Contextblogger: learning by blogging in the real world

De Jong, T., Specht, M., & Koper, R. (2007). Contextblogger: learning by blogging in the real world. Proceedings of the ePortfolio Conference. October, 18-20, 2007, Maastricht, The Netherlands. [See also http://hdl.handle.net/1820/1680 ]In this paper we represent one specific instantiation of contextualised mobile social software for learning called contextualised blogging. Contextualised blogging combines the community aspects and flexible content access of a mobile blog with the adaptation to real-world settings made possible by contextualised computing. By combining both social and physical context information, we aim to improve current informal learning approaches. A special kind of data matrix symbols, called semacodes, is used to relate information from a blog to physical objects. The contextualised blogging application in this paper is developed in three steps. First, a conceptual model of the problem domain will be described. Second, a general technical framework based on this conceptual model will be developed. Finally, a specific instantiation of the technical framework called “ContextBlogger” is presented. The paper concludes with a description of the planned evaluation of the software, a summary, and a conclusion of the results so far