Collaborative e-learning through open social student modeling and Progressive Zoom navigation

Students usually do not study individually; instead, they tend to study collaboratively. The “power of known peers” can be embraced to provide implicit navigation support for collaborative social e-learning environments. In this paper, we present a novel approach to collaborative e-learning through open social student modeling with Progressive Zoom navigation support. Progressive Zoom is a Google-Maps paradigm which seeks to address information overload issues. It enables students to zoom in or out in a multi-layer fashion, so students can reflect on their individual and peer progress based on the knowledge and pedagogical context. In our initial survey, all students were satisfied with the navigation interface and would recommend the interface to their classmates.