CHEST: An Application to Support Teachers in the Use of Linked Open Data for Ubiquitous Learning

Abstract

Ubiquitous learning (u-learning) leverages educational technologies to help students learn anywhere and anytime across multiple physical and virtual spaces. However, u-learning applications face a challenging tradeoff: Should they provide a predefined set of u-learning resources, thus saving time for teachers, but limiting their applicability to a wider range of u-learning situations? Or should they allow teachers to create their own u-learning resources, improving flexibility, but requiring a nonnegligible effort from teachers that typically ends up in learning resources that cannot be reused by other teachers or by other u-learning applications? Cultural Heritage Educational Semantic Tool (CHEST), the application presented in this article, addresses this tradeoff proposing the use (and reuse) of Linked Open Data (LOD) to support teachers in designing u-learning situations in the cultural heritage domain. CHEST hides the complexity of LOD to teachers, thus reducing the effort in creating u-learning situations, while, at the same time, taking advantage of its reusable nature. CHEST allows teachers to create and reuse three types of learning resources in the form of LOD: spatial things, learning tasks, and itineraries (which group the other two types of resources). This article elicits the requirements considered for the development of CHEST, describes its architecture, and presents the results of an evaluation study carried out with a CHEST prototype in the context of a university course involving two teachers and 14 students. The evaluation examines how CHEST supports teachers in the creation and reuse of u-learning resources based on LOD, paying attention to the balance between flexibility and required effort, while it also showcases how CHEST supports the enactment of u-learning situations in an authentic educational context. The study provides valuable insights into the applicability and effectiveness of CHEST within a specific educational context.