The 21st Global Conference on Computer in Education：Digital personalization and collaborative learning workshop

The development of advanced information technologies has opened up new opportunities in the area of computer supported learning environments. A key aspect of this work lies within the fact that students can access learning material at any time and any places. As a result of such convenience, a wide range of people have begun using computer supported learning environments for supporting instruction. Thus, it is important to ensure that such computer supported learning environments can accommodate diverse students’ needs.

To address this issue, it is necessary to incorporate personalization into the development of computer supported learning environments. Personalization is acknowledged as a useful approach to develop added value services in computer supported learning environments. It can help students with different characteristics, backgrounds and needs to get different types of content presentation and navigation support. In this context, a deep understanding of personalization is essential for the development of computer supported learning environments.

While acknowledging the essentiality of personalization, the importance of incorporating an element of collaboration during the process so that students can contribute to each other’s learning has become prevalent in educational practice with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies. Thus, issues on how to address these two aspects simultaneously if desirable, or at different learning stages to create optimal learning space and experience for involved learners are the focus of this workshop. In sum, this proposed workshop addresses two core aspects in computer supported learning environments—personalization and collaboration. The workshop provides opportunities for the cross-fertilization of knowledge and ideas from researchers in the many fields that make up this interdisciplinary research area. We hope that the implications of findings of each work presented in this workshop can be used to improve the development of Computer-Supported Personalized and Collaborative Learning environments.