SOCIALCALC A Spreadsheet Activity for Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC INTRODUCTION COLLABORATIVE LEARNING OLPC & SOCIALCALC LEARNING WITH SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE MESH LEARNING ON THE CLOUD CONTEXT BASED LEARNING CONCLUSION AGENDA

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC INTRODUCTION The secret of life is not enjoyment but education through experience. -Swami Vivekananda  Learning taking new dimensions –  Organizational Learning  Collaborative Learning  Learning from the Environment  With technology entering classrooms, what is next is what interests us! TECHNOLOGYEDUCATION COMPUTER SUPPORTED COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC COLLABORATIVE LEARNING Collaborative learning can be described as a group learning activity, characterized by two or more than two people, involved in the learning process, conducive to each other’s grasping abilities. Enabling users far off to interact in a learning environment Allows for interaction beyond boundaries Establishment of a learning community Platform which hosts questions and discussions from the learners facilitating their learning curve to grow in a manner which advances their knowledge and at the same time assists their inquisitive minds. Develops social skills Sharing of ideas from different backgrounds Problem solving approach helps to cultivate the student’s mind in a progressive manner

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC COLLABORATIVE LEARNING THROUGH SPREADSHEETS  Problem Based Learning through Spreadsheets  An ideal bridge between arithmetic and algebra and allow the student free movement between the two worlds  Students look for patterns, construct algebraic expressions, generalize concepts, justify conjectures, and establish the equivalence of two models as intrinsic and meaningful needs rather than as arbitrary requirements posed by the teacher VisiCalc LOTUS Excel SuperCalc Multiplan Plan PerfectGoogle Docs

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC OLPC & SOCIALCALC One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is an organization dedicated to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC OLPC & SOCIALCALC SocialCalc is a spreadsheet activity developed for functioning in the Sugar environment, OLPC’s software paradigm.

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC Features Tabulation Organization Graphing and Calculation Localization in different languages Multi-user editing over the mesh network Ability to read and edit single sheet Excel (.xls), Lotus (.wk4) and other popular spreadsheet files OLPC & SOCIALCALC Architecture

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING WITH SOCIALCALC COLLABORATING ON SOCIALCALC Collaboration over a Mesh Network Collaboration over a Cloud Network

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE MESH  A type of networking wherein each node in the network may act as an independent router, regardless of whether it is connected to another network or not.  Allows for continuous connections and reconfiguration around broken or blocked paths by “hopping” from node to node until the destination is reached.

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE MESH ARCHITECTURE

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE MESH HOW WE ACHIEVED IT Dbus-tubes and telepathy framework A basic infrastructure to call functions and send data from python to the JavaScript part & vice versa Implementing Localization Color Coding of Cells on Shared Spreadsheets

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE MESH USE CASE

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE CLOUD  The application residing on the school server is common to all the XO laptops. Hence, this removes the need to install the application on the network laptops.  Private Cloud Computing  All the systems integrated to the cloud access the application on the browser, the server handles the specific operations such as saving, etc.

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE CLOUD Integration with the server Scaling the programme to support collaborative working Integration with Chat Activity Context Based Learning HOW WE ACHIEVED IT

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC LEARNING ON THE CLOUD USE CASE

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC CONTEXT BASED LEARNING Context = “any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity”. Plot the behavioural profile of the students Tailor make the course material to suit the needs of the students Allow for interaction between different peer groups, and study their problem patterns Extract resources from the content repositories to solve instantaneous problems Allot assignments automatically based on the student’s perception of the topic, his problems and understanding of the same Understand group psychology and group dynamics to plot students’ growth better

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC CONTEXT BASED LEARNING The server acts as the host for all the XOs Any amount of activity occurring on the cloud is almost instantly saved on the server in the database Presence of the educator is not required at all times in order to monitor the study process The teacher can assume the role of the moderator, who can supervise the growth curve of the students ADVANTAGES ON OUR SYSTEM

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC CONCLUSION Demonstrated the use of technology for existing principles such as Computer based collaborative Learning Using SocialCalc spreadsheet activity as an example The scalability of the same into a much more intelligent system that can synthesize context based learning environments

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC The Beginning..

SPREADSHEETS IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SOCIALCALC Contact Information Manu Sheel Gupta