eMUSE - Integrating Web 2.0 Tools in a Social Learning Environment

Traditional teaching methods should be adapted to accommodate the learning needs of the new generation of digital native students. One approach is to provide support for social learning by integrating Web 2.0 tools in educational settings. This paper focuses on a platform specifically built to this end: eMUSE (

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-learning), which aggregates several social media components by means of mashups. In addition, the platform provides learner tracking functionality, by retrieving students’ actions with each tool and storing them in a local database for further processing. Thus eMUSE offers value-added services for both students and teachers: common access point to facilitate tools’ management; help students keep track of their contributions as well as their peers’; a simple way for instructors to monitor the class activity as well as quickly check, visualize and grade each student’s contributions. The paper includes a comprehensive rationale underlying eMUSE, a description of the platform architecture and functionalities, as well as an initial experimental validation.