Monitoring Learning Experiences and Styles: The Socio-emotional Level

• Published in: 2010 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies pp. 445 - 449
• Main Authors: Spadavecchia, Chiara, Giovannella, Carlo
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.07.2010
• Subjects: Automatic Text Analysis; Collaboration; Communities; Context; Emotional state and interaction; History; Monitoring; Prototypes; SNA and social interaction; Social network services
• ISBN: 9781424471447; 1424471443
• ISSN: 2161-3761; 2161-377X
• DOI: 10.1109/ICALT.2010.129

This article describes the integration within an on-line learning environment - LIFE (Learning in an Interacting Framework to Experience) - of two tools that have been designed to allow "quasi-real-time" and "in situ" monitoring of complex educational "experiences/processes", thanks to the analysis of the traces left by the learners. The two tools allow to monitor and analyze, respectively, the level of social interaction - through techniques of social network analysis (SNA) - and the emotional state of learners through automatic text analysis (ATA). When combined, the two tools allow also to monitor the emotional relationships and, ultimately, the 'social' emotional state of the community. As case history we present and discuss the results of a monitoring experiment conducted on an educational process which lasts five months (the second part of a master's degree in "E-Learning: methods, techniques and applications").