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THE INTELLIGENT NETWORKED EDUCATION AS LEARNING ACTIVITY OBJECT,

PART I: GATHERING REQUIRED INFORMATION FOR DEFINING A VIRTUAL
COURSE MAIN DIDACTIC STRUCTURE

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Rey Segundo Guerrero-Proenza

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THE INTELLIGENT NETWORKED EDUCATION AS LEARNING ACTIVITY OBJECT, PART
I: GATHERING REQUIRED INFORMATION FOR DEFINING A VIRTUAL COURSE MAIN
DIDACTIC STRUCTURE

LA EDUCACIÓN EN RED INTELIGENTE COMO OBJETO DE LA ACTIVIDAD DE

APRENDIZAJE, PARTE I: REUNIENDO LA INFORMACIÓN PARA DEFINIR LA
PRINCIPAL ESTRUCTURA DIDÁCTICA DE UN CURSO VIRTUAL

Rey Segundo Guerrero-Proenza1 reysgp@uci.cu

ABSTRACT
This is the first of three articles, having the overall aim of describing the process of conception,
designing and development of the course “Technologies and methods for Networked Education”.
Particularly this paper pretends to describe the process, leading to the synthetic conception of
objectives, knowledge and skills systems identified in this article as main didactic structure, to be
pursued and included in the before mentioned course.

KEYWORDS: ICT, Virtual education, Intelligent networked education, Main didactic structure,
Instructional design.

RESUMEN
Este es el primero de tres artículos, que tienen el propósito general de describir el proceso de
concepción, diseño y desarrollo del curso “Tecnologías y métodos para la formación en red”. En
particular este trabajo pretende describir el proceso que lleva a la concepción sintética de los objetivos
y los sistemas de conocimientos y habilidades, que se identifican en este artículo como la
estructura didáctica principal, a ser obtenidos e incluidos en el antes mencionado curso.

PALABRAS CLAVES: TIC, Educación virtual, Formación en red inteligente, Estructura didáctica
principal, Diseño instruccional.

INTRODUCTION

The fast development and application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in
almost every area of human activities during the last 3-4 decades, have had an obvious influence on
how and by what means teaching and learning have been taking place. From one hand,
stakeholders, businessmen, service providers and practically every sector of the Society, are
increasingly demanding workers, specialists, professionals in general, having needed skills in using
ICT tools and procedures in their specific activities. From the other hand, due the fact that ICT related
tools and procedures have been incorporated into the process of teaching and learning, they are
changing the way that different learning and teaching actors are interacting, and their functions.
Meanwhile, traditional face-to-face, time limited terms of learning are showing a lack of ability to deal
with those challenges.

“Virtual” has been the adjective used for characterizing activities mediated by ICT based tools. And
the corresponding learning activities are widely known as virtual learning (but not only:

1 Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas, Havana

other terms and phrases have been applied: e-learning, virtual education, more recently networked
learning, networked educations, and so on). Particularly the long existing modality of Distance
Education has been replacing the traditional means of learning resources and communication artifacts,
by those ICT based, and currently Distance Education is almost synonymy of Virtual Education.

The National Center of Distance Education (Centro Nacional de Educacion a Distancia, CENED,
https://aulacened.uci.cu) at Universidad de las Ciencias Informaticas (UCI), Havana, Cuba
(https://www.uci.cu) has the aim to develop a new model of teaching and learning, accordingly to
challenges of new needs, educational process actors, increasingly necessity for an all-life-learning, in
the most of the cases without leaving the work places, and for preserving the Cuban Educational
System commitment to give the opportunity to all citizens to achieve their dreams (and rights) of
growing as professionals, specialists, or simply as better educated persons.

Among many other activities, CENED is developing a new Master Science Program of Virtual
Learning (mainly by taught, but having a final thesis, based on research activities). Among skills the
program pretends students can achieve, are the abilities of learning to learn in the context of current
Web 2.0 environments and, particularly given the last years trends, by applying or supporting their own
learning using several Artificial Intelligence (AI) based techniques and tools. Considering the virtual
character of the Msc. Program, it is obvious the course relations with other learning and research
activities, to be conducted by students in the Program.

This is the first of three articles, having the overall aim of describing the process of conception,
designing and development of the course “Technologies and methods for Networked Education”
(Tecnologías y métodos para la formación en red, in Spanish). Particularly this paper pretends to
describe the process, leading to the synthetic conception of objectives, knowledge and skills systems
(identified further in this article as main didactic structure) to be pursued and included in the before
mentioned course.

The methods and materials applied in gathering information from different sources, and the way they
were analyzed, will be described in the next section. After that, the preliminary results of the synthetic
inference and discussion based foundation of main didactic structure will be presented. Finally, several
conclusions and recommendations are included, not only as logical end of the work, but as some kind
of linking with the next step, the designing of the concrete program and the selection and creation of
associated resources2.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The author is approaching this research as an instructional design problem (Reigeluth, Beatty and
Myers, 2017), but applying the usual steps in scientific research; in fact, it is a research based
instructional design method, representing a methodological approach to this tasks. This research
process was at the exploratory level.

2 In this article, when refering to article author, he wil be mentioned as author.

Research Problem: how learn to learn in so called intelligent networked learning environments
(INLE)?

This question embodies the requirements, initially expressed in the general master science program,
regarding ICT knowledge and skills. On the other hand, it is understandable the needs of student to get
information and skills from the tools and procedures, that he/she is supposed to applied, considering
that the program is about virtual education.

Research Object: learning process in intelligent networked learning environments.

Research Field: psycho-pedagogical theories, information sources and communication tools related
with intelligent networked learning environment.

The author considered convenient defining the more general field, called the object of the research, and
defining too the more specific field, or properly called field.

General Research Objective: to describe the process of gathering pedagogical, technological and
organizational information for defining the main didactic structure of an intelligent networked learning
environment based course.

Research Tasks.
1. Selecting a theoretical framework for the foundation of procedures and tools applied in
research process, on the basis of Research Problem and Object/Field.
2. Conceptualizing intelligent networked learning and its main components.
3. To identify the main sources of information and activities, related to intelligent networked
learning.
4. Describing the characteristics of those sources and the influence on learning process.
5. Identifying psycho-pedagogical theories, or ideas systems, applied in learning process.
6. Describing the main didactic structure of the course.

This task system, while being research tasks, is acting as an instructional design methodological
orienting system, for the considered course.

Applied methods:
• Case studies (courses previously taught, using Web 2.0 and AI based tools).
• Brainstorming like discussions in social networks, mainly in Researchgate (Guerrero- Proenza,
2019).
• Document analysis, specially articles, presentations and books, related to social network
applications in Education, MOOCs, networked learning, Data Mining and ontological
engineering.
• Historical – logical method (trends in the development of application of ICT in Education,
particularly AI and the multimedia based resources, and the communication tools, leading the
two later to the current Web 2.0 environments and the former to
Intelligent Tutoring Systems first, and the ontology and semantic web based educational
applications). (Mizoguchi and Bourdeau, 2016).
• Analytic – synthetic study of gathered information
• Inductive inference of course objectives, abilities and knowledge systems.
Regarding conceptualization, the concept of Networked Learning and other related, are mainly based
on conceptual system defined in (Solórzano, 2016). Other components, at this stage of course
designing, and considering the exploratory type of research, remain understood intuitively.

Sources of information and search methods and their characteristics:

• Academic social networks:
◦ Researchgate
▪ discussions and research projects frameworks,
▪ tool for document search,
▪ direct contact with authors and researchers through a messaging tool,
▪ several ways of measuring the impact of resources and researchers’ activities (RG
score, research relevance score, recommendations, works citations,
number of works reading and full download, comparisons with other
Researchergate users).
▪ Tools for sharing to other social networks.
◦ Academia
▪ tool for document search,
▪ direct contact with authors and researchers.
◦ LinkedIn
▪ tool for searching relivable information on researchers, institutions and jobs offers
(or for employees searching),
▪ potentially as framework for discussions in groups,
▪ Linda environment as source of courses offers,
▪ source of scientific and technological information in upload, shared or
communicated resources by LinkedIn members,
▪ A messaging and chat tools, as means of direct communication among users.
• Other social networks
◦ Facebook (mainly as a way of sharing discussions in Researchgate among their users).
◦ Twitter (used in the same way as Facebook).
• Scholar Google
◦ as tool of relivable search,
◦ a way of measuring ranking and impact of resources and researchers’ activities,
◦ information resources linking by citation operation.
• Personal experiences and colleagues’ research results.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Analyzing and studying components and relations of learning activities, at least trying to do that using
some scientific based approach, need to be founded on some educational, pedagogical or psycho-
pedagogical theory, “the Giants’ shoulders” supporting any decision, data analyzing, or information
interpretation.

Starting from previous experiences in analyzing such situations (Guerrero-Proenza, 2012), (Solórzano,
2016), related with modeling, structuring and representing learning activities in virtual environments,
and specifically criteria taken into account in formal semantic modeling
of virtual environments, Activity Theory was selected, considering its developed conceptual system,
systemic and structured approach to reality modeling, a premise for further formalization and
application in ICT based systems and, in general, the growing number of researches, showing it as a
suitable framework for the integration of several psychological approaches (Mammen and Mironenko,
2015), due its meta-theoretical character.

Regarding conceptualization, author understands the necessity to specify more detailed concepts like
Networked Education, Intelligent Networked Environment, and others, derived or components of
research object and field but, as explaining above in Materials and Methods section, due the
exploratory character of this research, they remained intuitively understood, waiting for more
structured and systematic studied, based precisely on this and next step of defining the course
components.

The next step was finding the context and way to obtain information. Most of the existing experiences
of virtual learning are virtual learning platform based. Examples of such are Moodle and Blackboard,
for mentioning the most widely known. But during the last five – seven years, we have been witness of
a fast development and application of open environments, even the concept of “openness” has evolved,
from the interpretation as “free” resource to more systemic approach, even in academic social networks
some debates have taken place, approaching the concept of openness in its more general and abstract
interpretation in Topology (Guerrero-Proenza, 2019), as the start point of an structured, unify
understanding of the quality of “being open”.

The most relevant type of learning activity, characterized by its openness is related with so called
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), widely spread as learning alternative, but having their lights
and shadows (Atiaja and Guerrero-Proenza, 2016). On those basis, the first exploratory source of tools,
approaches, best practices, and so on, was the set of more widely known and applied academic social
networks, and other types of sources and practices, considered as open related. Other examples can be
found in so called Coffee courses, delivered by the Australian National University, mainly that,
specifically dedicated to discuss openness in Education (ANU online Coffee Courses, 2017).

Why academic social networks? First of all, it should be pointing out that selecting that kind of
environments is not excluding other type of social sites, like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and so on.
But the analyzing of their users, activities, resources, showed that the greatest number of academics,
students, researchers, science stakeholders, etc., were more relevant for learning activities. While in
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram people have practically an infinite number of interests of every kind, in
academic social networks the potential student can find both, information and specialists for almost
every relevant field of Science studied and/or researched.

Among academic social networks, Researchgate, LinkedIn and Academia are the most “populated”,
having the greater number of resources. Finally Researchgate and LinkedIn were selected, due, in the
first place, their resources and tools, showed above, their number of researchers, free and open access
to resources (Researchgate in the first place; several services in LinkedIn are payment based, but the
most of them are free) and communicative services and ranking system for evaluating the users’
achievement.
On the other hand, the author have had experiences in using this kind of resources, including in
postgraduates activities at this University (Guerrero-Proenza, 2014).

The resulting main didactic structure, inferred from the activities, resources, tools, and type on
interactions in the above mentioned and analyzed sources, is composed by:

Objectives:

• To Characterize Education and Networked Learning, from the point of view of their
instrumental and procedural dimensions.

• To Apply tools and methods Artificial Intelligence based, in a web context in Education
Networked situations.

Knowledge System:

Networked Education. Networked Learning. Emergent Technologies. Educational methods for Web 2.0
based environments. Social networks applied to Education. PLE, MOOC and other related forms.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), some applications in Education. IA and Web integration applied to
Education. Learning Analytic. Ontology applications in Education.

Skills System:

• To describe
• To structure
• To represent
• To systematize
• To compare
• To integrate
• To classify
• To criticize
• To gather information on the Web
• To apply Web resource
• To subscribe to academic social network (ASN)
• To participate in ASN
• To search in ASN
• To post comment in blog or forum
• To locate resource
• To share resource
• To upload archive
• To publish resource
• To analyze and to synthesize development trends
• To apply Artificial Intelligence technical procedures and methods.
CONCLUSIONS

• The task of defining the main didactic components of the course on Intelligent Networked
Education is theoretically founded on Activity Theory.
• In fact this research is the first step of an instructional process, but following the usual research
scheme process, representing that the methodological approach in the instructional design of
the course.
• It was specified a task system for developing such process of instructional design.
• The course main didactic structure was defined.
• It is recommendable:
◦ Specifying the full conceptual system, related to the Networked Education, and more
specifically, to the Intelligent Networked Education, considering the historical
existing antecedents, like Artificial Intelligence based Education, Networked Learning, and
Activity and Cultural Historical approaches.
◦ Studying the applied research based instructional design approach, searching for existing
analogues, and theoretically justifies their procedures and the range of application in
designing virtual courses (experimenting, studying cases, inferring
characteristics from data, and other tasks, derived from a theoretically founded systematic
research).
◦ Continuing with the next step of developing the full course program.

REFERENCES

• ANUOnline Coffee Courses. (2017). Open Education: From Resources to Practice. Accessed
2019/9/6. Retrieved from:
http://anuonline.weblogs.anu.edu.au/projects/open-education-from-resources-to-practice/
• Atiaja. L. and Guerrero-Proenza, R. (2016). MOOCs: Origin, characterization, principal
problems and challenges in Higher Education, Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge
Society, 12, 1, 65-76. Retrieved from http://www.je-lks.org/ojs/index.php/Je-LKS_EN/
article/download/1093/971
• Guerrero-Proenza, R. (2012). Ontología para la representación de las preferencias del
estudiante en la actividad de aprendizaje en entornos virtuales. (Tesis doctoral).
Universidad de La Habana.
• Guerrero-Proenza, R. (2014). Grupo de LinkedIn TicEd. Accessed 2019/6/6. Retrieved from:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/6771098/
• Guerrero-Proenza, R. (2019). Questions asked by author in Researchgate. Accessed 2019/6/6.
Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rey_Segundo_Guerrero-Proenza/
questions
• Mammen, J. and Mironenko, I. (2015). Activity Theories and the Ontology of Psychology:
Learning from Danish and Russian Experiences. Integrative Psychological Behavioral
Science, 49, 681–713, DOI 10.1007/s12124-015-9313-7
• Mizoguchi, R. and Bourdeau, J. (2016). Using Ontological Engineering to Overcome AI-ED
Problems: Contribution, Impact and Perspectives. International Journal of Artificial
Intelligence in Education, 26, 91–106.
 • Reigeluth, C., Beatty, B. and Myers, R. (Ed.), (2017). Instructional-design theories and models
volume IV Historicity The learner-centered paradigm of education. New York: Routledge.
• Solórzano, F. (2016). Una concepción teórico-metodológica para el aprendizaje en red
en la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana del Ecuador (Tesis doctoral). Universidad de La
Habana.

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