Using personalisation to improve the effectiveness of global educational projects

• Published in: E-learning and digital media 2015-01, Vol.12 (1), p.57-67
• Main Author: Pogorskiy, Eduard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Change Strategies; Classification; Educational Change; Educational Practices; Educational Principles; Educational Resources; Foreign Countries; Global Approach; Individual Activities; Individual Needs; Learning Processes; Online Courses; Open Education; Program Improvement; Russia; Social Networks; World Views
• ISSN: 2042-7530; 2042-7530
• DOI: 10.1177/2042753014558378

This paper introduces the role of personalisation in the learning process, with a focus on aspects of the philosophy of technology and Internet studies. Significant changes in education, with the spread of the technological capabilities of open educational resources (OER) and massive open online courses (MOOC), offer the possibility to develop new approaches to solve problems resulting from a limited perception of new knowledge. This makes it possible to increase the effectiveness of learning through the personalisation of educational content which utilises information about participants in the educational process—students, lecturers and managers. In this work, we use the concept of a ‘world view’, which is a key feature of the ‘thesaurus’ approach. Practice of the thesaurus approach to the analysis of data about the participants’ educational projects allows the construction of an individual world view of each participant in the educational process. Firstly, by utilising a world view, it is increasingly possible to identify potentially interesting topics which are open to the perception of an individual. Secondly, these themes can serve as a background or context through which an individual will be open to new information. Thirdly, following the analysis of a world view it seems possible to find authorities whose opinions are important to a person and will affect his behaviour. Finally, understanding of a community’s world view can give insight into the best and most productive combinations in the formation of work groups, learning classes and other human interactions. Shakespeare’s ‘eternal images’ are used to illustrate how this can be done.