Wespot.GitHub.io

Welcome to weSPOT

weSPOT aims at propagating scientific inquiry as the approach for science learning and teaching in combination with today's curricula and teaching practices. It lowers the threshold for linking everyday life with science teaching in schools by technology.

weSPOT supports the meaningful contextualization of scientific concepts by relating them to personal curiosity, experiences, and reasoning. weSPOT addresses several challenges in the area of science learning and technology support for building personal conceptual knowledge.

The project focuses on inquiry-based learning with a theoretically sound and technology supported personal inquiry approach. In inquiry based-learning learners take the role of an explorer and scientist and are motivated by their personal curiosity, guided by self-reflection, and develop knowledge personal and collaborative sense-making and reasoning.

weSPOT will work on a meta-inquiry level in that it will (a) define a reference model for inquiry-based learning skills, (b) create a diagnostic instrument for measuring inquiry skills, and (c) implement a working environment that allows the easy linking of inquiry activities with school curricula and legacy systems. weSPOT [1]is supported by the European Commission.

Overview of Software architecture

The weSPOT software system architecture contains several layers from data management layer, control services, to application layers. The application layer contains the mina application with which different end users interact.

• The inquiry web application is based on elgg open source software and is the main application for setting up confoguring and web-based interaction with inquiry data.
• Furthermore the mobile clients developed in workpackage 4 of weSPOT enable the spontaonous creation of data collections and also inquiries, as also the planned collection of data driven by data collection tasks configured in the web-based application. Furthermore the inquiry coordination interface enables users to get performance data on their inquiries as how much data is collected, what are the activities of the participants.
• The diagnostic instrument enables the personal analysis of the level of inquiry skills
• The collaboration and reflection clients enable the personal and collaborative reflection and discussion of learners and teachers on the ongoing inquiries.

weSPOT system components

• Inquiry Workflow Engine The Inquiry Workflow Engine is the base system for the whole weSPOT inquiry toolkit.
• PIM Android gives mobile access to weSPOT inquiries on android.
• Learning Analytics Reflection and Awareness Dashboards (LARAe) provides both teacher and students with a visualisation of the activities performed in the Inquiry Workflow Engine.
• Data Store is the central storage system for all analytics data. User activities from the different tools (e.g. widget interaction in Inquiry Workflow Engine, PIM data collection) can all be stored here and accessed by e.g. LARAe for visualisation.
• Open Badge API is a set of REST services that can be used to store badges following the Open Badges specification.
• MEDoKy Personalization Services and Plugins contains a web-service component and three plugins for domain and learner modelling and personalized learning recommendations.
• Notication System supports managing notifications
• The Mobile Inquiry Coordination Interface aims at providing inquiry coordinators with access to the current on-going inquiries and the contributions of all participants. It also allows central dispatching of messages and management of tasks and data.

Install weSPOT

Although weSPOT can be used free of charge at http://inquiry.wespot.net, it is also possible to set up your own installation. Follow these steps to install all tools:

• First, install the IWE.
• Secondly, set up authorization. weSPOT supports integration through OAUTH with google or with custom weSPOT accounts.
• Install the learning analytics datastore
• Install the Learning Analytics Reflection and Awareness Dashboards (LARAe)
• Install the Open Badge API
• Install and deploy the Android PIM to the google play.
• Install and deploy the iOS PIM to the google play.