1. CoFIND: steps towards a self- organising learning environment Jon Dron, Richard Mitchell, Chris Boyne, Phil Siviter jon.dron@brighton.ac.uk http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/jd29/CoFIND.html

2. Self-organised learning Aim T o replace some or all of the roles of a teacher by providing an environment for collaboration which organises itself as a result of the combined actions of its users

3. Learning from the web §A phenomenally rich source of learning resources §but… §Teachers still have a range of important roles...

4. Roles of the teacher Including... §Expert help §A guided path §Inspiration and motivation §Feedback and assessment §Establishing boundaries

5. CoFIND Collaborative Filter In N Dimensions §A self-organising knowledge base §A collaborative bookmark database (web pages, pictures, books, places, people, newsgroups and more) §A communication mechanism §A sharing mechanism

6. CoFIND- some features Collaborative generation of metadata about the value of resources (qualities) Collaborative adaptive categorisation Collaborative rating SharingCommunication

7. CoFIND as a facilitator of learning How can CoFIND take on the roles of a teacher?

8. Expert help §Collaborative discovery of resources (web pages, people, books, ideas, places) §Discussion mechanisms §Resources returned according to ratings for a selected quality A user selects a quality Resources are returned in order of rating for the selected quality Users may rate resources according to the selected quality

9. Self-organisation by qualities §Learners enter resources §New or existing qualities are used to rate resources §Qualities compete- the more they are used, the more selectable (successful) they become §Successful qualities produce lists of useful resources §Success encourages re-use

10. A guided path Categorisations shaped by use The screen is divided into four independent sectors of topics Users may add topics in any sector Selecting a topic increases its size whilst simultaneously reducing the size of its competitors

11. A guided path §Quality ratings guide users to well rated resources of the sort they need §Collective guidance born through interactions with the system

12. Inspiration and motivation §Through user interactions §By finding interesting resources §Through feedback and assessment

13. Feedback and assessment §Users may post their own resources §Resources may be rated by other users of the system §Qualities indicate what is considered good or bad about a resource §Users can add comments or discuss resources

14. Establishing the boundaries §Subject matter and relevance shaped by categorisation and use of qualities

15. Issues §Establishing niches §Encouraging use §Beyond the cohort -synchronisation issues §Blogging - making paths §The cold-start phenomenon

16. fin