CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS Educational Social Software for Context-Aware Learning: Collaborative Methods and Human Interaction Submission Deadline: April 30, 2008 A book edited by: Niki Lambropoulos, CISE, London South Bank University, London, UK Margarida Romero, Université de Toulouse II, CNRS UMR-5263, France Link: www.educationalsocialsoftware.net Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10693835613 Introduction The emergence of Web 2.0 triggered a general trend towards global online social interactions and hence, has brought sociology into the global interactive picture. From an educational viewpoint, this phenomenon created issues relating to individual and social learning for the internalisation and externalisation of information and knowledge in both formal and informal educational settings. Studies on social relationships, interactions and engagement between the e-learning participants, as well as practices and activities with the use of tools for the purpose of learning appear to present contradictive results. Some answers to these issues and concerns lie in the principles of computing and, in particular, social computing. Social computing is concerned with the intersection of social behaviour and computational systems. In interactive educational technology, this intersection is related to context awareness. Specifically, context awareness includes determining if the context is organisational or cultural and the context surrounds learning activities on the interface. In other words, methods, learning activities, tools, and evaluation are highly interconnected. Overall Objectives of the Book The main objective of this book is to bring together, in one book, contributions on the topic of Educational Social Software for Context-Aware Learning. The key objective is to look into the socio-cultural elements in educational social computing focused on design and theory where learning and setting are intertwined. A significant portion of the book will also focus on real life case studies where such evaluations have been applied and validated. The book not only will report first experiences and debates, but also aims to go beyond the current state of the art by looking at future prospects and emerging applications. As such, the book will be of great use to those who study, design, construct, moderate, evaluate and maintain educational social software in organizations, e-learning, eBusiness, e-government and other related domains. The Target Audience Since the ultimate goal of the suggested methodologies is the use of the results of successful interventions, the target audience is everyone who owns, develops, evaluates and moderates educational social software - including individuals, universities, other organizations or companies. RECOMMENDED TOPICS Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following: Introduction: Introduction to Educational Social Software and its application to Context Aware Learning; state-of-the-art in existing social software educational uses; Educational Social Software needs and opportunities Collaborative Methods and Human Interaction: collaborative learning methodologies and techniques; guides for theory to practice. Learner-Computer Interaction: users as learners and learners as users, issues on user/learner dual identity. Analysis: multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches as in query-based techniques (interviews, focus groups, surveys); content and discourse analysis; ethnographic methodologies and fieldwork; ethnotechnology; social network analysis. Design: Conceptual and detailed educational social software design; ontologies; human-human and human-computer interaction in social networks; collaborative learning design; design to enhance ideas sharing and co-creativity; participatory design; prototyping (paper/electronic); screen design; learning architecture; design of collaborative learner/user-friendly schemes and features; learners with special needs; other innovative design approaches. Educational Social Software Technologies: social networks and infrastructures for learning and knowledge sharing; innovative learning systems; intelligent tutoring systems; educational software applications and games; simulations; educational devices and interfaces; personalized and adaptive learning systems; tools for peer-to-peer formative and summative assessment; computer support for peer tutoring. Evaluation: Tools and evaluation techniques; usability-learnability-utility evaluation; multidisciplinary evaluation; frameworks to apply results into practice Educational Social Software Applicability: primary and secondary education, higher education, lifelong learning and research. Case studies Special Topics: future trends SUBMISSION PROCEDURE Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before April 30, 2008, a 2 page (maximum) chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by May 31, 2008 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by August 31, 2008. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double blind review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), www.igi-global.com, publisher of the Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference) and Medical Information Science Reference imprints in 2010. Inquiries and Submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to: Niki Lambropoulos eLearning & Online Communities Architect, Researcher PhD Student Centre for Interactive Systems Engineering London South Bank University London, UK e-mail: niki [ at ] lambropoulos [ dot ] org homepage: http://nikilambropoulos.org Margarida Romero eLearning & Lifelong Learning Specialist, Researcher Université de Toulouse II CNRS UMR-5263 France e-mail: mail [ at ] margarida-romero [ dot ] com homepage: http://www.margarida-romero.com/ Fax: +33 488 049 414