Developer Name:
IMC AGWebpage:
http://www.im-c.deContact Person:
Mr. Daniel DahrendorfE-Mail:
dani...@im-c.de
The Widget Store is a web platform, which represents a catalog of learning widgets and widget bundles to be searched and added in users’ personal learning environments. All the widgets are organized in seven categories:
- Plan & Organize: Tools in this category facilitate the planning and organization of your learning activities, process and resources as well as the setting of your learning goals (for example Google Calendar, Media List Widget)
- Search & get Recommendation: These tools facilitate the searching process for learning resources and/ or give recommendation for suitable tools, widgets or bundles (for example Media Search Widget)
- Collaborate & Communicate: These tools provide the possibility to collaborate and communicate with other participants of your learning process (for example XMP Multi-user Chat, Twitter Gadget, Ether pad etc.).
- Explore & View: These tools provide access to domain specific learning content. Content may be static (e.g. PDF-Reader, Wikipedia Gadget) or interactive (e.g. an applet to demonstrate mathematic formulas).
- Train & Test: These tools provide support for knowledge acquisition as well as training and testing of skills (for example Vocabulary Trainer or Record-Yourself – Tool).
- Create & Manipulate: Tools in this category facilitate the creation and manipulation of content in your learning environment (for example Google Docs, Ether pad and Mind mapping tools).
- Reflect & Evaluate: These tools facilitate reflection on learning processes, progress, results and environments. (Prototypes and widgets for this category are being tested and will be soon launched in the widget store).
Figure 1: ROLE Widget Store
To simplify the search, widgets are tagged with key words indicating category, sub-topic, content sharing platform and the like. They also can be commented and rated by the users to allow better comparison and evaluation. To support collaborative learning processes, interesting pages found can be shared with other users on Facebook and Twitter.
Following extensions are planned for the next time:
- Construction of pre-defined widget bundles representing groups of widgets to be used together and support one learning goal with various functionalities
- Connection to multiple PLMS (Personal Learning Management Systems) to support users working with various learning environments
- Community of practice to allow collaboration and exchange between users direct in the Widget Store.
Developer Name:
IMC AGWebpage:
http://www.im-c.deContact Person:
Mr. Daniel DahrendorfE-Mail:
dani...@im-c.de
Configuration of iGoogle personal learning environment with ROLE Widget Store
The ROLE Widget Store serves to configure a personal learning environment by populating it with learning widgets and widget bundles available in the Store. Users can search for widgets related to the topics or learning activities they are interested in, select from the variety of widgets those ones that are suitable for their learning goals and preferences, and add widgets or widget bundles chosen to their personal learning environments. To illustrate this process we have constructed a sample use case representing how a young professional Nick uses the Widget Store to support his learning at the job.
Nick is an employee at small company producing and selling diving equipment. As a junior marketing manager he is in charge of market research, founding of new points of sales as well as for sales planning. Nick is a new employee so he is not very familiar with all the diving devices. To learn more about diving equipment and to improve his work organization, Nick decides to use a personal learning environment and creates an account by iGoogle.
At the first step, Nick wants to add some useful organizational widgets to his iGoogle page. He selects the Plan and Organize category in the Widget Store and adds the Google Calendar to his personal learning environment. To do this, Nick creates a new tab named Calendar on his iGoogle page (by selecting Settings/ iGoogle settings/ General) and clicks at the Add to iGoogle button in the Widget Store. Now Nick can select time zone and country and have an overview about all holidays to forecast sales opportunities for diving equipment in the points of sales.
Screenshot 1: Creating an iGoogle tab
At the next step, Nick looks for content sharing sites to get general information about diving equipment. He selects the Explore & View category in the Widget Store and adds Wikipedia gadget to his PLE. On the Explore & View page Nick finds out a CNN widget delivering up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and other topics. Nick decides to add this gadget to his iGoogle page to get up to date information about the situation in locations of points of sales.
Screenshot 2: Selecting Widget Category
At the last step, Nick adds XING and Twitter gadgets to his PLE. Now he can collaborate with his business and private contacts directly from his iGoogle page. Nick is very glad to have the XING gadget at hand, so he rates the gadget with five stars and leaves a positive comment on the page. He also shares this page with his friends on Facebook, so they can learn about this widget and join Nick.
Screenshot 3: Rating and commenting widgets
Developer Name:
IMC AGWebpage:
http://www.im-c.deContact Person:
Mr. Daniel DahrendorfE-Mail:
dani...@im-c.de
Here you can access the ROLE Widget Store:
Use the Tool
