Augmenting web pages with semantic contents, i.e., building a ‘Semantic Web’, promises a number of benefits for web users in general and learners in particular. Semantic technologies will make it possible to reason about the Web as if it was one extended knowledge base, thus offering increased precision when accessing information and the ability to locate information distributed across different web pages. Moreover, it will become possible to develop a range of additional educational semantic web services, such as interpretation or sense-making, structure-visualization, support for argumentation, novel forms of content customization, novel mechanisms for aggregating learning material, etc.
In my presentation I will first describe what semantic web is about and then illustrate a number of scenarios showing how semantic web technology can be harnessed to provide a much richer ‘web experience’ than what currently provided by web browsers and static web pages. In particular the ideas presented in these scenarios will be grounded on some of the work currently being carried out at the Knowledge Media Institute on semantic web browsing (Magpie) and on new forms of scholarly publishing (ScholOnto).The Magpie tool makes it possible to dynamically associate services with items found in web pages, on the basis of an underlying ontology. Thus, Magpie can be used to provide access (via a contextual menu) to complementary sources of knowledge, which can be used in contextualizing and interpreting the information found in a Web page.The ScholOnto project is building a prototype infrastructure to support the task of making scholarly claims about the significance of research documents. 'Claims' are made by making connections between ideas. The connections are grounded in a discourse/argumentation ontology, which supports innovative services for navigating, visualizing and analysing the network as it grows. Such a tool could be used in educational settings to allow students to develop easily a model of the current dialectics in a particular area of research.
Of course, the semantic web, like any other attempt at formalizing knowledge, carries a risk: to simplify what is complex, to impoverish what is rich. This is also a potential risk with some of the current work on learning objects. For this reason it is important not to lose focus of what the technology should be about: it should support users in making connections, engaging in critical analysis, locating the right knowledge and navigating and making sense of alternative teaching narratives. If used correctly, this technology could provide a quantum leap in the level of support available to students. If not, it will become yet another tool supporting reductionist approaches to learning and teaching.
Posted by price at March 23, 2004 09:45 AM