Identifying Personalized Context-aware Knowledge Structure for Individual User in Ubiquitous Learning Environment Stis Wu 1 , Alex Chang 2 , Maiga Chang 3 , Tzu-Chien Liu 4 , Jia-Sheng Heh 1 1 Dept. of Information and Computer Engineering, Chung-Yuan Christian Univ., Taiwan 2 Dept. of Electronic Engineering, Chung-Yuan Christian Univ., Taiwan 3 School of Computing and Information Systems, Athabasca University, Canada 4 Graduate Institute of Learning and Instruction, Central University, Taiwan stis@mcsl.ice.cycu.edu.tw , aslada@mcsl.ice.cycu.edu.tw , maiga@ms2.hinet.net , ltc@cc.ncu.edu.tw , jsheh@ice.cycu.edu.tw Abstract Ubiquitous learning extends e-learning from indoor to outdoor but also overcomes the weakness of mobile learning which only provides the specific domain knowledge to learners in particular learning environment. A ubiquitous learning environment covers the knowledge of different domains, hence, how to offer individual learner the learning sequence according to the learner’s preference is an important issue. In order to solve the research issue, this paper first builds a context-awareness knowledge structure to store the different domain knowledge in a ubiquitous learning environment. After that, with pre-built stories and learning objects’ characteristics, the system can aware of what domain knowledge learners are interesting with. Several exhibition rooms and artifacts in museum are used to demonstrate the idea of this research. Keywords: Context-awareness Knowledge Structure, Ubiquitous Learning Environment, Museum Learning, Pervasive Learning 1. Introduction In the mobile learning environment, the learners could receive the learning materials provided by system according to where they are when learning in a mobile learning environment [1][2][7]. Ubiquitous learning becomes an interesting and important issue in e-learning field recently, focuses on making learners can do learning with their interest topics transparently and immediately with their various devices whenever and wherever they want. The context-awareness learning system in this paper means the system can detect what the learners' status, such as learning results or requirements, and interests, and then the system provides suitable learning materials to the learners when they are learning in the real world [6]. There are four characteristics in ubiquitous learning environment [3 1) context-aware, the learners' learning performances and the learning environment information can be known by the ubiquitous learning system; (2) personalization, the learning resources learners might need can be provided according to learners' profiles and learning status; (3) seamless, learners' learning activities will not be stopped in ubiquitous learning even though they move to another lace; and, (4) calm, the learning materials will be delivered to learners automatically to avoid interrupting learners with different devices. A knowledge structure suchlike concept map [4] [5] can represent what learner has learned. The knowledge structure is constructed based on the learners' thoughts about the learning object characteristics and attributes from learning in the real world. This research uses the story which talking about the characteristics and attributes of learning objects around the learners and constructs the personalized context-aware knowledge structure based on the feedbacks returned by the learners. As the result, there are two major issues in this paper: (1) what the stories and related questions should ask the learners? (2) how to know the preferences and interests of the individual learner in order to constructs his/her personalize context-aware knowledge structure? The relations and definitions between the elements in the context-awareness knowledge structure are described in Section 2. Section 3 uses a six phases Fifth IEEE International Conference on Wireless, Mobile, and Ubiquitous Technology in Education 0-7695-3108-3/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE DOI 10.1109/WMUTE.2008.21 95 Fifth IEEE International Conference on Wireless, Mobile, and Ubiquitous Technology in Education 0-7695-3108-3/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE DOI 10.1109/WMUTE.2008.21 95 Fifth IEEE International Conference on Wireless, Mobile, and Ubiquitous Technology in Education 0-7695-3108-3/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE DOI 10.1109/WMUTE.2008.21 95 Authorized licensed use limited to: Athabasca University. Downloaded on November 3, 2009 at 16:55 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.