European, Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems 2011 (EMCIS2011) May 30-31 2011, Athens, Greece Panagiotis Zervas et al. 720 Designing Tools for Context-Aware Adaptive Mobile Learning DESIGNING TOOLS FOR CONTEXT-AWARE ADAPTIVE MOBILE LEARNING Panagiotis Zervas, Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece & Informatics and Telematics Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece pzervas@iti.gr Sergio Eduardo Gómez Ardila, Institute of Informatics Applications, Universitat de Girona, Spain sergiog@eia.udg.edu Ramón Fabregat, Institute of Informatics Applications, Universitat de Girona, Spain ramon.fabregat@udg.edu Demetrios G. Sampson, Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece & Informatics and Telematics Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece sampson@unipi.gr Abstract During the past years, ubiquitous computing has influenced Technology-enhanced Learning. This is widely known as ubiquitous learning. On the other hand, the widespread ownership of mobile devices has lead to an increased interest to ubiquitous learning that is supported by mobile devices. This is commonly referred to as mobile learning. An important success factor for ubiquitous and mobile learning is the pedagogically meaningful and technically feasible process of learners’ contextual information. While the formal definition of context is still an open issue, contextual information in Technology-enhanced Learning involves information that characterizes a learners’ given situation. Thus, in order to achieve personalized and ubiquitous learning, tools for context-aware adaptive learning designs (authoring tools) and context-aware adaptive delivery of learning activities (run-time tools) are needed. In this paper, we target addressing this issue, that is, we describe a set of tools that incorporate a context-aware content adaptation mechanism at both the learning design and mobile delivery process. Keywords: Mobile learning, Context-Aware Adaptive Learning, IMS Learning Design Authoring Tool, Learning Activities Mobile Delivery Tool. 1 INTRODUCTION During the past years, ubiquitous computing, namely, the seamless integration of systems and environments in daily activities has influenced Technology-enhanced Learning (TeL) (Sakamura and Koshizuka, 2005). This has initiated a new trend in TeL, which is widely known as ubiquitous learning and it is defined as: “the potential of computer technology to make learning possible at any time and at any place” (Hwang, 2006, p. 1). Ubiquitous learning can offer important benefits to learners, which could be summarized as follows (Abarca et. al, 2006; Ogata and Yano, 2004): Supports pedagogical models that are based on authentic learning by exploiting real-life context Provides flexible, adaptive and personalized learning experiences by exploiting learners‟ contextual information On the other hand, the widespread ownership of mobile devices has lead to an increased interest to ubiquitous learning that is supported by a wide range of mobile devices. This is commonly referred to as mobile learning and can be treated as part of ubiquitous learning. Thus, mobile learning (m- learning) is defined as: “the process of learning and teaching occurs with the use of mobile devices anywhere (context aspects) and anytime (device aspects)” (Traxler, 2009; Kukulska-Hulme, 2009). An important success factor for ubiquitous and mobile learning is the pedagogically meaningful and