Language Learning Assisted by Group Profiling in Social Networks

Abstract

This paper describes an implementation for group profiling assisting language learning in social networking sites and particularly in Facebook. In this study, we have developed an educational application in Facebook for grammar learning, while the whole procedure is assisted by group profiling. We applied K-means clustering algorithm to determine the groups of students with the same learning styles and abilities, creating a more sophisticated and dynamic model. The algorithm takes as input, to initialize the process, two important studentsâ?? characteristics â?? age and knowledge. Our study exploits the fact that educational systems have a large number of users and we use a machine learning reasoning mechanism that is based on recognized similarities between them. Future plans include evaluating our Facebook application in order to examine the degree of usefulness of the group profiling for language learning.