Title: Support online social interaction with Context-Awareness

Authors: Yanlin Zheng, Luyi Li, Hiroaki Ogata, Yoneo Yano

Addresses: School of Media Science, Northeast Normal University, China. ' School of Educational Science, Northeast Normal University, 5268, Renmin Avenue, Changchun City, Jilin Province, 130024, China. ' Faculty of Engineering, Tokushima University, 2-1, Minami-Josanjima, Tokushima 770-8506, Japan. ' Faculty of Engineering, Tokushima University, 2-1, Minami-Josanjima, Tokushima 770-8506, Japan

Abstract: Social interaction is critical to knowledge building and sharing in online learning. This paper identifies knowledge, social and technical contexts as the three essential elements of the context space for online social interaction, and accordingly proposes a three-dimensional context-awareness (CA) model to support online social interaction, including Awareness to Knowledge Context, Awareness to Social Context, and Awareness to Technical Context. The activity context, the mediator in the context space, is highlighted in CA implementation. CA map is employed to visualise CA information. A case study (caLDT) is provided to test if the CA model is helpful for online social interaction.

Keywords: online social interaction; context space; activity context; context awareness; CA maps; online learning; e-learning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEELL.2007.013662

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 2007 Vol.17 No.2/3, pp.160 - 177

Published online: 10 May 2007 *

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