeches and extended his warm welcome to them.
Dr. Ig Ibert Bittencourt is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Alagoas and Co-Director of the Center of Excellence for Social Technologies. He also serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transaction on Learning Technologies. Associate Prof. Bittencourt studies Computers in Education. He has around 1,500 citations and he is investigating how to improve the e-learning experience in Intelligent Educational Systems. Seiji Isotani is Professor in Computer Science of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is the Editor of the Brazilian Journal on Computers in Education, senior member of IEEE, member of Artificial Intelligence in Education Society, Member of the Municipal Secretary of Education Council and Representative of the Brazilian Computer Society in the IFIP Technical Committee on Education. He is a member of ACM since 2004 and was elevated to Professional Lifetime Member in 2009. His research career has been devoted to imagine, design, develop, test and deploy intelligent and collaborative educational systems using ontologies and other semantic technologies.
On 15th November, Associate Prof. Bittencourt gave a speech
On the morning of the 15th November, Associate Prof. Bittencourt first gave the speech entitled ‘Gamification and Intelligent Learning Environment: From Theory to Evidence’. The speech was very lively, attracting attendees. His lectures contained four parts, namely AIED (Artificial Intelligence in Education), Gamification, Gamification and ILE (Intelligent Learning Environment) and Grand Challenges. Artificial Intelligence in Education is an interdisciplinary field that integrates researchers with different backgrounds (Computer Science, Engineering, Education, Psychology, instructional design and others) but has one common goal: to use Artificial Intelligence techniques to support new learning experiences where students can work mediated by technology and learn more effectively. The intelligent tutoring system has an inner loop and outer loop. the inner loop includes the minimum feedback, error flagging, hit and student diagnosis; the outer loop includes the student selection, fixed sequence, mastery learning and macro-adaptation. In different subjects, the digital learning tool have different. In addition, students disengage easily and feel bored during the e-learning, Ig has proposed the concept of gamification teaching. Gamification is defined as the concept of using game design element in a non-gaming context. In gamification teaching, game elements and rules encourage students to actively participate in teaching. He also cited examples of very successful gamification learning tools such as Duolingo and Meu Tutor. Associate Prof. Bittencourt also gave an in-depth explanation of the gamification and intelligent learning environment, and showed his team's many practical and academic research in gamification.
On 15th November, Prof. Isotani delivered a speech
Then, Professor Isotani began his lecture on ‘Progress in Collaborative Learning Intelligence Support’. He talked from practical problems and collecting relevant knowledge, to establishing ontology and constructing model with ontology that people can understand. The field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) dedicates to study about how technology can be used to support collaborative learning and its processes. In collaborative learning, these activities are too complex and time consuming. They also require specific knowledge and skills. Therefore, researchers face the challenge of improving the likelihood of successful collaborative learning and how to provide intelligent support for collaborative design and implementation. In fact, only 35% of the current CL technology rely on pedagogical knowledge. Professor Isotani then elaborated on the ontology in detail, and also showed the Ontology of Bicycle in OWL. His research also focuses on formalized collaborative learning, cognitive apprentice theory.
On 16th November, Prof. Yu and Associate Prof. Lu had in-depth discussion two scholars
On the 16th, Professor Shengquan Yu met with two scholars in the morning. Both sides showed their platforms — the Smart Learning Partner and CAMALEON. The Meu Tutor and CAMALEON platforms are considered to be the first intelligent teaching systems in Brazil, and its company is also considered to be one of the most innovative educational technology company in Brazil.
Associate Professor Bittencourt specifically agreed with the objectives of the Smart Learning Partner while AICFE provides smart public education service through it, which are “collecting data during learning processes, modeling knowledge and capability structure, diagnosing and solving learning problems in learning, finding and strengthening subject advantages”. The Brazil Ministry of Education is reforming the education towards ‘evidence-based’ education system. The educational resources and services developed and provided by the AICFE is based on data and evidence and are worth learning. Therefore, next year, Associate Prof. Bittencourt hope visit AICFE again along with administrators from the Ministry of Education of Brazil. Both sides had further understanding of each other's advantages and explored possibilities of cooperation, which established a good foundation for future exchanges.
