This paper discusses the online Personal Learning Planner (PLP) project underway at the National Institute for Community Innovations (NICI) and presents some of the details of the theory and thinking that is guiding its development. The World Wide Web-based software is part of work by NICI to develop tools for enhancing preservice teacher education and supporting increased use of technology, especially in professional development schools. The PLP is designed to assist learners through the processes of: self-assessment of strengths, interests, and aspirations; planning preservice education learning goals and projects; linking goals and projects to valued outcome standards; creating original work and sharing the work with others; receiving high quality feedback for the improvement of work; documenting and validating the achievement of learning goals; and assisting in the selection and preparation of exhibits of learning. The following basic assumptions guide the thinking behind the PLP: face-to-face as a foundation of learning; three bases for planning and action for learning (institutional, professional, and personal priorities); the learning cycle; focus on the learner's work; selfdirection and making meaning; and flexible thinking tools. (Contains 14 references.) (MES) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
: The Web is huge, unstructured and diverse in quality, which makes searching for information difficult. In practice, few of the documents returned by a search engine are valuable to a user. Which documents are valuable depends on the context of the query. Some adequate context information provided in addition to keywords can improve significantly search precision. In this paper we propose a framework for dynamic conceptual clustering of web documents based on clusters of users that share common interests. The basic assumption is that the search results would be more relevant to a user when provided within the context of semantically related documents marked as ‘interesting’ by a sufficiently large group of users with similar interests. This framework can support personalization of a search based on a search engine that ‘knows’ the context of the user information needs and uses it to tailor the search results. 1 Introduction The Web is huge and ubiquitous, unstructured, diverse in quality, dynamic and distributed, which makes searching for information principally difficult. General-purpose search engines that use keyword matching are notorious for returning too many matches of little relevance or quality in response to user queries. For example, if you submit the keyword “centroid” to Google almost 60,000 documents will be found. Which documents will be valuable to the user depends on the of the query. The context depends on a number
This paper describes the concept and implementation of a collaborative learning platform for school education over the Internet. The authors called this platform the eTrip System, because they applied it to a school field study. Using information technologies, it supports the whole learning flow for a field trip: pre-trip learning; hands-on learning; and post-trip learning. It enables students to learn more effectively and more vigorously by providing them with a collaborative environment based on a student-extended database and electronic bulletin board. The system was evaluated experimentally for a field trip by senior high school students. (Contains 13 references.) (Author/MES) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
