14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

WEB2.o TECHNOLOGIES FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Sorin Ionitescu1, Dorina Popovici1, Paul OCallaghan2 and Catalin Ogioiu1
1
University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania
2
MultiMedia SunShine Ltd., United Kingdom

Abstract
The article is targeted to mobile-learning 2.0 knowledge and skills of the trainers, thus turning them from in-class trainers to skilled
online tutors (e-tutors). In this way one can support the further development of innovative Web2.0-based tutoring methodologies,
pedagogy approaches and practices, therefore improving lifelong learning in EU through more efficient e-training/tutoring
methodologies and practices.
As application, the paper presents the MOODLE platform that has been developed and implemented in the CONCORD project
The need for use of smart phones and tablets is also emphasized, in an attempt to promote learning amongst youngsters via
technology that is nowadays very accessible to every teenager and young adult. The aim is not only to convey information to others,
but to do it through enjoyable experiences, by stimulating a love of learning and a genuine thirst for knowledge acquisition that will
eventually encourage them to pursue new knowledge generation.
The sustainability of CONCORD project has been ensured by another LLP Transfer of Innovation (TOI) projects: Mobivet2.0
successfully started in 2012.
Mobivet2.0 project aims to fill in the online training gap between the self-directed learners and VET trainers by developing mobile
learning knowledge and skills of the trainers thus turning them from traditional in-class instructors to skilled online tutors (etutors).
The project support further development of innovative Web2.0-based tutoring methodologies, mobile e-pedagogy approaches and
practices thus helping to extend area and improve quality of lifelong learning in EU.
Keywords distance-learning; online learning; interactive mobile learning environment

A Digital Agenda for Europe

The communication from the commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European
Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the regions
The overall aim of the Digital Agenda for Europe is to deliver sustainable economic and social
benefits from a digital single market based on fast and ultra-fast internet and interoperable
applications.
It was projected that, by 2020, digital content and applications will be almost entirely delivered
online and so attractive content and services need to be made available in an interoperable and
borderless internet environment.
It stated that Europe is suffering from a growing professional ICT skills shortage and a digital
literacy deficit. Only one of the nine ICT applications companies present in the Financial Times
Global 500 list is European; only four of the top 54 websites visited across Europe are of
European origin. Therefore, it is now vital to promote ICT education, careers and jobs to young
people, to foster digital literacy among citizens and to provide ICT training for the workforce.
The international Web Sites, Wikipedia (San Diego, USA), Facebook (Harvard University, USA),
Google (Stanford University, USA), Twitter (St. Louis, USA), Yahoo (Sunnyvale, USA), Moodle
(Perth, Australia) and internet shopping sites, ebay (San Jose, USA), Amazon (Seattle USA) are
examples of interoperable applications which are all based on WEB2.o Technologies.

14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

WEB2.o Technologies Definition

Interoperability Working Together;

User-centered Design a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of
an interface or document are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process;
Machine-to-machine interaction over a network where users can change website content.

WEB2.o (WEB 2 point ohh) Technologies (2004-present day) are web applications that facilitate
interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the
World Wide Web.
Examples of WEB2.o Technologies include web-based communities, hosted services, web
applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mash-ups (web applications
that combine data and/or functionality from more than one source), folksonomies (links to other
websites) and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. A WEB2.o site allows its users to interact
with other users or to actively change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where
users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.
Uses
The most common uses of WEB2.o Technologies are in shopping sites with products for sale,
shopping carts and checkouts. However, it has now been noticed that WEB2.o Technologies have
powerful capabilities in didactical applications.
A didactical application needs:

A Learning Content Management System;

Quizzes;
Automatic Score Generation using Cookies;
Feedback;
Social Networking via forums (phpbb), blogs (Blogger, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter);
Information sharing using links (folksonomies), RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds,
Mash-ups (applications that combine data or functionality from two or more external
sources to create a new service);
Translations (Google Toolbar) of Text and Graphics.

Requirements
In order to develop WEB2.o Applications you need:
1) A Web Site with Your Personal Domain Name;
http://www.123-reg.co.uk/
2) Your IP Address;
Determine IP Address of my Computer:

Start
Run
cmd
ipconfig

14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

IMPORTANT!! If your computer is sitting behind a Router, this procedure gives you the internet
IP address of the Router and not of the computer. To find the external IP address of the computer
you must go to www.whatsmyip.com. You need to connect to this IP address when trying to reach
your computer's IP from the Internet. Afterwards, you must forward the port your application is
using in your router configuration.
You find this by typing http://192.168.0.1 (the Default Gateway) in your browser.
For a NETGEAR Router:
User Name = admin
Password = password
Then you get your router setup wizard.
So, if you are running a web server on your pc, you must set your router to forward all requests on
port 80 to your internal router address (say 192.168.0.3) given by ipconfig. Then, from the internet,
connect to your routers external address. You will connect to your internal pc. If you have a static
IP then all is fine. However, if your IP is assigned dynamically, you will have to keep checking
what it currently is.
Or you can set up a personal dns system with: www.dyndns.org
Your IP address can sometimes be hard to memorize, especially if you have a dynamic IP address
(one that changes every so often). Even if your IP address is static, it is much easier to remember
paul.com than something like 169.19.123.234.
One way to alias your IP address is to get a free account at www.dyndns.org. Once you register and
login, you will be able to attach a domain name to your IP address. There are dozens of top-level
domains to choose from. Once you log in to dyndns.org, choose static or dynamic DNS depending
on whether your provider assigns you a static or dynamic IP, click on "add a new host", and choose
the name of your preference.
http://my.bzflag.org/w/Alias_Your_IP_Address
3) An FTP System (File Transfer Protocol)
Information Sharing - FTP Free; Total Commander Free; FileZilla Free; SmartFTP Free; FTP
Explorer 39.99$; Cute FTP 65$.
4) Server Software

14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

IIS Microsoft Information Interchange Server (available in Windows 7 from the Control
Panel Add or Remove Windows Components);
Apache Server.

It is possible to turn your laptop into a server (best to start with a new machine, having at least 4GB
or RAM).
In order to configure IIS on Windows 7, you need to take the following course of actions:
Start
Control Panel
Programs and Features
Turn Windows features on or off

14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

An alternative to Windows IIS is Apache Server
5) A Database with Structured Query Language
MySQL - Structured Query Language
Download MySQL
6) A Serverside Progamming Lanquage
PHP (Personal Home Page or Hypertext Preprocessor)
PHP - Hypertext Preprocessor - Personal Home Page
Download PHP

Combinations
WAMPSERVER (Apache, MySQL, PHP, PHPMyAdmin (to create databases) is a Windows web
development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache2, PHP and a
MySQL database.
WAMP
Wamp Installation
WAMPs are packages of independently-created programs installed on computers that use a
Microsoft Windows operating system. WAMP is an acronym formed from the initials of the
operating system Microsoft Windows and the principal components of the package: Apache,
MySQL and one of PHP, Perl or Python.

Apache is a web server.

MySQL is an open-source database.

14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

PHP is a scripting language that can manipulate information held in a database and generate
web pages dynamically each time content is requested by a browser.

Other programs may also be included in a package, such as phpMyAdmin which provides a
graphical user interface for the MySQL database manager.

http://www.php.net/downloads.php

Examples of Web2.o Applications

Facebook; YouTube; Twitter; wikis; Blogs; mashups; folksonomies - tags to other; websites; RSS
Feeds; Social Networking; web-based communities; phpbb; Learning Management Systems
Learning Management System LMS
In essence, an LMS is software for planning, delivering, and managing learning events within an
organization, including online, virtual classroom, and instructor-led courses. For example, an LMS
can simplify global certification efforts, enable entities to align learning initiatives with strategic
goals, and provide a means of enterprise-level skills management. The focus of an LMS is to
manage students, keeping track of their progress and performance across all types of training
activities. It performs administrative tasks, such as reporting to instructors, HR and other ERP
systems but it isnt used to create course content.
Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS)
An LCMS is software for managing learning content across an organization's various training
development areas. It provides developers, authors, instructional designers, and subject matter
experts the means to create and re-use e-learning content and reduce duplicated development
efforts.
In the remote AICC hosting approach, an LCMS may host the content in a central repository and
allow multiple LMSs to access it.
Primary business problems an LCMS solves are:

centralized management of an organization's learning content for efficient searching and

retrieval,
productivity gains around rapid and condensed development timelines, productivity gains
around assembly, maintenance and publishing / branding / delivery of learning content.

Rather than developing entire courses and adapting them to multiple audiences, an LCMS provides
the ability for single course instances to be modified and republished for various audiences
maintaining versions and history. The objects stored in the centralized repository can be made
available to course developers and content experts throughout an organization for potential reuse
and repurpose.
This eliminates duplicate development efforts and allows for the rapid assembly of customized
content.
MOODLE (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment)
MOODLE (WAMPSERVER + MOODLE software)

14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

MOODLE is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System
(LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a free web application that educators can use
to create effective online learning sites. It has become very popular among educators around the
world as a tool for creating online dynamic web sites for their students.
To work, MOODLE needs to be installed on a web server. Moodle is free to download and use and
registration is voluntary (http://moodle.org/)
There are 72132 currently (December 2011) active sites that have registered from 223 countries.
Some features of Moodle are:
Assignment submission;
Discussion forum;
Files download;
Grading;
Instant messages;
Online calendar;
Online news and announcements;
Online quiz;
Wiki.
MOODLE is essentially a Learning Management System (LMS) and cannot produce MultiMedia EBooks but you can link MultiMedia E-Books to MOODLE. It is meant for managing courses and
students. It contains an excellent Content Management System. It creates a page selector and can
handle multimedia content but this content cannot be integrated into an E-book
It is good for Web2.o, as it contains:

A forum

A chat room

Crude web page creation

The best choice is to install Complete MOODLE, which installs Apache Server, MySQL and PHP,
as well as MOODLE itself, also setting you up with a Web Server.
Complete moodle components

14 - th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2013, Bucharest , September 24, 2013

POODLE
http://www.maflt.org/products/poodle
MOODLE is designed to work on the Internet. Therefore, anyone participating in a MOODLE
course must have access to a reliable Internet connection.
POODLE enables instructors and students to distribute and use MOODLE courses without an
Internet connection. POODLE runs MOODLE courses on portable flash drives such as USB sticks,
Flash memory cards and external hard drives. It is necessary for mobile applications when an
Internet Connection cannot be made (i.e. when travelling, on airplanes, etc.).
POODLE not only works independently of the web, but it also leaves no electronic fingerprint on
the computer accessing the portable drive. This ensures maximum privacy for both instructor and
student.
Producing a Moodle course with Poodle entails four steps:
1. Download,
save
and
extract
the
poodle-v1.2.zip
https://svns.maflt.org/rc/public/lt/tools/Poodle/
(this step requires an Internet connection);
2. Download and/or create the desired course material;
3. Configure the course on a local computer;
4. Transfer the course to portable drives for distribution to the students.

file

from

POODLE cannot produce MultiMedia E-Books but you can link MultiMedia E-Books to POODLE.
.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server
http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle