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A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration: towards a model of telematic learning environments
PII:
Computers Educ. Vol. 30, Nos 1/2, pp. 31±39, 1998 # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain S0360-1315(97)00076-6 0360-1315/98 $19.00 + 0.00
A VIRTUAL WORKSHOP AS A TOOL FOR COLLABORATION: TOWARDS A MODEL OF TELEMATIC LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS W. VEEN,* I. LAM and R. TACONIS Utrecht University, Ivlos, Institute of Education, P.O. Box 80127, 3508 Tc Utrecht, The Netherlands (Received 29 April 1997; accepted 1 October 1997) AbstractÐIn the T3 project (telematics for teacher training) seven European partners actively adopted the use of telematics in their teaching programmes. Partners collaborate through face-to-face meetings, videoconferencing and virtual workshops. Virtual workshops are web-based discussions using groupware facilities mainly focusing on the enhancement of future collaboration plans. This paper reports on the ®rst virtual workshop organized within a telematic learning environment which was created by the project evaluation team. The research focused on the learning eects of the virtual workshop. Although the workshop as a whole has been evaluated positively by the participants, the results also show that the virtual workshop did not contribute signi®cantly to their learning process. This leads to the conclusion that, in order to stimulate learning in virtual workshops, speci®c pedagogical actions must be taken. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
INTRODUCTION
The eective use of information and communication technology (ICT) for teaching and learning requires new instructional formats. The design and the development of telematic learning environments is a major issue in the T3 project (telematics for teacher training). In this EU funded project, partners from across Europe collaborate in de®ning and implementing various uses of ICT in teacher training. The T3 project is designed to encourage over 4000 teachers to adopt telecommunications and new technologies in schools and universities across the EU [1]. In this paper, the use of virtual workshops as a communication tool for collaborative work is reported. Virtual workshops are a critical dimension in telematic learning environments as they provide communication facilities for the learners. From a constructivist point of view, learning takes place through communication, and hence, virtual workshops should contribute to the learning process of the users. Within the T3 project a model is being developed of telematic learning environments, including communication as an essential part of such environments. This model emerges from experiences in the T3 project and seem to meet the needs of its partners. The experiences in the T3 project show that virtual workshops are a new phenomenon to many. Participants have learned that time for asynchronous virtual meetings should be planned in their diaries like face-to-face meetings. Participants have realised that a new mindset is needed which values both types of meetings equally. Until now results have been encouraging and the virtual workshop as an instructional format seems to ®t into teacher training curricula. Within the T3 project seven university teacher training institutes collaboratively developed online courses for a variety of subject matters (e.g. mathematics, languages, science, libraries, technology). The on-line materials can be used across the partner institutions enhancing the implementation of ICT into the teacher training curricula. The courses are evolving in telematic learning environments which oer new dimensions of learning and teaching in teacher education. The courses provide rich materials and opportunities to communicate and as a consequence stimulate the professional development of the T3 partner institutions. *Corresponding author. Tel. +31 30 2532342, Fax: +31 30 2534262. 31
32
W. Veen et al.
A model of telematic learning environments Telematic learning environments demand a thorough rethinking of the content and learning activities of the students and teachers involved. Traditional teaching and learning activities seem no longer to be appropriate as classroom teaching is excluded from the pedagogical repertoire. The teacher's role is changing from frontal teaching and monitoring students' setwork into an expert's role at a distance where students are supposed to be actively engaged in learning collaborating with peers and interacting with teachers [2]. These new students' roles often relate to new educational paradigms in which learning is considered to be an active and communicative process of the learner. In this respect constructivists stress that communication with others is one of the means to build up (``construct'') meaningful knowledge. As telematic learning environments have become apparent on the world wide web, however, it may be concluded that learning activities induced mainly refer to reading activities with many educational web-sites providing abundant educational materials that can be read or downloaded from the web. Digitalization of reading materials seems to be considered as the ultimate added value of telematic learning environments. Such web-sites re¯ect the dicult process of transition from traditional to future learning environments based on new educational paradigms. From the experiences in the T3 project, three main categories of functionalities seem to be critical for the design and development of telematic learning environments. A functionality is a facility oered in a web-site such as a library of relevant documents, software that may be run within the telematic learning environment, or forums where students can discuss and work together. A telematic learning environment may include a wide variety of functionalities and as technology progresses new ones will become regular facilities such as the use of streaming video and video-conferencing. Creating a telematic learning environment, however, should not be aimed at a multitude of functionalities per se. The number of functionalities should be carefully considered in relation to the objectives of the course and the subsequent learning activities of the students achieving the learning goals. The learning activities that students are engaged in throughout a course are at the core of every decision on which functionalities should be included in the learning environment. For example, if students are supposed to work collaboratively on a problem to be solved, a shared workspace should be included in the website. If they are supposed to learn how to ®nd relevant information, a well-designed resource centre including a search engine for ecient browsing, and a good frequently-asked questions ®le, should be considered as important functionalities of the website. So, when designing a telematic learning environment, the core question should be: What are the students supposed to do, in terms of learning activities, and as a consequence, which functionalities are the most appropriate for facilitating these learning activities?
In the model emerging in the T3 project the functionalities of telematic learning environments can be classi®ed into three main categories. They relate to: 1. information such as documents and other materials including images and sound; 2. interactivity de®ned as human±machine interaction; and 3. communication taking place among learners and teachers, peers and others (Fig. 1).
Information Information may be provided in the form of written materials or any other form such as pictures and sound that can be read in full hyperlinked text, viewed or listened, and that may be downloaded by the learner. Examples of this category of functionalities are the telematic library, including video-clips, the resources centre, the frequently-asked question ®le, and all other sections in the learning environment where students can ®nd information on and about the course. Providing information seem to be the easiest part of the job in creating a telematic learning environment. However, there are three issues that complicate this easy task. Firstly, as van de Kamp et al. [3] found, students do not always appreciate abundantly designed information functionalities. They calculate their time carefully and prefer to do their exams within the prescribed
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
33
Fig. 1. A model for telematic learning environments.
time limit. Huge information opportunities distract them from achieving this goal, rather than helping them to learn. Secondly, many written documents are presented in a hyperlinked format. However, hyperlinked documents do not guarantee higher quality. The conceptual structure of the content should be the most important criteria for hyperlinking texts. This conceptual structure is at the basis of any course; it is built by the subject expert who is answering the question on what the content of the course should be. As formerly written documents such as readers, are often used in telematic learning environments, hyperlinking makes re-editing of existing materials compulsory. Thirdly, although it might be obvious, the information provided should always be relevant regarding the objectives of the course. As adding information on the web is easy, particularly where it concerns references and links to other web-sites, it is also easily overlooked that a restriction of information helps students better than the other way around. And ®nally, it should be realised that learning is enhanced when students take an active role. Reading is a learning activity which has a low rating on the list of learning eects. Exercises and discussion have a higher rating, so how to plan for more action of students? Interactivity It is thought that interactivity, the second category of functionalities in the model, contributes to a more active role of the students. Interactivity is de®ned as the interaction between man and machine, it relates to pushing buttons and getting reactions from the system. In fact, the use of hyperlinks is an example of interactivity. Although creating hyperlinks in documents seems easy to do, it demands careful analysis of the conceptual structure of the content of the document. Another example of an interactive functionality is educational software that can be run on-line, for example, technology students can work on-line using LOGO courseware or any other software package, and do experiments in an on-line LEGO/LOGO laboratory [4]. Through real time video images the student receives feedback on his/her input. A third example of interactivity are forms to ®ll in such as questionnaires and formative self-tests, providing results or feedback immediately after completion, for example students can ®ll in a questionnaire on environmental issues presented in the form of pictures (http://www.ex.ac.uk/telematics/JISC/ envques1.htm) and after completing the questionnaire ask for the results. Usually, a testing centre within a web-site comprises such formative tests and questionnaires. Interactivity as such is not a new phenomenon in telematic learning environments. Courseware has often been designed interactively. Using courseware in on-line learning environments, however, raises the complicating question on how human beings learn. A common assumption in the development of courseware has been that people learn in, not one or another,
34
W. Veen et al.
but a linear way, going through the content from A through B to C. However, scholars such as Van Geert [5] stresses the non-linear character of cognitive processes of learning. Learning processes are enhanced by the calibration or ®ne tuning of i.c. courseware to the cognitive system of the learner. Thus, when using courseware in on-line learning environments the core question here should be: ``how can we best ®ne tune to the speci®c needs and knowledge of learners knowing that learning is not a linear process?'' Communication Communication, the third category of functionalities of telematic learning environments, is de®ned as interaction between individuals such as students, teachers and other experts involved in on-line learning. Examples of communication functionalities are forums, shared workspaces, virtual workshops and chat facilities. In addition, software that can be shared also provides opportunities to communicate. For example, physics students may use a whiteboard for designing a device for measuring waves. Each student can work on the design and forward his work (including the whiteboard) to a database where others can pick it up and continue the work (SENS project: http://fysmp.fys.ruu.nl/college). An example of a virtual workshop as a strong communication tool will be described in detail later. Van Geert's [5] referring to Vygotsky's ``zone of proximal development'', says that learners learn better if they communicate with others having ``similar cognitive systems''. For example, a student in secondary education might better understand his peer than his teacher as the former is closer to his way of reasoning and thinking. As a consequence of this idea, telematic learning environments should provide opportunities for dialogues with peers. Good opportunities to communicate raises the chance of ®nding somebody who ®ts your cognitive system. From a constructivist point of view interpersonal communication also contributes to learning [6]. Through communication with peer students and teachers, individuals construct meaningful knowledge. Discussions, questioning each other and working together on learning tasks, help students to transform information into knowledge. The latter being related to a complicated network of insights and experiences of an individual's mind. Communication also relates to the social process which is essential for any learning environment. In traditional learning environments interpersonal communication can be organized extremely easy, teachers and students being in the same place. In telematic learning environments communication is still limited by technology, e-mail and today's video conferencing being poor substitutes for on-site presence. This makes that the greatest strength of telematic learning environments, being accessible for anyone at any time and place, is at the same time its weakness. Especially in the case where communication has hardly been considered in the design of the learning environment, learning through the web is reduced to an electronic release of paper-based distance learning, without taking advantage of the challenging opportunities telematic learning environments have on oer. One of these being the creation of an on-line community including persons who are at the distance. Communication can be organised in many dierent ways, but careful consideration is needed on who is going to be involved. Key questions here are: Who is going to communicate with whom? When will this communication take place, and at what frequency? How can this communication be organized? What is the role of the teacher and which tasks should he perform? In traditional learning environments communication was highly teacher-centred. The teacher was the expert who communicated ``knowledge'' to his students. In many cases this communication took place between one teacher and many students at the same time. As this cannot be realised in telematic learning environments, teachers feel heavily overloaded when dealing with a multitude of messages from individual students [7]. Here, another new educational paradigm is to be adopted, putting the students at the core of communication. Peer learning has appeared to be highly eective [8]. Teachers are no longer the centre through which communication is channelled, students can learn together and help each other as well. The teacher instead of the knowledge provider becomes the educational consultant. This pedagogical strategy is well in line with the idea that students should take an active role. The communication focusing on collaboration or telematic group work has a great impact
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
35
on the design of the telematic learning environment. To enable students to work together on tasks and providing them the necessary communication facilities such as shared workspaces, leads to a design where the learning process is steered by various kinds of assignments, enhancing problem solving skills of the students. In summary The model presented is based on a pedagogy related to constructivism and the psychology of learning. It assumes that telematic learning environments should provide students with opportunities to take an active role in learning through collaborative work. In addition, this collaborative work should focus on the development of problem solving skills. Collaboration only can take place if good communication facilities are de®ned in telematic learning environments and subsequent learning activities planned. As communication in this model is so critical, the T3 partners are organizing collaborative learning activities through the web, thus experiencing themselves how telematic communication can contribute to their professional development. The instructional format developed is a virtual workshop which will be described below. The workshops are held twice a year and aim at a closer collaboration in the design and development of the on-line resources of the T3 project. The results of the workshop will contribute to the development of the pedagogy of telematic learning environments. THE VIRTUAL WORKSHOP
A 2 weeks virtual workshop for the T3 partners was held in November 1996. The aims of the virtual workshop were to discuss a model for the design of telematic learning environments, to conceptualize collaboratively the features of the T3 on-line materials, and to build an international team and foster professional development. The instructional format followed in the virtual workshop can shortly be characterized as follows: .A well-de®ned ``audience'' being the T3-team partners and associates. .A limited period of time with a ®xed starting date and end date. .A web site (URL http://www.ruu.nl/ivlos/t3/vwshop/index.htm) with frames including functionalities on information (time schedules, procedures, guiding tasks and conceptual background) and functionalities for communication (a web forum facility called PROTO, developed by the Finnish partner). .Additional communication channels were used such as an e-mail listserv, telephone and video conferencing. .Moderators stimulating discussion wrote interim reports presented in the website. Method A case study approach was adopted [9] to study the following question: ``What was the nature and content of the discourse during the workshop?'' Additional research questions focused on how the workshop contributed to the professional development of T3 partners, and to building an international team for collaborative work. Data sets Various data collection sets have been used. An analysis of the communication. This comprises frequency of the messages, structure of the discussion, induced private communication. The messages' contribution to the discussion was evaluated. Each message was reviewed in order to ®nd out whether the message aims at issuing a new discussion, or whether it catches up with a discussion already running by reacting to one or more messages previously sent by other participants. A categorization of the messages into content, technical, organizational and social messages. Though some of the aspects are mutually exclusive, messages can bear more then one of the characteristics in general.
36
W. Veen et al. Table 1. Participation and level of activity
Category of participants T-workpackage leaders (n = 8) Other T3 sta (n = 8) Visiting subscribers (n = 2)
Total number of messages by total number of individuals 49 15 4
Self-de®nition of activity level (modus) Active reader±active participant Neutral (neither passive nor active) Neutral±active reader
A structured questionnaire. Apart from questions on prerequisites such as language and technical issues the questionnaire included issues on expectations, evaluation of particular aspects of the workshop and suggestions for improvement. Questionnaires were returned by 20 participants (77%), excluding 29 interested visiting subscribers of the list. Results Participation and level of activity. Out of the 26 T3 members, 18 were actively involved in the discussion, sending at least one message to the e-mail list or to the PROTO forum. A total of 68 messages have been sent. Table 1 shows the level of activity of the active participants, as a function of the type of their aliation to the project. Work package leaders were clearly more active than other T3 sta. Table 1 also shows that the self-de®nition of the level of activity in the workshop as given in the questionnaire is roughly in agreement with the actual level of activity recorded. In addition, 16 of the 20 respondents indicated that they have read all messages. Time development and content of the messages Figure 2 shows the activity within each of the phases of the virtual workshop for the four categories of messages: content; technical; organizational; and social messages. The number of messages of the type ``organizational'' and ``technical'' steadily decreases as the workshop proceeds. The decrease of activity in the third and fourth phase as compared to phase one and two is in line with the self-report of the respondents in the questionnaire. The reported number of sending activity and discussing activity in the third and fourth phase of the workshop is found to be smaller than the activity in the previous two rounds. Figure 3 shows the time development in more detail. The workshop started with enthusiasm slowing down at the end of the ®rst computer conferencing session (day 3), taking a revival at the start of the second computer conferencing session in the ®rst week. The second week shows
Fig. 2. Number and content of the messages during the four computer conferencing sessions during the 2 weeks virtual workshop.
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
37
Fig. 3. Time development of the activity in more detail.
a very low participation ending up in a ®nal peak of messages concerning self-learning reports induced by a request of the project co-ordinator (day 11). Finally, the messages were analysed to ®nd out whether a message is a reaction to one or more messages previously sent, or whether it raises a new topic. In the ®rst session more ``new'' messages were sent than messages catching up a discussion already running, 29 and 17, respectively. During the second session the two kinds of messages are more or less equal represented. Next to this, four interim reports and one ®nal report were sent to the listserv and mirrored on the web site. Results from the questionnaire Expectations. Initially, a majority of the respondents (12) had positive expectations about the workshop. When asked whether the workshop did actually meet these expectations, a smaller proportion of respondents answered armatively. In the authors' view, this probably relates to the following problems. Problems. Participants reported various problems. Although language problems were expected to occur, only three respondents mentioned language problems. However, technical problems appeared to be critical. Twelve out of 20 respondents reported technical problems, in particular personal access to the web, and the use of the PROTO forum facility. Time problems came next to the technical issues. Respondents reported a lack of time. Firstly, respondents felt confronted with a large number of long messages, and secondly, participation in the workshop was not clearly planned in advance by the participants. Evaluation. Table 2 shows the ratings of the workshop by the respondents. Respondents appear to value the combined content-issues. This is particularly true for the interim reports. Organizational aspects are judged as moderately positive. The technical issue, however, receives Table 2. Evaluation of particular aspects of the virtual workshop Negative (%) Content Web-site Background information Guiding tasks Interim reports Organization Announcements Set-up Planning Time-schedule Duration Technical Combination PROTO±listserv
Neutral (%)
Positive (%)
16 11
26 30
58 59
6 2
29 21
65 77
24 21 26 15 24
35 29 35 44 41
41 50 39 41 35
58
24
18
38
W. Veen et al.
a negative evaluation. This is mainly due to the imperfect combination of the two discussion facilities: the web forum and the list. Ideas for improvement. Nearly all participants generated ideas for improvement. Suggestions for organizational improvements focussed on the need to agree in advance upon dates, schedules, content and technology used. For example, participants using old versions of browsers had not been able to see all the details of the website. As far as the content of the discussion is concerned, participants suggested to narrow the issues and topics to be discussed. Clear instructions on the role of the participants in the discussions were also mentioned. Technical issues were suggested such as restricting the communication through the forum facility on the web only, instead of using both an e-mail list and the forum. In addition, the PROTO forum had limited features for ordering messages as to subject, sender and time of sending. Finally, respondents suggested to have future workshops of only 1 week. They felt that 2 weeks was too demanding, and would prefer an ongoing discussion after the workshop with less intensity. Learning eects: content and team building. Half of the respondents stated that the virtual workshop did not contribute to their collaboration with other T3 partners. This is due to the limited time they spent on the virtual workshop, in particular. The other participants mentioned improvement in collaboration. For them, reading the comments of colleagues was a good opportunity to learn about and understand the ideas of the other partners. The workshop implied a ®rst opportunity to really work together. A participant stated: ``I think that anyone reading the messages has a much clearer idea now which members of our group are capable of forming strategies for the implementation of T3. This should be followed up''. The workshop also helped to ®nd partners with similar views. It is interesting to stress that the learning process of the participants has been stimulated most through reading each others' views. It might be concluded from this that discussion on each other's views has been rather restricted. The analysis of the messages con®rm this conclusion; most messages present views of participants rather than reactions on views. This leads to questions on the nature of asynchronous electronic communication. As asynchronous communication takes place in dierent places and at dierent times, this may have considerable eects the nature, interaction and the content of communication. As has already been stated, telematic learning environments may oer good opportunities for communication, but from practice it is learnt, that this communication is very dierent from synchronous communication and that participating in such communication or moderating it, probably demands speci®c skills. Conclusions and discussion Although it may be concluded that the T3 partners consider the virtual workshop as a powerful tool for collaboration within a European project, the learning process of the individual participants does not seem to have been considerably eected. The theoretical point of view has been that communication enhances the learning process. Strong communication facilities within the virtual workshop in order to enhance learning through discussing and deliberating relevant issues among the partners, have been provided. However, half of the participants have said that they have learned mainly from reading each others' views. Deliberations on each other's views has been poor and thus we may conclude that the asynchronous communication has led in particular to the presentation of individual thoughts rather than to the creation of collaborative chain of thoughts of the participants. It is this interactive process of acting and reacting on each others' thoughts and views, that according to the constructivist point of view, should contribute to the learning process of the individual. Of course, dierences between asynchronous communication at a distance and synchronous face-to-face communication are obvious and explain easily shortfalls of asynchronous communication. For example, non-verbal communication is absent in virtual workshops, and it is hard to ask clari®cations on messages. Instead participants interpret messages and the danger of misinterpretation is apparent. In addition, the communication within the T3 virtual workshop took place in a foreign language for most of the participants. Organizing virtual workshops should take these dierences into consideration and experiences to date show that supplementary measures has to be taken in order to reach the level of inter-
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
39
action where participants engage themselves in an interactive process that might come closer to a face-to-face communication. Measures, such as training participants to discuss on-line, involving participants in the preparation of the workshop, and include synchronous communication in addition to asynchronous communication, using videoconferencing or synchronous computer conferencing. These issues for enhancing the learning eects of future virtual workshop will be a challenge for all of the T3 partners, and will contribute to a better understanding of the pedagogy of tele-learning. REFERENCES 1. Davis, N. T3-project plan. See: URL http://www.ex.ac.uk/telematics/T3/about.htm. 2. Fullan, M. G., The New Meaning of Educational Change, Cassell Educational Limited, London, 1991. 3. van de Kamp, I. N., Collis, B. and Moonen, J., Het World Wide Web in het onderwijs: de meerwaarde voor studenten. [The World Wide Web in education: the surplus value for students]. In Proceedings of the 97 National Conference on Study Skills and Information Technology. [electronic version] Open University, Heerlen, 1997. 4. Ruotsalainen, M., JaÈrvinen, E., Kananoja, T., Pulkkinen, J. and Tervola, T., WWW Course of the Lego/Logo construction kit as a learning environment in technology education. In Proceedings of the CAL 97 Conference. [electronic version] University of Exeter, Exeter, 1997. 5. van Geert, P., Hobbels, wervels en rare sprongen. Een dynamische systeembenadering van ontwikkeling, Psychologie en maatschappij, 1994, 67, 97±110. 6. Fensham, P., Gunstone, R. and White, R., The Content of Science: a Constructivist Approach to its Teaching and Learning, Falmer Press, London, 1994. 7. Admiral, W. F., Lockhorst, D., Korthagen, F. A. J., Veen, W. and Wubbels, Th., Re¯ect Project: Report on the Utrecht University Case Study, Institute of Education, Utrecht University, Utrecht, 1996. 8. MNaught, C., The state of the art of learning through information and communication technologies with accent on the role of study skills. In Proceedings of the 97 National Conference on Study Skills and Information Technology. [electronic version] Open University, Heerlen, 1997. 9. Yin, R. K., Case Study Research: Design and methods. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA, 1989.
Computers Educ. Vol. 30, Nos 1/2, pp. 31±39, 1998 # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain S0360-1315(97)00076-6 0360-1315/98 $19.00 + 0.00
A VIRTUAL WORKSHOP AS A TOOL FOR COLLABORATION: TOWARDS A MODEL OF TELEMATIC LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS W. VEEN,* I. LAM and R. TACONIS Utrecht University, Ivlos, Institute of Education, P.O. Box 80127, 3508 Tc Utrecht, The Netherlands (Received 29 April 1997; accepted 1 October 1997) AbstractÐIn the T3 project (telematics for teacher training) seven European partners actively adopted the use of telematics in their teaching programmes. Partners collaborate through face-to-face meetings, videoconferencing and virtual workshops. Virtual workshops are web-based discussions using groupware facilities mainly focusing on the enhancement of future collaboration plans. This paper reports on the ®rst virtual workshop organized within a telematic learning environment which was created by the project evaluation team. The research focused on the learning eects of the virtual workshop. Although the workshop as a whole has been evaluated positively by the participants, the results also show that the virtual workshop did not contribute signi®cantly to their learning process. This leads to the conclusion that, in order to stimulate learning in virtual workshops, speci®c pedagogical actions must be taken. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
INTRODUCTION
The eective use of information and communication technology (ICT) for teaching and learning requires new instructional formats. The design and the development of telematic learning environments is a major issue in the T3 project (telematics for teacher training). In this EU funded project, partners from across Europe collaborate in de®ning and implementing various uses of ICT in teacher training. The T3 project is designed to encourage over 4000 teachers to adopt telecommunications and new technologies in schools and universities across the EU [1]. In this paper, the use of virtual workshops as a communication tool for collaborative work is reported. Virtual workshops are a critical dimension in telematic learning environments as they provide communication facilities for the learners. From a constructivist point of view, learning takes place through communication, and hence, virtual workshops should contribute to the learning process of the users. Within the T3 project a model is being developed of telematic learning environments, including communication as an essential part of such environments. This model emerges from experiences in the T3 project and seem to meet the needs of its partners. The experiences in the T3 project show that virtual workshops are a new phenomenon to many. Participants have learned that time for asynchronous virtual meetings should be planned in their diaries like face-to-face meetings. Participants have realised that a new mindset is needed which values both types of meetings equally. Until now results have been encouraging and the virtual workshop as an instructional format seems to ®t into teacher training curricula. Within the T3 project seven university teacher training institutes collaboratively developed online courses for a variety of subject matters (e.g. mathematics, languages, science, libraries, technology). The on-line materials can be used across the partner institutions enhancing the implementation of ICT into the teacher training curricula. The courses are evolving in telematic learning environments which oer new dimensions of learning and teaching in teacher education. The courses provide rich materials and opportunities to communicate and as a consequence stimulate the professional development of the T3 partner institutions. *Corresponding author. Tel. +31 30 2532342, Fax: +31 30 2534262. 31
32
W. Veen et al.
A model of telematic learning environments Telematic learning environments demand a thorough rethinking of the content and learning activities of the students and teachers involved. Traditional teaching and learning activities seem no longer to be appropriate as classroom teaching is excluded from the pedagogical repertoire. The teacher's role is changing from frontal teaching and monitoring students' setwork into an expert's role at a distance where students are supposed to be actively engaged in learning collaborating with peers and interacting with teachers [2]. These new students' roles often relate to new educational paradigms in which learning is considered to be an active and communicative process of the learner. In this respect constructivists stress that communication with others is one of the means to build up (``construct'') meaningful knowledge. As telematic learning environments have become apparent on the world wide web, however, it may be concluded that learning activities induced mainly refer to reading activities with many educational web-sites providing abundant educational materials that can be read or downloaded from the web. Digitalization of reading materials seems to be considered as the ultimate added value of telematic learning environments. Such web-sites re¯ect the dicult process of transition from traditional to future learning environments based on new educational paradigms. From the experiences in the T3 project, three main categories of functionalities seem to be critical for the design and development of telematic learning environments. A functionality is a facility oered in a web-site such as a library of relevant documents, software that may be run within the telematic learning environment, or forums where students can discuss and work together. A telematic learning environment may include a wide variety of functionalities and as technology progresses new ones will become regular facilities such as the use of streaming video and video-conferencing. Creating a telematic learning environment, however, should not be aimed at a multitude of functionalities per se. The number of functionalities should be carefully considered in relation to the objectives of the course and the subsequent learning activities of the students achieving the learning goals. The learning activities that students are engaged in throughout a course are at the core of every decision on which functionalities should be included in the learning environment. For example, if students are supposed to work collaboratively on a problem to be solved, a shared workspace should be included in the website. If they are supposed to learn how to ®nd relevant information, a well-designed resource centre including a search engine for ecient browsing, and a good frequently-asked questions ®le, should be considered as important functionalities of the website. So, when designing a telematic learning environment, the core question should be: What are the students supposed to do, in terms of learning activities, and as a consequence, which functionalities are the most appropriate for facilitating these learning activities?
In the model emerging in the T3 project the functionalities of telematic learning environments can be classi®ed into three main categories. They relate to: 1. information such as documents and other materials including images and sound; 2. interactivity de®ned as human±machine interaction; and 3. communication taking place among learners and teachers, peers and others (Fig. 1).
Information Information may be provided in the form of written materials or any other form such as pictures and sound that can be read in full hyperlinked text, viewed or listened, and that may be downloaded by the learner. Examples of this category of functionalities are the telematic library, including video-clips, the resources centre, the frequently-asked question ®le, and all other sections in the learning environment where students can ®nd information on and about the course. Providing information seem to be the easiest part of the job in creating a telematic learning environment. However, there are three issues that complicate this easy task. Firstly, as van de Kamp et al. [3] found, students do not always appreciate abundantly designed information functionalities. They calculate their time carefully and prefer to do their exams within the prescribed
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
33
Fig. 1. A model for telematic learning environments.
time limit. Huge information opportunities distract them from achieving this goal, rather than helping them to learn. Secondly, many written documents are presented in a hyperlinked format. However, hyperlinked documents do not guarantee higher quality. The conceptual structure of the content should be the most important criteria for hyperlinking texts. This conceptual structure is at the basis of any course; it is built by the subject expert who is answering the question on what the content of the course should be. As formerly written documents such as readers, are often used in telematic learning environments, hyperlinking makes re-editing of existing materials compulsory. Thirdly, although it might be obvious, the information provided should always be relevant regarding the objectives of the course. As adding information on the web is easy, particularly where it concerns references and links to other web-sites, it is also easily overlooked that a restriction of information helps students better than the other way around. And ®nally, it should be realised that learning is enhanced when students take an active role. Reading is a learning activity which has a low rating on the list of learning eects. Exercises and discussion have a higher rating, so how to plan for more action of students? Interactivity It is thought that interactivity, the second category of functionalities in the model, contributes to a more active role of the students. Interactivity is de®ned as the interaction between man and machine, it relates to pushing buttons and getting reactions from the system. In fact, the use of hyperlinks is an example of interactivity. Although creating hyperlinks in documents seems easy to do, it demands careful analysis of the conceptual structure of the content of the document. Another example of an interactive functionality is educational software that can be run on-line, for example, technology students can work on-line using LOGO courseware or any other software package, and do experiments in an on-line LEGO/LOGO laboratory [4]. Through real time video images the student receives feedback on his/her input. A third example of interactivity are forms to ®ll in such as questionnaires and formative self-tests, providing results or feedback immediately after completion, for example students can ®ll in a questionnaire on environmental issues presented in the form of pictures (http://www.ex.ac.uk/telematics/JISC/ envques1.htm) and after completing the questionnaire ask for the results. Usually, a testing centre within a web-site comprises such formative tests and questionnaires. Interactivity as such is not a new phenomenon in telematic learning environments. Courseware has often been designed interactively. Using courseware in on-line learning environments, however, raises the complicating question on how human beings learn. A common assumption in the development of courseware has been that people learn in, not one or another,
34
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but a linear way, going through the content from A through B to C. However, scholars such as Van Geert [5] stresses the non-linear character of cognitive processes of learning. Learning processes are enhanced by the calibration or ®ne tuning of i.c. courseware to the cognitive system of the learner. Thus, when using courseware in on-line learning environments the core question here should be: ``how can we best ®ne tune to the speci®c needs and knowledge of learners knowing that learning is not a linear process?'' Communication Communication, the third category of functionalities of telematic learning environments, is de®ned as interaction between individuals such as students, teachers and other experts involved in on-line learning. Examples of communication functionalities are forums, shared workspaces, virtual workshops and chat facilities. In addition, software that can be shared also provides opportunities to communicate. For example, physics students may use a whiteboard for designing a device for measuring waves. Each student can work on the design and forward his work (including the whiteboard) to a database where others can pick it up and continue the work (SENS project: http://fysmp.fys.ruu.nl/college). An example of a virtual workshop as a strong communication tool will be described in detail later. Van Geert's [5] referring to Vygotsky's ``zone of proximal development'', says that learners learn better if they communicate with others having ``similar cognitive systems''. For example, a student in secondary education might better understand his peer than his teacher as the former is closer to his way of reasoning and thinking. As a consequence of this idea, telematic learning environments should provide opportunities for dialogues with peers. Good opportunities to communicate raises the chance of ®nding somebody who ®ts your cognitive system. From a constructivist point of view interpersonal communication also contributes to learning [6]. Through communication with peer students and teachers, individuals construct meaningful knowledge. Discussions, questioning each other and working together on learning tasks, help students to transform information into knowledge. The latter being related to a complicated network of insights and experiences of an individual's mind. Communication also relates to the social process which is essential for any learning environment. In traditional learning environments interpersonal communication can be organized extremely easy, teachers and students being in the same place. In telematic learning environments communication is still limited by technology, e-mail and today's video conferencing being poor substitutes for on-site presence. This makes that the greatest strength of telematic learning environments, being accessible for anyone at any time and place, is at the same time its weakness. Especially in the case where communication has hardly been considered in the design of the learning environment, learning through the web is reduced to an electronic release of paper-based distance learning, without taking advantage of the challenging opportunities telematic learning environments have on oer. One of these being the creation of an on-line community including persons who are at the distance. Communication can be organised in many dierent ways, but careful consideration is needed on who is going to be involved. Key questions here are: Who is going to communicate with whom? When will this communication take place, and at what frequency? How can this communication be organized? What is the role of the teacher and which tasks should he perform? In traditional learning environments communication was highly teacher-centred. The teacher was the expert who communicated ``knowledge'' to his students. In many cases this communication took place between one teacher and many students at the same time. As this cannot be realised in telematic learning environments, teachers feel heavily overloaded when dealing with a multitude of messages from individual students [7]. Here, another new educational paradigm is to be adopted, putting the students at the core of communication. Peer learning has appeared to be highly eective [8]. Teachers are no longer the centre through which communication is channelled, students can learn together and help each other as well. The teacher instead of the knowledge provider becomes the educational consultant. This pedagogical strategy is well in line with the idea that students should take an active role. The communication focusing on collaboration or telematic group work has a great impact
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
35
on the design of the telematic learning environment. To enable students to work together on tasks and providing them the necessary communication facilities such as shared workspaces, leads to a design where the learning process is steered by various kinds of assignments, enhancing problem solving skills of the students. In summary The model presented is based on a pedagogy related to constructivism and the psychology of learning. It assumes that telematic learning environments should provide students with opportunities to take an active role in learning through collaborative work. In addition, this collaborative work should focus on the development of problem solving skills. Collaboration only can take place if good communication facilities are de®ned in telematic learning environments and subsequent learning activities planned. As communication in this model is so critical, the T3 partners are organizing collaborative learning activities through the web, thus experiencing themselves how telematic communication can contribute to their professional development. The instructional format developed is a virtual workshop which will be described below. The workshops are held twice a year and aim at a closer collaboration in the design and development of the on-line resources of the T3 project. The results of the workshop will contribute to the development of the pedagogy of telematic learning environments. THE VIRTUAL WORKSHOP
A 2 weeks virtual workshop for the T3 partners was held in November 1996. The aims of the virtual workshop were to discuss a model for the design of telematic learning environments, to conceptualize collaboratively the features of the T3 on-line materials, and to build an international team and foster professional development. The instructional format followed in the virtual workshop can shortly be characterized as follows: .A well-de®ned ``audience'' being the T3-team partners and associates. .A limited period of time with a ®xed starting date and end date. .A web site (URL http://www.ruu.nl/ivlos/t3/vwshop/index.htm) with frames including functionalities on information (time schedules, procedures, guiding tasks and conceptual background) and functionalities for communication (a web forum facility called PROTO, developed by the Finnish partner). .Additional communication channels were used such as an e-mail listserv, telephone and video conferencing. .Moderators stimulating discussion wrote interim reports presented in the website. Method A case study approach was adopted [9] to study the following question: ``What was the nature and content of the discourse during the workshop?'' Additional research questions focused on how the workshop contributed to the professional development of T3 partners, and to building an international team for collaborative work. Data sets Various data collection sets have been used. An analysis of the communication. This comprises frequency of the messages, structure of the discussion, induced private communication. The messages' contribution to the discussion was evaluated. Each message was reviewed in order to ®nd out whether the message aims at issuing a new discussion, or whether it catches up with a discussion already running by reacting to one or more messages previously sent by other participants. A categorization of the messages into content, technical, organizational and social messages. Though some of the aspects are mutually exclusive, messages can bear more then one of the characteristics in general.
36
W. Veen et al. Table 1. Participation and level of activity
Category of participants T-workpackage leaders (n = 8) Other T3 sta (n = 8) Visiting subscribers (n = 2)
Total number of messages by total number of individuals 49 15 4
Self-de®nition of activity level (modus) Active reader±active participant Neutral (neither passive nor active) Neutral±active reader
A structured questionnaire. Apart from questions on prerequisites such as language and technical issues the questionnaire included issues on expectations, evaluation of particular aspects of the workshop and suggestions for improvement. Questionnaires were returned by 20 participants (77%), excluding 29 interested visiting subscribers of the list. Results Participation and level of activity. Out of the 26 T3 members, 18 were actively involved in the discussion, sending at least one message to the e-mail list or to the PROTO forum. A total of 68 messages have been sent. Table 1 shows the level of activity of the active participants, as a function of the type of their aliation to the project. Work package leaders were clearly more active than other T3 sta. Table 1 also shows that the self-de®nition of the level of activity in the workshop as given in the questionnaire is roughly in agreement with the actual level of activity recorded. In addition, 16 of the 20 respondents indicated that they have read all messages. Time development and content of the messages Figure 2 shows the activity within each of the phases of the virtual workshop for the four categories of messages: content; technical; organizational; and social messages. The number of messages of the type ``organizational'' and ``technical'' steadily decreases as the workshop proceeds. The decrease of activity in the third and fourth phase as compared to phase one and two is in line with the self-report of the respondents in the questionnaire. The reported number of sending activity and discussing activity in the third and fourth phase of the workshop is found to be smaller than the activity in the previous two rounds. Figure 3 shows the time development in more detail. The workshop started with enthusiasm slowing down at the end of the ®rst computer conferencing session (day 3), taking a revival at the start of the second computer conferencing session in the ®rst week. The second week shows
Fig. 2. Number and content of the messages during the four computer conferencing sessions during the 2 weeks virtual workshop.
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
37
Fig. 3. Time development of the activity in more detail.
a very low participation ending up in a ®nal peak of messages concerning self-learning reports induced by a request of the project co-ordinator (day 11). Finally, the messages were analysed to ®nd out whether a message is a reaction to one or more messages previously sent, or whether it raises a new topic. In the ®rst session more ``new'' messages were sent than messages catching up a discussion already running, 29 and 17, respectively. During the second session the two kinds of messages are more or less equal represented. Next to this, four interim reports and one ®nal report were sent to the listserv and mirrored on the web site. Results from the questionnaire Expectations. Initially, a majority of the respondents (12) had positive expectations about the workshop. When asked whether the workshop did actually meet these expectations, a smaller proportion of respondents answered armatively. In the authors' view, this probably relates to the following problems. Problems. Participants reported various problems. Although language problems were expected to occur, only three respondents mentioned language problems. However, technical problems appeared to be critical. Twelve out of 20 respondents reported technical problems, in particular personal access to the web, and the use of the PROTO forum facility. Time problems came next to the technical issues. Respondents reported a lack of time. Firstly, respondents felt confronted with a large number of long messages, and secondly, participation in the workshop was not clearly planned in advance by the participants. Evaluation. Table 2 shows the ratings of the workshop by the respondents. Respondents appear to value the combined content-issues. This is particularly true for the interim reports. Organizational aspects are judged as moderately positive. The technical issue, however, receives Table 2. Evaluation of particular aspects of the virtual workshop Negative (%) Content Web-site Background information Guiding tasks Interim reports Organization Announcements Set-up Planning Time-schedule Duration Technical Combination PROTO±listserv
Neutral (%)
Positive (%)
16 11
26 30
58 59
6 2
29 21
65 77
24 21 26 15 24
35 29 35 44 41
41 50 39 41 35
58
24
18
38
W. Veen et al.
a negative evaluation. This is mainly due to the imperfect combination of the two discussion facilities: the web forum and the list. Ideas for improvement. Nearly all participants generated ideas for improvement. Suggestions for organizational improvements focussed on the need to agree in advance upon dates, schedules, content and technology used. For example, participants using old versions of browsers had not been able to see all the details of the website. As far as the content of the discussion is concerned, participants suggested to narrow the issues and topics to be discussed. Clear instructions on the role of the participants in the discussions were also mentioned. Technical issues were suggested such as restricting the communication through the forum facility on the web only, instead of using both an e-mail list and the forum. In addition, the PROTO forum had limited features for ordering messages as to subject, sender and time of sending. Finally, respondents suggested to have future workshops of only 1 week. They felt that 2 weeks was too demanding, and would prefer an ongoing discussion after the workshop with less intensity. Learning eects: content and team building. Half of the respondents stated that the virtual workshop did not contribute to their collaboration with other T3 partners. This is due to the limited time they spent on the virtual workshop, in particular. The other participants mentioned improvement in collaboration. For them, reading the comments of colleagues was a good opportunity to learn about and understand the ideas of the other partners. The workshop implied a ®rst opportunity to really work together. A participant stated: ``I think that anyone reading the messages has a much clearer idea now which members of our group are capable of forming strategies for the implementation of T3. This should be followed up''. The workshop also helped to ®nd partners with similar views. It is interesting to stress that the learning process of the participants has been stimulated most through reading each others' views. It might be concluded from this that discussion on each other's views has been rather restricted. The analysis of the messages con®rm this conclusion; most messages present views of participants rather than reactions on views. This leads to questions on the nature of asynchronous electronic communication. As asynchronous communication takes place in dierent places and at dierent times, this may have considerable eects the nature, interaction and the content of communication. As has already been stated, telematic learning environments may oer good opportunities for communication, but from practice it is learnt, that this communication is very dierent from synchronous communication and that participating in such communication or moderating it, probably demands speci®c skills. Conclusions and discussion Although it may be concluded that the T3 partners consider the virtual workshop as a powerful tool for collaboration within a European project, the learning process of the individual participants does not seem to have been considerably eected. The theoretical point of view has been that communication enhances the learning process. Strong communication facilities within the virtual workshop in order to enhance learning through discussing and deliberating relevant issues among the partners, have been provided. However, half of the participants have said that they have learned mainly from reading each others' views. Deliberations on each other's views has been poor and thus we may conclude that the asynchronous communication has led in particular to the presentation of individual thoughts rather than to the creation of collaborative chain of thoughts of the participants. It is this interactive process of acting and reacting on each others' thoughts and views, that according to the constructivist point of view, should contribute to the learning process of the individual. Of course, dierences between asynchronous communication at a distance and synchronous face-to-face communication are obvious and explain easily shortfalls of asynchronous communication. For example, non-verbal communication is absent in virtual workshops, and it is hard to ask clari®cations on messages. Instead participants interpret messages and the danger of misinterpretation is apparent. In addition, the communication within the T3 virtual workshop took place in a foreign language for most of the participants. Organizing virtual workshops should take these dierences into consideration and experiences to date show that supplementary measures has to be taken in order to reach the level of inter-
A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration
39
action where participants engage themselves in an interactive process that might come closer to a face-to-face communication. Measures, such as training participants to discuss on-line, involving participants in the preparation of the workshop, and include synchronous communication in addition to asynchronous communication, using videoconferencing or synchronous computer conferencing. These issues for enhancing the learning eects of future virtual workshop will be a challenge for all of the T3 partners, and will contribute to a better understanding of the pedagogy of tele-learning. REFERENCES 1. Davis, N. T3-project plan. See: URL http://www.ex.ac.uk/telematics/T3/about.htm. 2. Fullan, M. G., The New Meaning of Educational Change, Cassell Educational Limited, London, 1991. 3. van de Kamp, I. N., Collis, B. and Moonen, J., Het World Wide Web in het onderwijs: de meerwaarde voor studenten. [The World Wide Web in education: the surplus value for students]. In Proceedings of the 97 National Conference on Study Skills and Information Technology. [electronic version] Open University, Heerlen, 1997. 4. Ruotsalainen, M., JaÈrvinen, E., Kananoja, T., Pulkkinen, J. and Tervola, T., WWW Course of the Lego/Logo construction kit as a learning environment in technology education. In Proceedings of the CAL 97 Conference. [electronic version] University of Exeter, Exeter, 1997. 5. van Geert, P., Hobbels, wervels en rare sprongen. Een dynamische systeembenadering van ontwikkeling, Psychologie en maatschappij, 1994, 67, 97±110. 6. Fensham, P., Gunstone, R. and White, R., The Content of Science: a Constructivist Approach to its Teaching and Learning, Falmer Press, London, 1994. 7. Admiral, W. F., Lockhorst, D., Korthagen, F. A. J., Veen, W. and Wubbels, Th., Re¯ect Project: Report on the Utrecht University Case Study, Institute of Education, Utrecht University, Utrecht, 1996. 8. MNaught, C., The state of the art of learning through information and communication technologies with accent on the role of study skills. In Proceedings of the 97 National Conference on Study Skills and Information Technology. [electronic version] Open University, Heerlen, 1997. 9. Yin, R. K., Case Study Research: Design and methods. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA, 1989.