eLearning: Constructing New Environments for Learning.
(Pedro P. Sánchez-Villalón, Manuel Ortega, Asunción Sánchez-Villalón, Celina de Diego)

Pedro P. Sánchez-Villalón

ppsanch@fimo-cr.uclm.es

Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

Castilla - La Mancha

Spain

Manuel Ortega

Manuel.Ortega@uclm.es

Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

Castilla - La Mancha

Spain

Asunción Sánchez-Villalón

Asuncion.Sanchez@uclm.es

Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

Castilla - La Mancha

Spain

Celina de Diego

celia.dediego@terra.es

Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Ciudad Real

Ciudad Real

Spain

The current technological revolution in society emerging from the advance of communications and information technologies is transforming the Learning paradigm. It facilitates communication and allows people to access information in an open-ended way and to construct new knowledge representations in their minds, which is the basis for learning. Thus, learning improves since the new ‘technologies can help us engage learners in active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative learning’ (Jonassen et al. 1999). Formal learning is shifting from the teaching-centred, receptive knowledge acquisition process, derived from teaching to the more active, knowledge construction experience, complemented by other learning types apart from teaching. It is not only the approach that is different but also the educational system undergoes a global change in its pedagogical foundations. The whole formal learning process is into question: the participants' roles, the learning environment, the educational centres, the materials and contents, the means used, even the disciplines need a transformation and a renewal. New elements appear in each category: new participants’ roles, new virtual or blended environments, additional lifelong learning scenarios, digital materials now called learning objects, and new kinds of information to experience and internalize.

All this cannot be left aside or dealt with just by patching the traditional learning activity with adaptations to the new digital media. The new communication and information technologies affect fundamental aspects in our society, imposing new patterns and strategies in the construction of the knowledge of the world that individuals develop. These technologies require an integrating, global treatment, taking into account their most innovative ubiquity (Weiser 1991) and collaboration enabling (Bereiter and Scardamalia 2003) features as the fundaments of this new learning paradigm, where context and interaction play an important role.

The activity theory based on constructivist principles (Vygotzky 1978) is becoming the driving force of the new learning style. Learners are the main developers of their knowledge construction and teachers should guide them in the process. To do this, learners have the right to get access to all the information they need, and teachers should provide them with strategic resources and appropriate pathways to select and experience the knowledge by interacting with information and with others, and let them develop creative thinking in every chunk of learning. That will help him construct their increasingly developing new knowledge of the world in a progressively more independent way (constructionism, Papert 1991).

The European Initiatives in Education (EU Bologna Process, since 1999) are fostering learning focused on the competences, both general (‘savoir’, ‘savoir-être’, ‘savoir-faire’ and ‘savoir-apprendre’) and specific of each discipline. And they focus on the first goal of learning to learn. Then, 'can-do' or ‘know-how’ abilities or skills set the basis for learning objectives to be developed in practical tasks and contexts usually designed by teachers, with access to content and materials that can help the learner in the achievement of the task. Tasks usually involve a set of integrating skills and are centred on problem solving activities or simulations in most experimental sciences (Anido et al. 2001).

As to Humanities, particularly in language learning, the specific competences are varied and we can start by reflecting again on their value or to what degree their acquisition influence learning. What is widely accepted is that the language skills involve linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic components. In this sense the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) has defined new basic integrating skills and techniques (referred to as "Interaction", including work in group, collaborative projects and real communication). These components should be revisited in light of the new technologies paradigm. Tasks in language learning provide learners with the necessary skills to cope with real life situations, to be involved in active communication, in authentic contexts (Warschauer 1997). Writing and speaking are the two productive skills which are most effective in developing knowledge structures (Jonassen et al. 1999), from the new information acquired through reading, listening and experiencing, giving shape to knowledge, which makes us assimilate new information and internalize it as our own knowledge.

Luckily, the technology that is providing us with the information is also the one which provides the resources to handle it, the Internet. And the most widely used interface for this is the Web, which allows us ubiquitous access to information anywhere anytime. We browse mainly to receive textual and more increasingly multimedia information. Interaction is also possible, so that we can communicate by reacting to information with forms, and by writing in forums or chatting. There are now new technologies for writing on the Web, such as blogging and wikis (Godwin-Jones 2003).

Based on these technologies, we have developed an online service for learning: first for language learning, to learn how to write by writing, and then, with the aim to extend its utility to other disciplines since writing helps to effectively internalize the knowledge acquired with the interactive access to information. It is AWLA, a web-based writing learning appliance. AWLA applies pedagogical foundations to the development of the writing skill, based on the three concepts: the writing product (information-based), the writing process (technique-based development of texts) and the writing task (scenario-based communication between teacher-learners). The learners write texts on the Web whether individually or in collaboration following the teacher’s instructions. AWLA gives access to all the information available on the Web, to language tools (dictionaries on the Web and the Google image search engine, which together with an upload utility can help learners include multimedia automatically in their resulting documents) and to communication tools (a chat utility to negotiate collaboration and to communicate with the teacher). The teacher can track the learners’ actions, evaluate them and correct the resulting texts. Plagiarism is easily detected with a button for checking suspicious text. See Ortega and Sánchez-Villalón (2005) for details of these functionalities.

AWLA has been the starting point for our most recent development, a virtual learning environment based on the ability to write on the Web. AIOLE (An Interactive Online Learning Environment) integrates AWLA and allows the design of the learning path with scenarios and activities for learning. Following the current trend on the Web to provide more interactive learning resources, AIOLE tries to contribute to the design of learning environments based on scenarios, giving prominence to facilitating access to Web services, to utilities for communication, such as writing on the Web, rather than merely offering content and materials in a learning management system (LMS). This interactive environment allows teachers to design tasks or learning activities, to track the learners’ actions, to adapt the scenario according to the evolution of the learning process and to offer additional alternatives in the process. All this is done in an easy, user-friendly way. You do not have to be an expert in computer science or a webmaster; just an average, competent user of computers and the Internet. AWLA and AIOLE allow ubiquitous access and development of information, communication with other users with the same interests, and collaboration in the achievement of common tasks, thus creating a sense of virtual community of practice, based on writing interaction for eLearning as the new learning environment.

References

• AWLA Website. <http://chico.inf-cr.uclm.es/ppsv/awla.html> (16 April 2006)
• Anido, Luis, Martin Llamas and Manuel J. Fernández. 2001. 'Internet-based Learning by Doing' . IEEE Transactions in Education 44.2.
• Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. 2001. Cambridge: University Press. <http://culture2.coe.int/portfolio//documents/0521803136txt.pdf> (16 April 2006)
• Godwin-Jones, Bob. 2003. 'Blogs and Wikis: Environments for On-line Collaboration' . Language Learning & Technology 7.2: 12-16. <http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/pdf/ emerging.pdf > (16 April 2006)
• Jonassen, David H., Keil L. Peck and Brent G. Wilson. 1999. Learning with Technology. A Constructivist Perspective. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
• Papert, Seymour. 1991. 'Situating Constructionism' . In Constructionism, eds. I. Harel and S. Papert, 1-11. Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
• Ortega, Manuel and Pedro P. Sánchez-Villalón. 2005. 'AWLA: A Writing e-Learning Appliance' . In Web-Based Intelligent e-Learning Systems: Technologies and Applications, ed. Zogmin Ma., 254-269. Idea Group Inc.: USA.
• Vygotsky, Leo S. 1978. Mind in society. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
• Warschauer, Mark. 1997. 'Computer-mediated collaborative learning: Theory and practice' . Modern Language Journal 81.3: 470-481.
• Weiser, Mark. 1991. 'The computer for the 21st Century' Scientific American September: 94-104.