An innovative approach for developing and employing electronic libraries to support context‐aware ubiquitous learning

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to propose an innovative approach to assist teachers in using electronic libraries to develop learning activities for context‐aware ubiquitous learning, in which the learning system can detect students' behaviors and guide them to learn in the real world with personalized support from the digital world.

Design/methodology/approach

An electronic library with context‐awareness metadata for supporting learning activities conducted in real‐world environments is presented. Furthermore, a systematic procedure for guiding teachers in employing the electronic library to develop learning activities is proposed based on an innovative approach.

Findings

From a practical application conducted on an elementary school, it is found that, with this innovative approach, electronic libraries not only have the potential in supporting traditional in‐class or online learning activities, but also can assist teachers and digital content workers in developing high quality learning activities and related digital learning materials to support outdoor learning.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this paper imply that, to promote the utilization rate of electronic libraries for more specified purposes, more features of the application domains need to be considered while designing the database schemas of the electronic libraries.

Practical implications

From the feedback of teachers and digital content workers, it is found electronic libraries have high potential for supporting outdoor learning activities for “Science” and “Social science” courses with proper database schema design and the provision of user guidance.

Originality/value

An electronic library for supporting context‐aware ubiquitous‐learning is presented and an innovative approach for guiding teachers to design learning activities is proposed.

Citation

Chu, H., Hwang, G. and Tseng, J.C.R. (2010), "An innovative approach for developing and employing electronic libraries to support context‐aware ubiquitous learning", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 873-890. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011093552