Imagens

30.Nov.2009 O Tigre

2010-10-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

2010-05-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

I was the author of proposal of the project, because I`m teacher in the Groupment of Schools and Kindergarten D. Lourenço Vicente, in Lourinhã, and the sexual education is a area that interesting me so much. I`m biology/geology teacher, and much times I was confrated with collegues wich are not anable with this theme. So teachers feel some constraints to address the sex education issue, mainly due to the mentality and cultural stances of the parents as well as from the students mainly due to the conservatism of the social environment. There are still many doubts, and the teachers face many problems with the planning and implementation of sex education contents in their classes. In the real context the choiced project it's very important to make the change of mentality of the teachers.
In the beginning I was the Pedagogical designer, but different tasks and a loss of member of the group allows to reorganize the roles and sometimes all of us do the same thing.
This discipline was completely different from the what I usually do or teach, but in my groupment, it was very important tasks, because we ussualy done contests international projects and we need to do the candidatura.
We provide support, research and analytical inputs in the several phases of this project, taking part in the common work process.
We mostly used the chat as an interactive tool such as all the mails we purchase.I think I participate in an active way like my colleges in the learning activities, with colaborative work.

organization group

2010-05-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

• When have joint meetings been organized? What are the minutes?

• In how far has the task scheduling been respected?
• Were the individual inputs relevant in content and quality, and produced in
time?

• Has team work been efficient?
• Which organizational problems did the team have to face and which solutions did it find to solve them?

Each member of the team should define individually the following:

• What has been my role(s) in the group?

• What are my inputs?

• What did I achieve?

• What have I learned from this project work?

2010-05-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

Uma vez que nós quatro já tínhamos trabalhado juntos, e partilhado tarefas comuns, uma das condições para o bom funcionamento do grupo foi a confiança mútua que existiu entre os seus membros, permitindo que os seus membros cumprissem todas as suas tarefas/reflexões, num processo de cooperação. O grupo funcionou de forma colaborativa, com um sentimento de reforço positivo pelo trabalho desenvolvido levando a uma maior facilidade em resolver os problemas que foram surgindo. No entanto, e uma vez que ficamos só 4, tornou-se difícil cumprir os prazos, incluindo as várias situações profissionais e pessoais, mas tentamos sempre fazer o nosso melhor. Todos estes factores levaram a uma coesão entre os membros do grupo.
As reuniões decorriam à noite ou ao fim de semana, promovendo a discussão saudável entre os vários membros de forma a encontrar o acordo mútuo entre as várias opiniões.
Utilizamos diversas ferramentas úteis, já referidas, mas a wiki, não se tornou num recurso útil, optando o grupo pela utilização do Google docs e o site criado.
A cada um dos membros foi atribuída uma determinada função, mas ao longo do trabalho, esses papéis foram-se “diluindo”, com a necessidade de partilhar as várias tarefas uma vez que o grupo estava reduzido em número.

Alternativa

2010-04-01T11:39:00.001-07:00

Dear All,
Following a question on the feasibility study assignment raised by Group4, I would like to specify the following:
The group should consider all aspects of the project's feasibility apart from the financial ones (these aspect will be dealt with in the next assignment to come).

The group should also leave the executive summary for the final report (because it should include the essentials of the financial feasibility as well).

About the alternative scenarios: this part should be discussed in your final report as well, once you have the key data about the financial feasibility. Considering one alternative scenario will be sufficient. It should answer the question: if the project's feasibility can not be guaranteed without limited risk or if any managerial reason would lead to the conclusion that it can not be worked out as it is currently designed, what alternative could be worked out? Or, what key hypothesis should be modified to improve its feasibility to a broader extend?

Thanks for your question.

Good work,
Jean-Dominique

Technical

2010-03-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

The technical issue: will the solution work efficiently?The technical feasibility study has to evaluate to what degree the proposed solutions will workas required and whether the right people and tools are available to implement the solution. It“refers to the analysis of possible technical problems in the different solutions and who isappropriate to solve”.This involves several questions such as:
 Does the technology needed for the system exist?
 Should the solution be a bespoke development or an off-the-shelf solution?
 How difficult will it be to build or to develop the new solution?
 How much do we need to outsource? How much do we need to insource?
 Does the organization (school, faculty, firm, etc.) have enough experience and/orneeded skills using that technology (computers, software, networks, etc.)?

Economic

The economic issue: will the new system cost more than the expected benefits?The economic feasibility covers the assessment of costs and benefits of different solutions inorder to select that who gives the best value. In other words the economic assessment has toanswer the question: “will the project (solution) be viable?“…you must have a basic idea about how much time and money it is going to take to put theconcept into a usable program. Doing neat blue-screen video1 effects like the folks atCognitive Arts is very slick and engaging, but that can get very expensive very quickly.Programming simulations is not an easy task either. Of course, the easy and cheap thing to dois dump lots of texts to the computer, and throw in multi-choice questions at the end. That hasto be one of the most unimaginative and most un-engaging type of learning experiences that alearner could encounter, never mind not having an instructional design behind it. As notedexpert in the field of educational technology, David Merrill emphasizes, "Information is notinstruction."7(Curtis L. Broderick, 2001).Said in maybe more concrete terms, the economic feasibility is the analysis of the differentcosts and benefits of implementing a new system. It should also assess the relative importanceof the new system in the comparison with other proposed solutions. Will the new system costmore than the expected benefits?Tangible and intangible costs and benefitsIn carrying out a cost-benefit analysis, both tangible and intangible costs and benefitsidentified and have to be taken into account.What differentiate tangible from intangible costs or benefits is whether or not it is possible toset a definite numeric value against an item. When, for instance, the item is the cost ofinstallation, it is possible to set such a numeric value, and the cost can be identified astangible.

Tangible costs are a measure of costs that can be calculated for each item of expenditure on ane-Learning system. For example, the purchase price of a router needed to install an internetnetwork, or the recruitment of tutors, are tangible costs.On the contrary, it is not possible to place a numeric value on intangible costs and benefits.For example, the user resistance that will occur due to the implementation of a new system orthe disruption of the network will have an effect on the overall organization performance butthey are difficult to measure.A definite measure of improvement can be calculated for each tangible benefit. For instance, areduction in costs of travels thanks to the e-Learning system is a tangible benefit. Theregistration, a subscription or the tuition fee is typically a tangible ‘benefit’. However, thebenefit of using computer animations instead of fixed images in a learning process is difficultto calculate. It has to be considered as a qualitative advantage, or intangible benefit.Accessing a broader range of contents through the Internet is also difficult to quantify, and isalso an intangible benefit.Assessing the costsA range of costs must be taken into account in the feasibility study. They include, amongothers: Technical costso Hardware, software and network equipment purchase costs;o Telecommunication costs;o LMS application;o Internet subscription;o Systems development staff costs if a bespoke or tailored solution isimplemented;o Installation costs including cabling, physically moving equipment and bringingin new furniture to house the computers;o Migration costs, such as transferring data from an existing system to the newsystem;o Operating costs: maintenance costs of hardware such as replacing parts orupgrading to new versions software; staff costs in maintaining the hardwareand the software and troubleshooting ; amount of energy and consumable used; Multimedia costs: audio and video production and editing; Human resource costs, especially when there is a need to hire new personnel or toinvolve free-lancers experts:o Instructional designero Teaching staffo e-Tutors,o Administrative staffo Content designers,o Experts and consultants,o Graphic designers,o Web designers,o Analysts and programmers,o Web master, etc

 Training costs; Other costs.It is important to notice that the technical costs not only include the initial cost of purchase butalso the ongoing maintenance costs. These can be considerable and often exceed the costs ofpurchase. As stated by Bocij et al., p.358, (2006), “the cost of ownership of a software or ahardware product is potentially much higher than the purchase costs. This is mainly due to thecost of troubleshooting software bugs and hardware faults, phone support, installing upgrades,and paying for support and/or upgrades from vendors”. As a consequence, the cost ofownership of the selected equipment should also be factored into the cost-benefit analysis.Human resources are also an important cost factor in e-Learning instructional systems, notonly during the design and development phases but also during the implementation phase.Implementing an e-Learning solution for distance learning requires traditional teaching staffresources but also additional tutoring. The latter tends however to be neglected andunderestimated in the costs estimates.The cost of training and education and documentation of teaching staff should also beincluded with standard development costs of paying analyst and programmers.The various costs should be estimated after determining the requirements and scope of theproject and on the basis of the tasks defined in a work breakdown structure.Assessing the benefitsWhile the costs are relatively easy to identify, the benefits are harder to quantify and this fortwo key reasons:
 They often are intangible;
 They will occur in the future which means that they are dependent from a factor ofuncertainty.Benefits from the e-Learning system can be considered in terms of improvement in thelearning process and the quality of learning contents used to support these processes.Tangible benefits of e-Learning could be, for instance, the following:
 Higher revenues due to higher number of beneficiaries (learners)
 Reduction of renting classrooms;A way to identify tangible benefits of e-Learning could be based on considering the costs ofperforming a teaching process before introduction of e-Learning and comparing this to thecost after e-Learning implementation.Intangible benefits can include the following: Broader geographical dissemination of e-Learning;
 Easier group work o a remote basis;
 Easier access to learning content;
Intangible benefits will also include improvements to the quality of learning content in someof the following ways:
 Improved usability (easier to understand and then act on information);
 Improved utilization;
 Improved availability and timeliness;
 Improved accuracy;
 Improved security of information;CommentsThe cost-benefit analysis has to occur at the very start of a project to implement a new e-Learning instructional system. Although all feasibility assessments for e-Learninginstructional systems should include a cost-benefit analysis, it might happen that someorganizations want to bypass this stage, because other factors are driving the change such asthe need to respond to the learner (or market) demand, or to counter a competitor threat.Implementing an e-Learning instructional system can be seen also as a strategic initiative togain experience aimed at ensuring success in the future when this form of learning becomesmore widely used, or to gain what is called in the business area “first-mover” advantage.It has to be noticed that assessing the costs and benefits of an e-Learning instructional systemis not an exact science. It is not easy to measure each benefit and cost accurately. And evenwhere the benefits and costs are quantifiable, the figures used are only based on an estimatepredicting several years into the future.

Claroline

2010-03-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

Marcel LEBRUN22describes the model as follows:”…this figure may act as a check-list in order to properly design or evaluate a largevariety of “devices” devoted to learning promotion :
 textbooks (the nature, the structure, the attributes and the lay-out of theinformation),
 pedagogical software (the context of the proposed activities or the directives tobe followed),
 Educational Web sites (the activities proposed to the students or the place ofthe web site in the pedagogical scenario),
 pedagogical plans (carefully considered individual and collaborative activities),students’ output …
This model may finally be used, to boost, design and evaluate innovation inside aninstitution” (Lebrun, 2002; Lebrun, 2005).“In the centre, the three rectangles are inspired by the constructivist approach: briefly,information is transformed into knowledge by the student activities and this newknowledge feeds the following process (systemic loop). This process is enabled bymotivational factors and sustained by interaction (from the environment - functionalinteraction) or from other students and from teachers (relational interaction)).”“Our model is in good agreement with the M. D. Merrill “first principles of instruction(Merrill, 2000).
Describing these principles is a good opportunity to illustrate again theopenness and wideness of our model:
1. Learning is facilitated when students are engaged in the solving of realproblems (information and motivation);
2. Learning is facilitated when prior knowledge is activated and questioned withnew contexts (information and motivation);
3. Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is explained, demonstrated andjustified (information, activities);
4. Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is applied by the learners(activities, productions);
5. Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is integrated into the learner'sworld (productions and motivation).”“Despite the fact that Merrill’s principles cover rather well our Learning components,mention should be made for the lack of the “interaction” part which makes usbelonging to socio-constructivism. In all cases, Merrill uses this model as a guidelinefor the development of pertinent pedagogical setup (5 star instructional design rating)… it’s also the way we intend to use our own model.The main components of our model are also coherent with expectations of variousactors for the competences needed in the society (information gathering, autonomy,communication, abilities for team work …) and may be undertaken with the toolsdeveloped on Claroline. (Evers et al., 1998, Knight & Yorke, 2004).”This model is learner-centered and focused on learning rather than on informationtechnology although the latter is enabling and favoring the whole learning process. Itis of course LMS platform independent. It can be put into practice using Claroline butalso with the use of any other LMS platform such as Moodle, Anaxagora, Blackboard,etc.

point

2010-03-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

1.1 Specifications that the e-Learning solution shall refer

Today “e-“learning” becomes one of the most up-to-date expressions. That is why it becomes very important to be aware of some didactical and technological aspects during the development process of any e-learning course. The strong expectations that high level technological tools will increase the quality of any e-learning course often follow to an underestimation of the educational objectives being set. The crucial dilemma is not about what technological tools are to be used during the development process of e-learning courses but how to design and plan an e-learning course that ensures the achievement of the educational objectives. All the e-learning related technologies advance very rapidly while the methodology on how to apply them drops behind. The didactical issues of e-learning can be split in two main directions: One considering the development of e-learning environments while the other attends to the development of learning content and implementation of e-learning courses. Nevertheless the European Committee underlines the necessity of pedagogically develop sound and practically useful standards and specifications. A modern e-learning environment not only has to offer the most recent technologies but it has to possess high level of usability also. In the didactical structure of more e-learning courses the educational objectives are described, but usually they are only described without a feed back with learning content and measurement of level of achievement of the set learning objectives. Technologies for education existed before the current ones. Most of the research on technology for education agrees on such findings as that the real potential of education cannot be found through a technological approach alone; the computer per se superimposed on traditional forms of teaching cannot improve the quality or productivity of teaching. The didactic advantages of the substrate offered by the media in contributing to and injecting enthusiasm into information, the simulation of micro-worlds, the transparency of the classroom walls allowing students to access information in any domain underline however, the lacunae in describing the pedagogic context in which the tools are to be used. The benefits for the use of technology should not be expected only inside the reduced cognitive sphere of knowledge. Despite the desired convergence between objectives, methods fostering learning and added-value use of ICT tools, one important element brought to light is the time and effort these in-depth reforms require. Experience shows that these changes from a traditional pedagogical mode to a new one, supported or not by technological tools, go through different phases: a phase of “assimilation” in which the new tools are used and a phase of “accommodation” in which the new tools find its particular domain. This movement between assimilation and accommodation demands time, effort, and a driving force. The availability of the tools and favourable circumstances such as the ones we have described here will not automatically lead to the reforms we have described. E-learning continues to grow at a tremendous and companies are springing up everywhere. The field is growing at an amazing rate and its standards have yet to be developed or even agreed upon. Training professionals who want to be seen as providing value to an organization must create programs that are tied to business problems and opportunities, and these links must be understood and supported by management. It is essential to link e-learning goals to business goals to ensure the ultimate success of the entire e-learning program. Without support from top management, an e-learning program will probably not survive. E-learning programs require significant resources for development and support and the cooperation of several departments within the organization. If the support from top management isn’t there, it needs to be developed. It is critical to include the IT department early in the development of an e-learning strategy. Often IT is not included until the actual implementation and this can lead to the failure of the e-learning program. The implementation of an e-learning program will require collaboration between the training department and the IT department. This collaboration will most likely be new to both departments, hence the need for establishing standards for working together considering that the standards should be established jointly, with both departments agreeing to expectations and roles. The courses to convert from traditional delivery methods to online delivery should be carefully chosen. The first courses must be successful to not endanger the entire program objectives and its further development and to achieve this one of the most important things is getting learners accustomed to technology if they are not already technically adept. One must start with a mall number of courses and create a plan for integrating e-learning into current training programs. The marketing on the other hand should include an introduction to the e-learning program, promoting it, and maintaining and increasing usage over time. Some ways to accomplish the marketing of e-learning program include the integration of e-learning programs into new employee orientation programs. Incorporating e-learning programs into employee development plans and performance improvement initiatives. Educating managers and supervisors about the program and how they can incorporate it in employee development and performance improvement. Using e-mail to promote e-learning and its benefits by promoting specific courses and providing information about the benefits of e-learning programs. Providing for recognition of employees who take e-learning courses. Evaluating e-learning programs in order to improve the areas that are weak.

weaknesses and threats

2010-03-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Threats

Some teachers may not be sensible to the needs related with pedagogy of sex education, and feel they don’t need training.
Teachers (trainees) may not adhere to the online format and prefer presential courses.
Authenticity of practical skills development may be questioned.
E-learning has some disadvantages related with loneliness, motivation and time management issues, depending on the trainees’ characteristics.
Technology has an ever-changing dynamic nature and raising costs.
There may occur technical problems during the course.
Lack of time to attend the course by the trainees
Frequent Law changings adding new requirements to teacher activities.
Distance mode may get less preference than contact mode.Need of getting programmes accredited.

Weaknesses

No adaptation of the course contents to the online format, all contents have to be developed.
Trainers may not have enough expertise to adapt the contents, there might be a need to search for help related to the content design.
No institutional teachers assessment plan except the general teachers evaluation law, no references about teachers performance on sex education classes.
Teachers different ICT skills.
Due to work teachers (trainees), may have problems following the course, as a result they may use a lighter approach to self-study.
Computers available for the teachers but they may feel some difficulties to access the course outside school, depending on their home equipments.
School’s wireless network has frequent bandwidth overloads.
School may not have enough funds to support unexpected expenses.
School depends on the General Council for decision making, which might delay the promptness of the project.

2010-03-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

eLearning with Claroline
Marcel Lebrun
IPM/ UCL
lebrun@ipm.ucl.ac.be

Claroline is a free LMS, online learning management system developed in PHP/MySQL, which is an Internet based database programming language. Originally developped in the IPM, Institut de Pédagogie universitaire et des multimedias of the UCL, Université Catholique de Louvain, it results now from a collaboration between the former and the ECAM, Institut Supérieur Industriel, both from Belgium.

A platform from teacher for teacher

The teacher training philosophy of IPM is to develop the teacher autonomy concerning pedagogy and, furthermore the good use of technical tools in pedagogy. This main objective was expected to be met by allowing teachers to make experimentations, to discover the need for a sound pedagogy and so to foster pedagogy in university teaching. IPM intended, 5 years ago, to use WebCT but the autonomy requirement failed behind the difficulties to develop courses with this platform. In a team meeting, we develop the idea that a large percentage of the teachers needs may be fulfilled with approximately five or six functionalities like : publishing documents and announcements, giving students tools to develop activities and to demonstrate their competences, allowing interactions between students and with teachers.
Simplicity of use and independence concerning pedagogical setup were the leitmotivs of the development and accompaniment teams. Yet, in our traditional university, the platform would allow traditional “lectures”, autonomous learning, blended learning or real distance learning. As far pedagogy is concerned, the possibilities will range from documents delivering to problem and project based learning with a special attention paid to collaborative eLearning. Also, this platform which supports evolution in the teachers uses may act as a catalyst for pedagogical innovation and faculty development.

A pedagogical model for eLearning

A wide variety of models concerning eLearning developments (or instructional design) exist but these are often scarce about pedagogical fundament. The purpose is not to constrain pedagogical considerations in one definitive model but to discern some pillars on which to build effective pedagogical setup.
The purpose of these educational tools is to promote learning but how to do that without a small knowledge about the nature and the conditions of learning ?
In searching for a dynamic model for learning, we have investigated many authors (Combs, 1976; Saljo, 1979; Biggs & Telfer, 1987; Savoie & Hughes, 1994) who attempt to describe this process. We have also tried to federate a lot of “learner-centered” factors derived from the American Psychological Association (APA, 1997). In addition, learning factors that are particularly well boosted by ICT and derived from educational technology research are embedded in this model (Means & Olson, 1994; Dijkstra et al., 2001). The figure below shows the results presented as a dynamic adaption of our five poles model (Lebrun, 1999) somehow provocating because oversimplified.

Figure 1. Dynamic representation of our learning model

As we will see, this figure may act as a check-list in order to properly design or evaluate a large variety of “devices” devoted to learning promotion : textbooks (the nature, the structure, the attributes and the lay-out of the information), pedagogical software (the context of the proposed activities or the directives to be followed), educational web sites (the activities proposed to the students or the place of the web site in the pedagogical scenario), pedagogical plans (carefully considered individual and collaborative activities), students’ output … This model may finally be used, to boost, design and evaluate innovation inside an institution (Lebrun, 2002; Lebrun, 2005).

In the centre, the three rectangles are inspired by the constructivist approach: briefly, information is transformed into knowledge by the student activities and this new knowledge feeds the following process (systemic loop). This process is enabled by motivational factors and sustained by interaction (from the environment - functional interaction) or from other students and from teachers (relational interaction)).

Our model is in good concordance with the M. D. Merrill “first principles of instruction (Merrill, 2000). Describing these principles is a good opportunity to illustrate again the openness and wideness of our model :

Learning is facilitated when students are engaged in the solving of real problems (informations and motivation)
Learning is facilitated when prior knowledge is activated and questioned with new contexts (informations and motivation)
Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is explicated, demonstrated and justified (informations, activities)
Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is applied by the learners (activities, productions)
Learning is facilitated new knowledge is integrated into the learner's world (productions).

Despite the fact that Merrill’s principles cover rather well our Learning components, mention should be made for the lack of the “interaction” part which makes us belonging to socio-constructivism. In all cases, Merrill uses this model as a guideline for the development of pertinent pedagogical setup (5 star instructional design rating) … it’s also the way we intend to use our own model.

The main components of our model are also coherent with expectations of various actors for the competences needed in the society (information gathering, autonomy, communication, abilities for team work …) and may be undertaken by the tools developed on Claroline. (Evers et al., 1998, Knight & Yorke, 2004).
Lets see how.

Tools to promote learning

In eLearning, the most important factor is not the “e” which comes from eLectricity or eLectronics as you like. In eLearning, the main point, for us, stays Learning and so we intend to go deeply in these learning enhancing factors .
The learning factors embedded in Claroline need to be enlightened in order to be useful for teachers. We will try to discern some considerations useful when one develop a pedagogical setup “around” Claroline.

What’s about information given as a starting point for learning ?

What will be the context (content source and setup) which will give the way knowledge is used, the objectives of the learning process, the competences to be acquired ?

What are the tools (analysis grid, experimental protocol, evaluation sheet …) given to the students in order they will be able to construct active new knowledge and useful new competences ?

Are the different work stages well balanced between collaborative work, individual appropriation and synthesis by teachers ?

Are the sudents aware about the objectives, the products, the conditions of learning … the signs of completed learning ?

Using the five poles or pillars of our mode, we will now give some very concrete advices deduced from our model :

Information
The different forms around « knowing » (knowing, knowing how to do, knowing how to be) are often reduced to knowledge and knowledge seems to be often confused with information. The information society is quickly (too quickly) become learning society. For a lot of teachers attracted by eLearning, the most important operation is still to provide information : publishing his PowerPoint seems to be the most common use of the « eLectricity learning ». But, we have seen that this use of the publication feature is somehow only one step in the discovery of the platform by the teacher. After some times and good training conditions, he will go deeper in innovation by using other available tools.
Montaigne, some centuries ago, said that « the student is not only one vase to be filled. It is a fire to be lit ».
What can be done ?

To transmit contents (only a first step)
To inform about the scenario, the pedagogical setup
To give learning objectives and evaluation criteria
To illustrate the context
To show the way from prior knowledge and competences to new ones
To give tools in order to assess new knowledge (grid, evaluation sheet …)
To provide resources with small granularities
To provide well chosen web links

Claroline tools like documents and links, announcements, agenda, home page of the course … are tools suitable for these purposes.

Motivation
There is a lot of motivation theories. These generally postulate the importance of contextual factors enabling the representation a student may have about the future situation and the work he has to perform in order to acquire new knowledges and competences.
Following Viau’s theory (Viau, 1994), important factors are : understanding of future competences to be acquired, interest and value of the task, feeling about the control over the tasks to be done … All these feelings originate in the scenario and the context of the activities. Learning effective activities are grounded in everyday and professional realities. The knowledge about the activities is important to develop a “security” feeling about the learning task.
What can be done ?

Underline prior knowledge and “already there” competences
Clarify objectives
Illustrate and underline the importance of new knowledge and competences
Enlighten the context of use of knowledge
State precisely instructions and agendas
Comment over the interest and the value of the task
What are the degrees of freedom and the controllable part of the activities ?
What are the elements of interaction, feedback ?

Claroline tools like course description, Documents and links, announcements, agenda, learning path, home page of the course … are tools suitable for these purposes.

Activities
Quality learning don’t arise only from transmissive methods (transferring contents from books to students head). Not even from collaborative or interpersonal work ! It needs a personal “internal” work to assimilate new knowledge into earlier cognitive structure. Humans don’t learn online, they learn “per se”. So a most important part of learning is not embedded in the technological tool, nor only in the pedagogical setup. It’s necessary to give students tools in order to facilitate this intrapersonal work, to figure out the achieved task and the work still to be done, to assess the efficacy of the acquired knowledge.
What can be done ?

Give a time scenario showing the different steps
Propose tools in order to work through informations (analysis grid, exercise, …)
Consider also activities out of the platform (library and Internet exist also outside the platform)
Be progressive, diversified and coherent over the different activities
Give tools (exercises mainly) in order to assess new knowledge
Alternate readings, exercises, problems, applications, cases
Give activities with the objective to produce or demonstrate something
Alternate individual (convergent) and collaborative (divergent) work

Claroline tools like course description, exercises, learning path, assignments, forums … are tools suitable for these purposes.

Interaction
For Cohen, quoted by Bourgeois and Nizet (1997), a collaborative task is defined as a set of activities divided in different operations or steps and aiming at the realisation of a goal. It should be complex (not easily achievable by one person) and open (different operations or steps are possible) and should request real exchanges between the participants. students’ learning. Furthermore, this influence seems to work rather at the affective level than at the “productive” one. The students need to be supported and to know that someone pays attention to their urges and expectations all the way through the project.
Generally speaking, there is collaboration when a “positive interdependence of goals” is achieved (one will reach his or her goal if everybody succeeds). Competition, in this way, is a “negative interdependence of goals”
What can be done ?

Choose appropriate tasks (needing really team work)
Produce group instructions and shape activities in order to promote interdependence
Acknowledge for multiple points of view
Give opportunity to exert critical thinking
Send feedbacks to students
Give time for personal appropriation
Find a good “middle point” between flexibility and constraints, between divergent thinking and synthesis
Take advantage of the use of writing (in forums)
Use properly advantages of synchronous and asynchronous tools

Claroline tools like users, forums, groups, chat, wiki but also agenda, announcements … are tools suitable for these purposes

Productions
Above all, learning is a process but products may not be discarded as important signs of achieved learning. Computers are tools, production tools. This means that a lot of productions may be developed outside the platform by using usual office tools. An important motivation tool is also to develop something of his or her own, to do his work in an open space.
What can be done ?

Produce and recognize new knowledge
Give the opportunity to build an object, a writing, a sign … a new knowledge
Provide time for publication, communication, sharing of findings
Design activities to evaluate objects with criteria
Design activities to elucidate acquired and missing knowledge and competences
Highlight new questions, new challenges
Make students curious and aware foe a new learning process

Claroline tools like assignments, exercises, forums but also documents, learning path … are tools suitable for these purposes

A synthetic model for eLearning with Claroline

As a check-list for pedagogical set-up development or evaluation, we propose the next picture with our learning model surrounded (and somehow activated) by the Claroline tools.

Designing for active learning: A conversation

2010-03-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

Abstract

There is much written on the benefits of applying reflective processes to unit developments for online learning and teaching. However, there is little information on how this can be done practically. This article presents a collaborative unit development between lecturer and educational designer, driven by a reflective action framework to provide a systematic process for designing an online Masters unit in the Faculty of Education. The framework, based on Kemmis and McTaggart’s action research spiral (1988), helped to strengthen the collaboration by promoting the need for a shared understanding of the development undertaken. Use of student feedback from previous years and principles of effective teaching were paramount in deciding upon the way the unit should be re-designed. This process was recorded in a working document and exchanged over a four month period, bringing together key elements, our ‘thematic concerns’, such as promoting student centredness, advocating reflective practice and designing for active learning. Development is still to be completed and the redeveloped unit will be delivered in first semester of 2005.

Background perspectives

Nowadays a team of professionals supports lecturers in the online learning and teaching context, one such role being that of the educational designer. Torrisi-Steele and Davis (2000) say that lecturers’ expectations and experiences of online materials development is critical in planning and structuring support to address their needs. Interactions with educational designers can culminate in positive changes to teaching practice.

The lecturer, Umesh, works in the Faculty of Education and has a background in inclusive and special education. He has delivered his units online for the past two years. He is computer literate and uses web page design programs and online learning management systems, with a small amount of support. Most of his students are working teachers in primary and secondary education, who have returned to study to enhance their understanding of and gain qualifications in special education and inclusion. Students are obliged to participate online and are most likely to be studying off-campus.

The educational designer, Margaret, works at the University’s Centre for Learning and Teaching Support, and has experience in developing online learning environments and supporting staff development activities in online learning and teaching. Umesh and Margaret share an interest in reflective teaching practice. It is this shared interest that sparked the emerging conversation captured in this article over a four month period and has informed the development of the online unit discussed.

Methodology

This paper highlights the more intangible elements of the collaborative relationship experienced between lecturer (Umesh) and educational designer (Margaret), by applying a reflective action framework to the unit development. The literature has emphasised the need for wider, more discerning application of learning and teaching practices that are underpinned by a shared understanding of sound pedagogical theory; for example, the use of reflective practices (McArdle & Coutts 2003, Boud & Walker 1998, Hardy & Benson 2002) and action research (Kemmis & McTaggart 1988, George 2002).

imagem

We employed Kemmis and McTaggart’s model of action research for reflective practice to develop a reflective action framework, a conversational framework that has provided us with a systematic approach to the unit development. Kemmis & McTaggart see reflection as analysing, synthesising, interpreting, explaining and drawing conclusions, based on a ‘thematic concern’ (1998:86). We were eager to capture our discussions as a way to highlight our thematic concerns, which were, designing for active learning and enhancing reflective practice in students as well as in our own professional development. Our points for discussion could be described as a series of ‘action steps’ as Kemmis and McTaggart (1988:86) affirm, to begin thinking about the implications for progressive action over time and deciding what to do next.

The key elements we discussed include active learning, the value of reflective practice as good teaching practice and promoting student centredness in online learning. Student centredness was informed by student feedback from the past two years in which the unit has been offered. The lecturer has encouraged students to provide him feedback in order to make improvements to the unit according to their needs, experiences and insights. Student feedback is a powerful catalyst in bringing about effective change in a unit, especially in online learning environments (Mason & Weller 2000, Torrisi-Steele & Davis 2000, Brown & Thompson 1997, Lefoe, et al. 2002, Bishop, 2002). One major concern students had was that the unit was not structured for active and meaningful interaction between students. Lack of peer interaction is a major concern for learners who participate in online learning environments (Fisher, et al. 2000, Mason & Weller, 2000). In order to address this and other concerns, a Unit Innovation Grant application was submitted to the faculty and subsequently approved.

The development is still to be completed and the redeveloped unit will be delivered in first semester of 2005. Figure 2 outlines our reflective action framework, highlighting the key elements that moved our discussions, and subsequent development decisions, forward.

imagem

Our conversation began with a discussion on active learning and reflective practice, informed by a number of readings, from which sprang our initial motivations to enhance good teaching practice. This intersected with our ongoing discussions on student centredness, informed by student feedback, placing value on the student voice throughout the unit development. Our methodology emerged from this, echoing Kemmis and McTaggart’s action research spiral, indicative of moments, or ‘action steps’, taken during the development process.

How can I make learning more active for students?

Umesh: The first question I asked Margaret was; how can I make learning more active for my students? Students had indicated to me that although they enjoyed the unit generally, they found the online environment boring and they didn’t engage with the material or each other for that matter.

Margaret: I was keen to find out more about the student cohort and to understand the background of the unit more generally, to begin development. I could see that Umesh had a clear idea of what he wanted to achieve in redeveloping his unit and he seemed very focused on making students’ learning more active.

Umesh: I wanted to ensure that students’ concerns were addressed when redesigning the unit, and to actively engage students in a motivating online environment. I have always provided activities, but didn’t feel that students were really committed to carrying out these activities.

Margaret: I shared Umesh’s concerns after I conducted a short review of the unit, seeing the need to move beyond the ‘read then do’ approach. From his initial unit structure, I could see that the activities mainly required students to read an article then post their thoughts to the online discussion forum. This usually occurred on a weekly basis.

We wanted to focus the unit development primarily on engaging students actively online. Active learning encourages students to act on information: putting ideas into written form; drawing ideas together and analysing them; interacting with others to further develop ideas. (Brown & Thompson 1997, online). We began our conversation by discussing the nature of the student group and the anecdotal feedback Umesh had collected from previous years. Students not satisfied with the unit in the past, cited the following reasons for their dissatisfaction:

no or limited knowledge of computers
boring environment- online learning is nothing more than a textbook online
limited interaction with students
hesitation to interact with other students
limited opportunity to meet with the lecturer
overwhelming number of online messages to respond to and
too many online readings.

However, there were some aspects of the unit that students thought were very good. We were careful not to lose these aspects already developed in the unit, as students stated that they were more able to:

examine their current teaching practice
be more reflective
consider the needs of students with disabilities
explore and critique a range of strategies to develop inclusive teaching practice
heighten their awareness of the implications for students with disabilities of any nature
undertake more active, critical questioning
see how the readings and assignments strengthened the case for inclusive teaching practice
develop their confidence to promote inclusion to others and
develop cooperative relationships with teachers and students in their work settings.

Students generally commented that overall, the unit was relevant, challenging and hard work. In an effort to develop the unit structure to enhance active learning, we are convinced that the design of online learning materials revolves around the student. A student centred approach encourages students to interact with the content (and with one another) in the learning environment, as opposed to more ‘traditional’ approaches where the transmission of content is more the focus (Torrisi-Steele & Davis 2000:285).

We considered Lefoe, Gunn and Hedberg’s (2002) eight recommendations for teaching in a distributed learning environment, as identified from the students’ point of view, to reconstruct the unit activities to engage students in more meaningful learning.

Set me clear role expectations
Talk to me
Provide opportunity to work and talk with other students
Choose the best medium for the task at hand
Teach me to use the technology
Provide resources I can use
Let me know what support is available and
Guide me through the administrative nightmare. (2002: paras. 25-37)

Umesh: Originally, I had set up weekly discussion topics to which students must post a response within that week. This meant little time for socialising elements, so students naturally felt a stranger to others in the unit.

Margaret: I believe socialisation is important to engage students who have not met face to face, yet are asked to interact with one another online. I was keen to re-design activities to include social elements and build a learning space for ongoing discussion between students.

Umesh: I could see, after working with Margaret, that the emphasis was on the task, with little context in which students could generate meaningful discussion with others, especially in the short time given to complete activities. These activities were also dislocated and didn’t connect together to form an overall learning experience.

Margaret: I often like to include some structured orientation to the online environment, providing students with help tutorials, tip sheets, audio help and links to student support services. This is important to help students feel more at ease with the technology, so it becomes less of a chore and they can focus on the essence of the learning instead.

Activity and active learning is often most effective when designed with moments and spaces for reflection and review. Sufficient time for thinking, as well as for reading, responding, reciprocating and formulating further responses, should be provided in structuring online activities. This promotes deeper levels of understanding; engaging in more abstract thinking, rather than superficial, didactic expressions, which usually results in a regurgitation of facts and figures or decontextualised quotations.

There seems to be a preconceived notion that communications within a formal educational setting should be devoid of social elements. Thankfully, this is far from the truth! Without developing elements of familiarity and trust amongst students, processes such as group work and group discussions, including online discussion forums, cannot become meaningful. We are inherently social beings and should not dismiss these elements as trivial, but essential to establishing meaningful environments for learning. By engaging students socially we encourage them to do so in their own teaching sites. In the unit development, we sought to have Umesh model what he hoped to see in his students. Modelling ‘good’ teaching is the first step to engaging others in good teaching practice.

How can I encourage reflective practice in online learning?

Umesh: I felt it was important for us to build a shared understanding of the literature on active learning while collaborating on the unit development. I asked Margaret for any readings that demonstrated reflective practice in education and active learning, in our first development meeting.

Margaret: I presented Umesh with a reading by McArdle & Coutts (2003) and also referred him to the work on action research by Kemmis & McTaggart (1988) and Grundy (1995). In return, Umesh provided me with readings on inclusive education. Although I had a teacher education background, I had not touched on inclusion specifically.
Umesh: It has been great to have Margaret as a ‘sounding board’ for refining ideas for the unit development. This is also evident in the literature (Torrisi-Steele & Davis 2000, Hardy & Benson 2002).

Margaret: I could tell that Umesh was interested in his teaching and in seeing his students learn. He also showed a personal preference for reflective processes, which I immediately connected with and so I suggested we capitalise on this and have Umesh model this in his teaching.

We wanted to capture the development process in order to reflect on the ‘action steps’, or changes, as they occurred, rather than on a specific end product. We recorded these changes in a document, which grew into a weekly unit outline. This document has helped us both to monitor the process of development, insofar as it has provided a common or shared ground on which the development is based. Kemmis and McTaggart talk of the need to change the social relationships, discourses, practices and forms of organisation, in order to truly improve education. It is through these changes that we can sustain improvement and by our reflections, steer our next ‘action steps’ in a process of continuous change (1988:44).

As we found early on, a useful, structured framework, which accounts for time, resources and some background information, informs those areas needing development. McArdle and Coutts (2003) describe the ‘good’ teacher as displaying a set of core qualities, which provide a basis for reflective practice. These are confidence, ballast, value maturity, strength and balance. These, together with a strong core of sense making, shape and are shaped by (shared) experiences. It could be said that apart from the practical elements that help to shape a ‘good’ online unit, these qualities must also be considered so as to produce an atmosphere of collaboration within which good unit design can occur. Understanding, willingness, openness, and positive expectations are all evidenced in ‘good’ teaching practice.

Sense making combines processes of reflection and meaning making, while arriving at judgements arising from, and applied to, professional practice. The key to this processing is that it allows connections to be made between different experiences and different forms of experience (McArdle & Coutts 2003:230).

In our attempts to make more sense of the ideas we discussed for the unit development, we put ourselves in the students’ shoes; empathising with, and valuing, their position. We took turns in acting out the student role, in the form of a short scenario, where the ‘student’ would complete a learning activity or navigate a unit web page. We found this useful to not only reflect on the students’ position in the learning environment, but also to be open to accommodate any changes or adaptations that emerged from our reflections on the scenario. We were also conscious of the need for students to make sense and meaning of the learning activity. We also wanted to be sure that the student voice be heard throughout the development process.

We involved other staff in the later stages of the unit development, including a multimedia developer and faculty technical support staff, in response to the needs that had arisen in the development process. Hardy and Benson (2002) espouse that the reflective process occurring in development teams promotes healthy relationships in the team. It can also be seen as playing an essential role in design and development (2002:2). Torrisi-Steele & Davis concur that ‘…“it takes time to ‘re-jig’ thinking”’ and to reach a shared understanding between educational designer and lecturer (2000: para.52). This is a critical point in determining the outcomes of the collaboration.

The unit outline evolved over the four months with the addition of a unit multimedia matrix, shared between the lecturer, the educational designer and the multimedia developer, mapping out the interactive multimedia components to be designed. It was necessary to present a clear, meaningful picture of the multimedia needs to the multimedia developer. The matrix was only developed after about three months of meetings between the lecturer and the educational designer.

How can a lecturer and an educational designer work well together?

Margaret: I was curious to know Umesh’s opinion of working with an educational designer. I asked him what he thought an educational designer brought to a collaborative arrangement such as the one we had established.

Umesh: I saw an educational designer as a catalyst to change the way I looked at how technology can be used to make online learning more active for students. This collaboration differed say to the collaboration I might have with my faculty colleagues, as educational designers focus more on the learning and teaching process than the unit content. Margaret showed she understood the theoretical underpinnings of learning and teaching theory and I hoped we could build this into the unit development.

Margaret: I thought it was useful that we set up regular meeting times, starting once a week and extending to once a fortnight, as our discussions progressed and the unit took shape. It meant we were able to commit to and prepare for upcoming meetings, based on previous discussions, thus maintaining connectivity between the ideas we discussed.

The opportunity to meet on a regular basis was a key ingredient in the collaboration, as we both understood the need to make a commitment to set aside time and space to generate meaningful discussion. Lecturers often have other commitments that impede their time to meet with educational designers on a regular basis.

In managing our time for development, we were also mindful of the time students need, not only to undertake learning activities, but to be able to develop deeper understanding of theoretical concepts covered in the unit. We attempted to create structured activities that engaged students’ interests, encouraged their participation and linked them with other students to flesh out these activities based on their teaching experiences. Therefore, we endeavoured to link social, interactive elements with the need to cover the unit objectives.

The unit, in its pre-developed form, is currently offered online through the university’s web based portal, an information and communication system developed to integrate the resources and services provided by the university for its staff and student community. Figure 3 shows the unit homepage, as seen by students when they first log in to the portal. Figure 4 shows an example of a weekly web page, which outlines the work students must cover in that week. Contrast this with the more structured weekly page, resulting from our unit development, shown in Figure 5. This layout evolved from the discussions on setting out the tasks students should cover in the week, coupled with learning objectives and often including graphical or multimedia elements.

imagem

Conclusion

Finally, the unit development has been a great learning experience for us both. The outcome of the collaboration is, hopefully, a much improved unit. However, unless students feel the same way, and the unit can positively change students’ attitudes towards inclusive education, the ultimate objective of redesigning the unit will remain unachieved. The use of the reflective action framework presented in the methodology was very helpful for us in developing the unit. A willingness to accommodate each other’s ideas and adapt our approach as needed, were two key elements we thought paramount to the overall development process. Some other strategies that helped us included:

a) exchanging a working document to discuss and progress ideas for the unit development (including weekly tasks and use of multimedia)
b) regular meetings (weekly or fortnightly) with a strong commitment to spending time on developing ideas
c) constant use of valuable student feedback (both positive and negative)
d) empathising with students by acting out the student role and reflecting on the outcomes of the scenario and
e) exchanging readings on effective design for online learning (by the educational designer) and inclusive education (by the lecturer), to reach a shared understanding that helped to take the unit development forward.

Other points lecturers might generally consider when approaching a unit development include:

a very good understanding of your learners and their learning settings
a commitment to take time to develop elements to their full potential
an expectation that you will most likely work with others, such as educational designers, in developing your unit and
a willingness to try out ideas, without constraints, or fear of repercussion from faculty or students!

How we frame unit developments can mean the difference between acquiring skills and changing the culture of learning and teaching. As George (2002) states, it is important to underpin staff and learning and teaching development with sound pedagogical models from the outset, rather than retro-fitting in hindsight.

This article captures the reflections and deliberations of two educational practitioners over a four month period. The unit development discussed here continues. It is hoped that this article brings to the surface some of the intangible elements required for successful and meaningful unit developments, with collaborative arrangements paramount in supporting such elements. The educational designer seeks to support lecturers to deliver units online or in a blended mode to students, with empathy for both student and lecturer. The students ultimately determine the success of a unit development, their learning experience and how they see their learning being encouraged and supported.

Assignment 3

2010-03-19T11:12:00.001-07:00

Needs to meet
(refer to the
needs analysis)
Specifications to
satisfy
Contextual
Constraints
Description of the e-Learning system proposal
Risk definition
Didactic solution
Technological
solution
Organizational
solution

Assignment03 - Instructions

2010-03-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

Instructional design for ‘e-Learning’: design of the e-Learning solution foryour project work.
a) Start from the group joint proposal;
b) Read the documents published in Topic 5: ‘Introduction toInstructional Design for e-Learning’;
c) Read the documents published in Topic 5: “A dynamic e-Learningmodel” by Marcel LEBRUN;
d) Access and browse the referred web sites in Topic5 (Claroline,Idaho State University);
e) Focus your work on the local context of the teaching/learningenvironment;
f) Write a paper of about 5 pages maximum, handling the followingissues:
a. Problem definition in terms of learning and teaching;
b. Refer to the outcomes of the needs analysis carried out inAssignment02: ‘Which are the needs?’
c. Specifications for the e-Learning solution: whichspecifications should the solution satisfy? Express thosespecifications in:
1) Didactical terms,
2) Technological terms
3) Organizational terms.
d. Constraints specification (e.g.: time scale, human resources,infrastructure, etc.);
e. Design of the e-Learning solution referring to:
1) the “Constructive Alignment” model (objectives,methods, tools, context)
2) and to the “Dynamic e-Learning system” model(Information, motivation, activities, interaction,production), (cfr. The Marcel Lebrun model);
f. Specify the added value of e-Learning solution;
g. Identify the risks related to the proposed solution;
h. Fill out the table below in order to summarize your work andadd it to your assignment paper; this table should help you toshow:
1) if the designed e-Learning solution is consistent withthe users’ needs and the expressed specifications;
2) and if the contextual constraints have been taken intoaccount;
3) if the risks related to the proposed solution have beenidentified;
i. Add any relevant document in appendices to yourassignment paper;
g) Publish the paper of your group in MS-Word format on the Moodlecourse web site in the “Assignment03 – Instructional Design for e-Learning” folder;
h) Assessment - grades:a. Maximum grade: 20 pointsb. Group work portfolio: 50% of total grade.
i) Use the forum “Assignment03”, topic “Instructional Design”, forquestions and comments;
j) Deadline for submission: Wednesday 24 March 2010

2010-03-14T11:02:00.001-07:00

- Formação de agentes educativos (educadores, professores, profissionais de saúde, psicólogos escolares, auxiliares de acção educativa ...) para ser capaz de agir de forma adequada e consistente em resposta às preocupações e as expressões das crianças e jovens sobre sua sexualidade;
- Abordagem pedagógica de temas da sexualidade humana, feita em contextos curriculares e extracurriculares, numa lógica interdisciplinar, com ênfase no grupo do espaço e as diferentes necessidades das crianças e jovens;
- Apoio às famílias na educação sexual de crianças e jovens, nomeadamente através do seu envolvimento no processo de ensino e aprendizagem e / ou promoção de acções de formação específicas dirigidas aos pais ou impulso para eles;
- Estabelecer mecanismos de apoio individualizado e específico para crianças e jovens que dele necessitam, através da criação e manutenção de parcerias dentro das escolas e outros serviços comunitários, incluindo serviços de saúde - materializada, por exemplo, o bom funcionamento dos cuidados de Psicologia e Orientação nas escolas e o estabelecimento de formas de articulação e dinâmica desses centros com a sua saúde. (1)7B6B953A14% http://www.portaldasaude.pt/Portal/Templates/Generic.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID =-8D5C-4C14-9129-DD40481B3773% 7D & NRORIGINALURL =% 2Fportal% 2Fconteudos% 2Finformacoes%% 2Buteis 2Fsaude% 2Bescolar% 2Feducacaosexual. htm & NRCACHEHINT = Guest

"O Objectivo último da escola é uma construção de sujeitos livres e Responsáveis, e que a educação sexual e dos afectos é parte essencial do processo que Conduz ao reconhecimento do outro como sujeito de direitos." (2)
Educação Sexual em Meio Escolar - Linhas Orientadoras

- Conhecer os mecanismos da resposta sexual, da reprodução, da contracepção e da prática de sexo seguro.
- Actualizar os conhecimentos sobre educação sexual.
- Compreender os objectivos de uma educação para a sexualidade.
- Justificar os problemas de saúde - e as formas de prevenção - ligados à expressão da sexualidade, em particular as gravidezes não desejadas, as infecções de transmissão sexual, os abusos e a violência sexuais.
- Aplicar a legislação, os direitos, os apoios e recursos disponíveis na prevenção, acompanhamento e tratamento dos problemas relacionados com a educação sexual.
- Analisa dados relevantes na educação para a sexualidade (percentagem de jovens grávidas, de doenças sexualmente transmissíveis, de abortos,…)
- Formula um projecto de intervenção para uma turma ou para um ano de ensino, na área da educação para a sexualidade.

- Debater questões da sexualidade em diferentes contextos - disciplinar, social e cultural.
- Analisar diferentes perspectivas e modelos pedagógicos no âmbito da educação sexual.
- Analisar investigação educacional centrada nesta temática.
- Reflectir /Debater sobre as práticas educativas intencionais em educação sexual.
- Contribuir para a promoção de acções e iniciativas na Escola.

- Reflexão fundamentada sobre questões relacionadas com a educação sexual em contexto escolar.
- Concepção de estratégias de inovação curricular no âmbito da educação sexual.
- Capacidade de pesquisa, com especial incidência nos campos da sexualidade e educação sexual.
- Análise crítica de trabalhos de investigação centrados nas temáticas em estudo.
- Colaboração com recurso às Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação.

2010-03-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

c) What is the concrete learning or teaching problem to be addressed?a. What kind of problem? Access?b. What scope? Wide? Reduced?c. Which scale? Large? Small?d. A clear and precise description of the problem will ease the search ofan appropriate solution.

d) What are the stakes of the project?In faculty/school: improved learning processes; official recognition; etc.In company: better skilled work force, increased quality of the production,increased competitiveness, etc

2010-03-14T04:18:00.000-07:00

Profiling

Simple documentation templates can be created for recording and developing user needs statements from an interview or focus group. Questions and discussion might be used to gather information on the student group: – Students’ availability or preference of study environments – Student characteristics: entry qualifications, employment aspirations, language, disability, etc. – Current student problems or concerns – Refining an existing methods or provision – Establishing what students see as appropriate or helpful activities Recording such information systematically over time helps develop a culture of considering student needs and experiences as well as gauging successes of a new course or method.

Curriculum design
A needs analysis for a new method or course is likely to include a review of overall teaching strategies. E-learning facilitates a whole range of teaching and learning activities – see CAP e-guide ‘E-learning solutions for teaching and learning’. However, a learning activity does not take place in isolation to the teaching and study environments, assessment tasks, tools used and so forth. It is therefore important to ensure that all components of the curriculum, including any uses of e-learning methods or materials, are properly integrated and the purpose of a particular component is then clear to the student.

Pedagogical models are useful for making explicit the intentions of the e-learning approach. The needs of the tutors and students will be different in each case.

Looking at needs across different types of development models, Robin Mason (1998) contends that:
“Current approaches to teaching and learning in higher education are dominated by the following: the importance of interactivity in the learning process, the changing role of the teacher from sage to guide, the need for knowledge management skills and for team working abilities, and the move towards resource-based rather than packaged learning.”

She suggests three development models:
1. CONTENT SUPPORT MODEL
Course content and tutorial support are dealt with separately, particularly used where content does not change significantly or where courses are tutored by external staff. Collaborative activity (peer commenting, online assessment, computer conferencing) amongst students is rudimentary, in most cases less than 20% study time, and added onto the course as supplementary rather than core. With increasing use of the web for delivering content, there is more scope to extend the balance of content to collaborative activity.
2. WRAP-AROUND MODEL
The course content consists of tailor made materials (study guide, activities and discussion) wrapped around existing materials (textbooks, CD-ROM resources or tutorials) and representing around 50% study time. The remaining 50% is comprised of online interactions and discussions, including real time online events and screen sharing with increasing audio/video components. The tutor role is more extensive as less of the course is pre-determined and students take more responsibility for their learning.

3. INTEGRATED MODEL
The third model is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the first. The heart of the course involves collaborative activities, learning resources and joint assignments. These take place online through discussion, accessing and processing information and carrying out tasks. The course contents are fluid and dynamic as they are largely determined by the individual and group activity. In a sense, the integrated model dissolves the distinction between content and support, and is dependent on the creation of a learning community. Matching e-learning methods to needs “Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.” (Ehrmann, 1995)

The range of technologies that encourage active learning is staggering. Many fall into one of three categories: tools and resources for learning by doing, time-delayed exchange, and real-time conversation.
Building on existing course models, it can be useful to map tools and technologies onto learning activities and to consider how these enhance or enrich what you already do.
A simple list to use might look like this:
– Lecture presentation
– Knowledge dissemination
– Communication with and between students
– Assessment for feedback and monitoring
– Labs and tutorial activities
– Course management Pedagogically, you might consider what learning theories are being supported (see E-Guide Pedagogies for E-Learning).
For instance:
– Instructivist
– Constructivist
– Situated learning Or more specifically, for example:
– Knowledge of facts and figures
– Problem-based learning
– Work-based learning
– Practice-based learning
– Critical thinking skills
– Analytical skills
– Creativity The appropriateness of tools that are orientated towards content, communication or collaboration then (hopefully) starts to become more obvious.
Reviewing your course An initial course design review is likely to include the following questions:
1. What is the course or module? Identify/clarify the aims, objectives, format, student capabilities to be developed, core content etc.
2. What are the student group characteristics? Identify/clarify student numbers, backgrounds, special needs or languages, IT literacy, access to computer/network, UG/PG, level etc.
3. What is the development project intended to achieve? Identify/clarify the main aims and objectives for what you wish to develop, intended benefits and outcomes, sources of background literature.
4. What are the implications for the technologies and tools selected?
If possible, identify existing examples of use of the technologies you are proposing to integrate, particularly those available locally, such as application type, access/availability of licences, robustness, network requirements, usability issues, any costs of developing or extending software programs.
5. What skills do I need to develop to be an effective teacher using these tools and online environments?

2010-03-14T03:33:00.000-07:00

What is a needs analysis?

Needs analysis is an element of designing (or reviewing) a curriculum. Its purpose is to establish key learning outcomes and requirements in the design and delivery of a course or learning activity. The needs relate to the characteristics, concerns and potential constraints of the students (or any other relevant stakeholders). The analysis seeks to match possible or proposed techniques and materials to these needs and thus identify whether the design is appropriate to the intended goals. Good course design should separate ends from means. “We are constantly making the mistake of specifying the means of doing something rather than the results we want. This can only limit our ability to find better solutions to real problems.” (Gilb, 1988) In most cases, reviewing a course and responding to current need is perhaps something done intuitively and without formal procedures. However, there is increasing pressure to update curriculum purposes and methods in response to changing government requirements (such as accessibility, employability and information and IT skills agendas). Developing a new course or changing an existing teaching approach is likely to feel daunting, time-consuming and risky, especially when technology is involved. These risks and concerns are likely to be significantly diminished if a more explicit approach is taken to evaluating needs. There is certainly the usual need to justify limited time available and to be aware of likely technical requirements.

How it aids design and planning

A needs analysis is an effective means of identifying objectives and requirements for e-learning development. Understanding students’ needs (not to mention your own!) is crucial to the successful design or redesign of any course or learning activity. Needs analysis for learning is also one of the most difficult things to do well. The use of templates or models, as well as availability of training and support in e-learning, can reduce the risk and isolation of trying out new methods. If needs or requirements are unclear the ‘specification’ for what you are developing will be wrong. If the specification is wrong then the design will be wrong. If the design is wrong … the students will be dissatisfied or not achieve what you/the course intends. These four ‘real world’ scenarios have common features
– aside from ambiguity.
– The University is concerned about equal opportunities in the curriculum. The present induction course is out of date. As a result, a working group is established to ‘rejig’ the existing awareness programme for departments.
– At a departmental meeting, the Chair says: “We have all these new skills policies. We need to make sure all curricula are explicit about what employable skills are being developed by our students. We need all tutors to review their courses in terms of using e-learning to support skills development.
– A lecturer has just been given a set of multimedia web materials that support students’ in critically evaluating X (problem/issue/topic). S(he) is now tasked to ensure they know how to use it and what to do with it.
– A course team are keen to use e-learning to encourage collaborative learning. They are planning to use online discussion tools to support an existing course taught with face-to-face lectures and web resources. A needs analysis will assist in all of these scenarios in terms of identifying/clarifying staff or students needs and producing clear and measurable outcomes as indicators of success of the (e-learning) development. Further aims of a needs analysis are to support the selection of approaches that achieve one or more of the following: – are likely to save time or costs
– are valuable and viable
– are scalable and sustainable. It is fairly well accepted that e-learning developments that are valuable and sustainable in the longer term are those based on the use of small-scale, incremental, non-revolutionary technologies, i.e. mainstream worldware tools (Ehrmann, 2000).
These require far lower investment in terms of cost, maintenance, updating and skills. In today’s climate, the Web is the ultimate worldware tool; this includes web-based communication tools, but also analysis type applications, such as spreadsheets, maths tools, design software etc.). The challenge to the lecturer then is to package these basic tools in pedagogically viable ways. This is where needs analysis can assist in providing diagnostic evaluation
– that is, scoping out the objectives of what your development seeks to achieve against the requirements of the intended end-users.

What should be considered

A needs analysis is worth spending some time on so you go about things in a systematic manner. Evaluation should ideally be planned at the outset of any new development or modification. Your initial plan is likely to include aims, questions, tasks, stakeholders, timescales and instruments/methods. It should define “that which you are trying to investigate but also how you are going to go about it” (Crompton, 1997). Generally speaking, the areas to consider in embedding e-learning effectively into a course include issues around:
1. Learning- is the pedagogy appropriate?
2. Infrastructure – will the environment support my needs?
3. Technology – is the technology appropriate and can I/students use it? Identifying and analysing preconceptions and assumptions prior to use can ensure potential barriers to access or effectiveness are accounted for appropriately in development design and planning A preliminary review is likely to include: – Student and curriculum needs analysis tasks
– Constraints, resources and costs
– Identifying one’s own professional development needs
– Identifying evaluation criteria (indicators of success)
– Creating a statement of purpose (for the development project)

Addressing stakeholder needs

Needs analysis is closely linked with evaluation and dissemination. Firstly, it is the crucial ‘diagnostic’ part of an effective evaluation (see CAP e-learning guide “Evaluating e-learning developments”). The purpose of evaluation is to offer a means to investigate, provide evidence, learn, share and make judgements about what we do and how we do it. Secondly, there are inevitably links with feedback gathered from dissemination activities, as you may engage with stakeholders who can inform the choices you make in your development. A needs analysis is the starting point for defining the criteria against which judgements about success can be made. It will include a close scrutiny of the pedagogical rationale and outcomes of the curriculum and assessment design, which the planned e-learning (activity or environment) is intending to support or enhance. Some of the areas your needs analysis should address may be determined by your stakeholders (those who are influenced or benefited by the development). Primarily, this is most likely to be your students (whose learning you are aiming to enhance), it may be yourself in terms of developing your own skills. However, there may well be other, perhaps departmental, concerns or questions which you might choose to include for others treading a similar path.

Involving students

Involving students in the needs analysis process helps you to engage with them as the main beneficiaries (or sufferers!) of any new e-learning approaches you put in place. It can encourage more active participation in the development process. You might consider holding an initial focus group with students explaining your aims and the e-learning being developed and ask for their ideas and feedback as things progress. The students can also propose areas for investigation and can give feedback on the effectiveness of your evaluation questions. Many techniques are available for eliciting student (user) needs. One problem is that students often do not know or cannot articulate what they want in the course context For example, new students who have not studied a subject beforehand may not have the necessary language/terminology. They may lack the knowledge that comes from experience of using technology: selecting those that have experience of e-learning activities. Often students who volunteer for focus groups or interviews or return questionnaires are the technophiles, the technophobes not wishing to publicise their lack of skills. This can skew your analysis considerably. Selection of students to involve in a needs analysis therefore requires careful thought, to ensure you obtain responses that are reasonably representative of the whole student group. You may have to use elicitation techniques that build knowledge as well as keep a focus on the users own needs.

2010-03-07T07:29:00.000-08:00

b) For each of the three cases, assign a value on a scale going from 0 up to 20 toeach of the e-Learning profile components, as they are presented in the “e-Learning concept” syllabus;
c) Discuss the issue within your group;
d) For each assigned value, justify your choice;
e) To do this use the “Google Documents” server to create the table of values,save the file in the Excel format (<*.xls>;
f) Use the MS-Excel software to create for each case a radar type chart with theMS-Excel-Chart feature;
g) Submit the group work paper of 3 pages maximum with comments, charts,and conclusions in a MS-Word format.
h) Publish a copy of your group work on the ‘Moodle’ course Web site in thefolder named “Assignment01-Task2”.
i) Assessment - grades: 20 points; part of the group work portfolio (group workportfolio: 50% of total grade).
j) Use the forum “Assignment01”, topic “Task2”, for questions and comments;

2010-03-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

1. Iniciar

O finlandês da Universidade Virtual iniciativa foi delineada na estratégia nacional para a educação da sociedade da informação e pesquisa para os anos 2000-2004 adotada pelo Ministério da Educação e do governo finlandês. Com base na análise da situação mundial do finlandês HE, a visão de melhoria através HE indo virtual foi descrito eo plano de execução é lançada:

Até o ano de 2004, uma alta qualidade, ética e economicamente sustentável rede modelo baseado de organizar o ensino ea investigação terá sido consolidados.

Haverá criação de uma universidade virtual, até 2004, com base em um consórcio de várias universidades, empresas privadas e institutos de pesquisa. Ela vai produzir e oferecer internacionalmente competitivos, de alto padrão de serviços educacionais.

Os objectivos têm evoluído a partir dos documentos originais em ações e metas como
para ativar a rede de ensino, estudo e investigação
para desenvolver um novo modelo de rede, de base da cooperação universitária
diversificar os estudos universitários
desenvolver currículos universitários
para melhorar a qualidade do ensino e estudo no ensino superior
fazer uma melhor utilização das redes de TIC e
• Para melhorar a competitividade da academia finlandesa.

2. A implementação

A Universidade Virtual será estabelecida em etapas. Na fase inicial, a força-tarefa ministerial Universidade Virtual coordenou o projeto. No âmbito das negociações sobre os resultados-alvo entre o ministério e as universidades, na Primavera de 2000, as universidades empenhada em estabelecer o consórcio universidade virtual.

O Ministério da Educação escolheu, então, com base nos pedidos das universidades, cerca de vinte outros projectos específicos universitário a ser financiado até 2003. Estes projectos estão previstos para desempenhar um papel-chave na definição dos serviços da universidade virtual e um número considerável de líquido exemplar baseada cursos e programas de estudo.

A unidade de desenvolvimento foi criado em agosto de 2000 para coordenar a fase de arranque e serviços emergentes. O acordo de consórcio entre as universidades se inscreveram, o comitê gestor eleito eo plano de acção aprovado pelo consórcio no início de 2001.

A estratégia da universidade virtual foi exaustivamente debatido entre as universidades e foi adotado pelo consórcio no início de 2003.

Todos os estudantes (alunos de graduação, pós-graduados ou estudantes de universidade aberta) de qualquer membro da universidade serão elegíveis para os estudos na Universidade Virtual ou para ser mais preciso para os estudos em qualquer universidade membro do consórcio Universidade Virtual. Os alunos podem fazer cursos relacionados a seus programas de grau na Universidade Virtual, mas é a universidade de origem, que vai conceder o diploma.

O distintivo principal do FVU em comparação com outras iniciativas de universidade virtual é o seguinte:
• É uma iniciativa nacional que envolve todas as universidades do país;
• É definida no contexto de uma estratégia nacional da sociedade da informação para melhorar a qualidade de ensino e aprendizagem nas universidades e oferece aos alunos um maior acesso e flexibilidade através da integração de tecnologia.
»Não é exclusivamente orientadas para o desenvolvimento e / ou comercialização de cursos totalmente on-line para alunos fora das suas fronteiras ou para responder a uma ameaça de concorrência e
»Apesar de ainda não percebeu ou totalmente planejado, a FVU tem uma visão abrangente de incluindo o ensino, bem como pesquisa e serviços de apoio.

Um FVU eficaz foi projetado para oferecer as seguintes vantagens:
maior flexibilidade de tempo e lugar
programas flexíveis / cursos individuais e as possibilidades de estudos adicionais
intercâmbio internacional de material educativo
trabalho de cooperação e coordenação do desenvolvimento
poupança de espaço e instalações
Uso eficiente do tempo »

A FVU também foi visto como uma oportunidade para corrigir as deficiências de carácter mais geral no sistema de ensino superior da Finlândia, como a falta de uma tradição em colaboração entre universidades e uma lenta progressão de estudos para estudantes.

Devido aos grandes gastos necessários para desenvolver programas da universidade virtual, houve a necessidade de reunir recursos limitados para atingir economias de escala, conectando o trabalho entre as universidades finlandesas. Para além da obtenção de economias de escala, a FVU se destina a tratar de barreiras à aprendizagem on-line aplicações, incluindo aspectos técnicos, pedagógicos, sociais, administrativas e regulamentares. O pessoal envolvido com a FVU enfatizar que a iniciativa não exigir ou promover a virtualidade completo como o único modelo. A maioria das pessoas que conheceu durante o programa de visita foram muito resistentes à idéia de oferecer alternativas totalmente online.

3. Os Desafios

Aumentando a percentagem de alunos que freqüentam HE na Finlândia (como em todas as partes da Europa), aumentando o número de alunos em determinadas áreas populares, enquanto algumas áreas sofrem de escassez de alunos, exige novas soluções pedagógicas. Cada vez mais heterogêneo estudante procura grupos para melhor didática. Going virtual e satisfazer as necessidades mais complexas dos estudantes é uma forma de tentar resolver esses problemas.

HE instituições estão enfrentando sérios problemas de recursos. Todos esses desafios têm de ser cumpridos com orçamentos limitados. Dedicado financiamento adicional abrange apenas a fase de pilotagem.

Esses fatos colocam demandas totalmente novo no desenvolvimento de HE. Net educação baseada foi saudada por muitos como, se não uma panacéia para todos os problemas, mas para trazer alívio substancial ou, pelo menos, soluções alternativas para muitas doenças e os desafios do HE. Educação on-line, no entanto, não é de forma renderização soluções fáceis. Por outro lado, não há nenhuma maneira fácil de resolver os problemas pertinentes que está enfrentando, continuando a desenvolver campus educação baseada quer. Face a educação presencial não é nem barato, nem o custo-benefício. Assim educacional decisores políticos têm de vir a enfrentar os mesmos problemas fundamentais da educação se procurar soluções a partir da rede ou no interior do campus.

De acordo com o plano de acção principais questões que serão abordadas e esperemos que para ser transformado em fatores de sucesso serão as seguintes:
Apoio ao projeto colaborativo e entrega de rede baseado em cursos
Resolver as questões de DPI
Integração dos diferentes modos de instrução
Tutoria on-line
A mobilidade virtual de alunos
»Encontrar um modelo sustentável de operação.

Estas questões estão atualmente em trabalho ativo, por exemplo através de uma série de projectos inter-universitária. O objetivo desses projetos é não só para a concepção de cursos excelentes para ser executado na rede com êxito. Espera-se que eles servem também como exemplos de boas práticas para ser ampliados. Além disso, espera-se que eles vão lançar as sementes de um novo tipo de colaboração acadêmica entre os profissionais através de instituições, faculdades e paradigmas de investigação. A falta de apoio pedagógico e técnico adequado também apela para a partilha de recursos entre as instituições.

As questões de propriedade intelectual não pode ser resolvido adequadamente dentro de um projeto nacional, devido à sua natureza global. A Universidade Virtual acaba de publicar um conjunto de modelos contratuais aplicáveis. Neste esforço procurará FVU combinado com outras instituições educativas sob a tutela do Ministério da Educação, que previa a melhor assistência jurídica na elaboração de modelos de contratos e esperamos dar certo nível de consultoria on-line também.

FVU não é destinada a virtualidade plena na oferta de cursos. Consequentemente a atenção também será pago a melhoria do ensino em curso e estudar as práticas através de incorporação de elementos em linha em qualquer curso quando for o caso. Esperemos que dê origem a uma nova prática optimização da utilização e do mix de ensino e aprendizagem diferentes modalidades de uma forma flexível. Isto dá aos alunos a oportunidade de escolher entre vários métodos de entrega do curso e realização diferentes fases do processo de aprendizagem. Flexibilidade deverá ser estendido aos seus limites máximos para permitir a personalização e personalização dos ambientes de aprendizagem e modalidades de ensino.

Um certo nível de tutoria on-line já está disponível para abrir estudantes universitários. As soluções desenvolvidas há uma rica fonte de adopção e adaptação a prática para os estudantes grau de ensino. Acredita-se que os serviços de tutoria será amplamente distribuído e entre as universidades membros e os serviços centralizados fornecidos pelo portal nacional vai ser muito magro no começo. No longo prazo, quando as ofertas projeto do curso eo curso será fornecido em grande escala e quando os sistemas de informação e bases de dados será de pleno direito, não haverá possibilidades de prestação de serviços mais abrangente.

As universidades finlandesas são pequenas. Isto significa oportunidades limitadas para os estudantes no seu campus de origem. Independentemente das altas taxas de mobilidade dos estudantes, não há necessidade de expandir dramaticamente a mobilidade virtual dos estudantes. Estudantes Proporcionar oportunidades flexíveis para pegar os cursos de outras universidades sem a necessidade de envolver em um monte de tempo e dinheiro viajando de consumo, existe um enorme potencial para a prestação do serviço FVU. Uma força-tarefa foi recolhida para enfrentar os desafios administrativos da mobilidade virtual com as transferências a crédito, operações financeiras, estudante registrar etc

Mesmo que a iniciativa da universidade virtual está no foco da estratégia do finlandês da sociedade de informação do governo, não é executado de cima para baixo. Nem é executado de baixo para cima. É claramente rede baseada e gerida. Todas as universidades são as partes interessadas. As atividades e serviços são assim definidas, concebido e será executado por inovadores e entusiasmados redes acadêmicas assistida pelo Ministério da empresa estatal, a CSC, que é responsável pela rede da universidade finlandesa e computação científica. O atual modelo organizacional certamente vai precisar de muitas modificações para executar o serviço HE virtual com sucesso no futuro. Resta também a ser visto, assim como o consórcio vai conseguir atrair parceiros não-acadêmicos e alargar as suas actividades para além das fronteiras nacionais.

4. O finlandês Universidade Virtual Financiamento e Governação

O Ministério da Educação finlandês, comprometeu o financiamento aos FVU até o final de 2004. A FVU tem financiamento de cerca de 10 milhões de Euros para o primeiro ano de seu desenvolvimento. Cerca de metade do montante que foi atribuído a cada uma das universidades para o seu desenvolvimento ea outra metade para a inter-selecionados 20 projetos de rede da universidade. O financiamento adicional de 1 milhão de Euros foi levantado para o desenvolvimento do portal FVU. O Ministério da Educação finlandesa tenciona fazer a FVU um programa permanente e consolidar a prestação de serviços desenvolvidos por esta iniciativa e os projetos dentro do programa.

Todas as 21 universidades na Finlândia aderiram ao consórcio que está a desenvolver e gerir a FVU. Projetos, como a comunidade científica nacional Electronic Library FinELib e da universidade finlandesa aberto, Suvi, será estreitamente integrado na iniciativa nova e destina-se a colaboração com o Instituto Politécnico Virtual Initiative.

O consórcio é um importante mecanismo para discutir e propor soluções para problemas práticos, tais como direitos de propriedade intelectual, o apoio técnico necessário no trabalho de desenvolvimento, eo desenvolvimento de professores, conhecimentos e competências relativas à educação online.

Para realizar o desenvolvimento de práticas e trabalhos de construção, em 2000, a Universidade Virtual Unidade de Desenvolvimento foi criado como uma unidade de serviço comum para as universidades. As atribuições da Unidade de Desenvolvimento, que agora tem uma equipe de cerca de 10 profissionais, incluem:
• Fase de desenvolvimento das atividades e da estrutura administrativa do consórcio universidade virtual
Concepção da política »e planejamento estratégico para funções de FVU
Dar apoio »aos projetos iniciados por universidades e pelo consórcio
»Investigar e informar sobre as atividades do FVU, acompanhamento e avaliação desenvolvimentos relevantes em outros países e divulgar relatórios sobre as actividades da Universidade Virtual e manter contactos com os parceiros do projecto, a fim de desenvolver atividades conjuntas
»Assegurar o funcionamento eficiente dos serviços a nível prático
»Elaboração de modelos de acordos para os membros (por exemplo, os acordos para as redes de parceiros, direitos autorais e transações financeiras)

A Unidade de Desenvolvimento trabalha em estreita cooperação com o Ministério da força Virtual de Educação da Universidade de tarefas e com um comité de direcção de um subconjunto de representantes do consórcio. A Unidade de Desenvolvimento também cria e mantém contactos a nível internacional, recolha e divulgação de informações sobre as tendências globais, a fim de reagir rapidamente a mudanças no ambiente, reforçando a capacidade operacional da rede.

5. O status do projeto FVU

Paralelo ao trabalho da Unidade de Desenvolvimento FVU, projetos conjuntos entre universidades foram iniciadas e que irá produzir os cursos de primeira linha e forma a base para as atividades do FVU. Estes projectos incluem redes regionais 3, 5 projetos conjuntos visando a prestação de serviços ( "meta-projetos"), e 11 redes de disciplinas específicas, variando de assistência social (SOSNET) para um programa de treinamento de pós-graduação de faculdades de direito. Além disso, o financiamento concedido diretamente às universidades tem sido usado para contratar part-time ou full-time de pessoas de apoio para ajudar na formação e apoio de professores e funcionários que estão desenvolvendo materiais de aprendizagem online. Os primeiros programas iniciados durante o ano lectivo 2001-2002.

Um portal FVU é outro componente importante aqui. O portal destina-se como um portal funcional e adaptável à rede FVU serviços baseados com as funções e serviços necessários para o ensino ea aprendizagem, incluindo:
Seleção de cursos »
Informações sobre o curso », incluindo motor de busca
Ferramenta de registo »
Serviços de apoio »(estudante de orientação, consultoria e serviços de informação, gestão de carteira)
Canais de informação e de contacto »
• Para acessar os serviços nacionais de biblioteca eletrônica
»Fóruns de discussão e áreas de colaboração para os professores
»Serviços de apoio, incluindo ferramentas de avaliação versátil.

O portal será personalizado para os vários utilizadores. O portal também terá uma ferramenta para a definição de perfis de professores perícias que podem ser utilizados para a definição individual, de equipe e organização necessita de formação específica.

O grande desafio previsto na implementação do portal é o desenvolvimento e financiamento da camada de meados de funcionalidade, onde as responsabilidades das universidades e da unidade de desenvolvimento se cruzam.

O primeiro conjunto de funcionalidades do portal foi lançado no Outono de 2001, com funcionalidade adicional acrescentado no final de 2002. O portal como está actualmente previsto é estimado para ser totalmente funcional, no Outono de 2004.

Enquanto a FVU se destina a facilitar todas as atividades acadêmicas, incluindo a investigação, esses serviços ainda não foram elaborados.

6. Implementação Benefícios e Armadilhas

Embora apenas lançado oficialmente em janeiro de 2001, a FVU tem sido objecto de um processo de planejamento muito maior, que incluiu um plano de execução de tarefas força que estava pronto no final de 1999. A FVU já teve um grande impacto na Finlândia, nos seguintes aspectos:

Construção de conhecimento da utilização de redes de computadores para o ensino

É evidente que o anúncio da FVU e concessões de financiamento aumentaram a consciência e interesse entre os professores da universidade e do pessoal na prática e da investigação sobre o uso de redes de computadores para a aprendizagem. Existe alguma confusão sobre o significado dos termos "curso virtual" ou "universidade virtual" e uma crença geral de que um cara-a-face componente será sempre necessária. No entanto, a FVU já teve um impacto benéfico em destacar as oportunidades oferecidas pela aprendizagem on-line e incentivar a discussão eo debate.

Colocar o foco no ensino e aprendizagem

O objetivo principal do FVU é melhorar o ensino ea aprendizagem em universidades finlandesas. Através da discussão do uso da linha de ensino e aprendizagem de modelos, há evidências de maior enfoque no ensino e na aprendizagem.

Criação de redes de colaboração, mais rápida difusão das melhores práticas, ea aceleração da capacitação de pessoal

Cada um dos projetos FVU que foi financiado ligou professores e funcionários através de um número de universidades finlandês. Por exemplo, um projeto chamado Kasvi links das oito faculdades de ensino na Finlândia. Vários projectos têm organizado oficinas e algumas das oficinas atraíram várias centenas de participantes.

Alguns dos meta-projectos, em particular poderia ter um grande impacto benéfico. Os objetivos das quatro meta-projetos estão resumidos a seguir:

IT PEDA: Apoiar as universidades o desenvolvimento de estratégias para as atividades da universidade virtual, incluindo a criação e apoio de uma rede de centros pedagógicos nas universidades participantes. O projeto também é responsável por seminários para administradores sobre o desenvolvimento da estratégia.

Tie Vie: Formação de professores na utilização pedagógica das tecnologias de informação e comunicação.

IQ Forma: Criar instrumentos através dos quais os estudantes podem aprender sobre si mesmos como aprendizes e adquirir habilidades para se tornar mais eficazes os alunos em cursos virtuais

OVI: Projeto para o desenvolvimento do ambiente virtual de avaliação e estudo de aconselhamento dos alunos, incluindo a melhoria dos conhecimentos e habilidades necessários para os estudos com êxito, aconselhamento de carreira, gestão e estudo.

Criar um fórum para discussão de questões-chave entre os administradores

Reunindo os principais administradores de todas as universidades na Finlândia, como parte do consórcio teve um impacto imediato com muita promessa para o futuro. As questões levantadas nas reuniões do consórcio vão desde os serviços de apoio necessários para as atividades da universidade virtual para questões de direitos autorais. Grande parte dos temas em discussão não são restritos às questões Universidade Virtual e terá impacto sobre as políticas institucionais para o ensino em sala de aula, como a cessão de crédito e direitos de autor.

Criação de economias de escala para o desenvolvimento de conteúdos, distribuição de programas, serviços de apoio e críticas

Participação em uma das reuniões dos projectos FVU, a Leste do projeto FVU, claramente justificadas as vantagens ea necessidade da partilha de recursos e esforços, dada a capacidade limitada e os orçamentos de cada instituição. Este projeto reúne três das pequenas universidades da Finlândia para oferecer cursos em conjunto projetado, ampliar a oferta de cursos, e garantir uma melhor qualidade e melhor utilização dos recursos locais e especializados.

Não há dúvida de que a FVU enfrentará importantes desafios, especialmente tendo em conta os recursos limitados e um complexo e difícil de mudar o ambiente operacional. Diversas grandes questões e desafios na implementação da visão da rede FVU são identificados.

Gerenciando Expectativas

O anúncio da FVU ea concessão de financiamento suscitou uma enorme expectativa, apesar do financiamento relativamente limitado para a realização da iniciativa e uma falta de história e conhecimento amplo de como implementar aprendizagem on-line na Finlândia. O número de funcionários a tempo inteiro dedicado ao FVU é baixa eo sucesso dependerá do esforço contínuo de outros especialistas, como bem e na boa vontade. Há expectativas também diferentes e diferentes definições de virtualidade ou efetiva aprendizagem virtual entre os muitos participantes. O impacto da FVU será provavelmente superestimou a curto prazo e, se for bem sucedido, subestimados no longo prazo.

Para abordar a questão da gestão das expectativas, a FVU precisa imediatamente:
• Identificar os vários grupos de interessados, incluindo grupos de financiamento e definir as suas expectativas quanto quantitativamente quanto possível
• Desenvolver e implementar um plano de comunicação e estratégia de relações públicas que inclui súmulas curto abordar o que a FVU é eo que não é. Ilustrar o nível de financiamento através de comparações com os investimentos feitos em outros países e
»Continue a utilizar a FVU pessoas de contato em cada uma das organizações participantes FVU para informar as universidades e grupos de interesse local e trazer equívocos frente e preocupações.

Liderança compromisso institucional e estratégica

O nível de conhecimento e compromisso dos administradores universitários em instituições participantes varia. Para muitos, o eLearning é visto como uma boa demonstração de inovação ou de uma fonte de algum financiamento para escorar departamentos fraco. Em alguns casos, os cursos da universidade virtual ou programas são vistos como uma parte integrante da missão primária da instituição ou uma parte de uma solução de conjunto para resolver um problema desafiador. Em parte, a falta de atenção e compromisso de financiamento pode ser devido ao ambiente cada vez mais difícil orçamental para as universidades finlandesas.

A FVU começou a abordar os requisitos para aumentar o conhecimento dos gestores universitários

Liderança no equilíbrio eficaz entre as práticas pedagógicas, administrativas e de TIC

A intenção do Ministério é colocar a pedagogia na vanguarda de todos financiados e iniciativas associadas da FVU. A FVU Unidade de Desenvolvimento está a ter uma abordagem mais equilibrada colocar para além das práticas pedagógicas de administração e práticas das TIC para a grande figura do FVU. Há alguma resistência a "importação" de modelos de outros países, há um interesse legítimo na adopção de práticas que podem não ser compatíveis com a cultura finlandesa.

A maioria das instituições finlandês ter tido algumas experiências julgamento no desenvolvimento e oferta de cursos on-line com o foco em classes de videoconferência ou publicando notas do curso e recursos do curso útil como oposição à execução em actividades de aprendizagem. Os departamentos técnicos de universidades como a Universidade de Tecnologia de Helsinki e Tampere University of Technology tiveram experiência prévia com ofertas baseadas na web.

A FVU será no futuro fundo e incentivar projetos e atividades que se aproveitam de situações onde a aprendizagem online pode adicionar valor real. Uma série de projetos são de expansão de vídeo-conferência ou classes oferecendo uma opção on-line para um frente-a-face a atividade em sala de aula, sem examinar esse valor acrescentado ou factor melhores áreas de aplicação.
A FVU irá desenvolver um plano para disseminar práticas eficazes.

Learner Focus

Há uma investigação promissoras que incide sobre os alunos, como de QI FORMA, e um inquérito foi realizado para determinar e analisar as necessidades do aluno para o portal. Um maior acompanhamento foi planejado por um estudante e um painel de pessoal para avaliar o projeto do portal.

Internacional Alianças Estratégicas

Com a sua reputação na indústria sem fio, as organizações finlandês receber uma boa recepção de organizações em todo o mundo. As universidades finlandês está feliz em ter a oportunidade de ligação com outros países da UE em projectos de investigação e divulgação.

Dado o trabalho envolvido na celebração e execução de alianças estratégicas, a FVU Unidade de Desenvolvimento incidirá em entrar em alguns arranjos formais a cada ano. Estes acordos podem incluir pós-doc de cooperação e de intercâmbio da faculdade, no conhecimento e na troca de ferramentas em áreas como repositórios de objetos de aprendizagem, e professores, visitas de peritos. Maiores informações serão postadas no site da FVU em outras línguas com projetos incentivados a fornecer resumos e atualizações para postagem.

Avaliação

Dada a importância da avaliação na gestão de expectativas e de alimentação para a melhoria contínua dos investimentos do FVU's FVU desenvolveu uma estratégia de avaliação para a iniciativa. Este é um processo contínuo e irá expandir a partir da avaliação inicial da web arranjo para a plena escala de avaliação FVU pelas mesmas organizações que avaliam as universidades convencionais e as suas operações.

7. Os últimos desenvolvimentos e Lições Aprendidas

Um dos paradigmas básicos por trás do finlandês Universidade Virtual foi a idéia de dar aos alunos uma oportunidade de aumentar seu portfólio com cursos de aprendizagem de outras universidades na Finlândia. Isto foi conseguido por
»A criação de um acordo para incluir todas as universidades finlandesas, como os estudos são flexíveis
o planejado
O acompanhamento
O aceite
O gerenciado
o financiados
• construindo um sistema de informação para apoiar estas actividades
»Arranjar financiamento extra do Ministério da Educação para cobrir os custos iniciais destas actividades extra
»Extensa formação de estudantes, professores, funcionários administrativos, etc sobre a nova abordagem.

Há muitos desenvolvimentos na universidade virtual configuração que pode ser considerado inovador e algo a considerar também no exterior. O elemento chave é o serviço de aprendizagem para facilitar o desenvolvimento de cursos online e programas de incentivo:
1. alunos através de um balcão com uma vasta gama de informações, recursos e serviços;
2. instituições participantes e seus professores, juntamente com uma oportunidade de aproveitar as economias de escala, tornando disponível uma vasta gama de serviços, conhecimento e recursos para apoiar o desenvolvimento de cursos online e programas; e
instituições participantes a oportunidade de tirar partido das sinergias e economias de escala na comercialização de seus cursos e programas em casa e no exterior.

8. Referências

Curry, J.; O finlandês Universidade Virtual: Lições e intercâmbio de conhecimentos Oportunidades de Informação Pan-Planos Canadense. Preparado para O Information Highway Advisory Branch, Indústria do Canadá. 2001. 22 p.
Kess P. O finlandês Universidade Virtual. 4 º Encontro de Negócios em Hagenberg, Áustria
28.-29.6.2002. 4 p.
Kess P., A Criação do finlandês Universidade Virtual - dois primeiros anos. Conferência Internacional sobre a Educação Nova benefícios das TIC em Educação. Rotterdam, 2-4.9.2002.
Kess P., finlandês Universidade Virtual. Nordic Information Literacy Seminário: Information Literacy como um objetivo para o ensino em universidades e faculdades., Vaasa 7.2.2003.
Kess P., estado finlandês e finlandês Universidade Virtual: a partir do estado para a universidade e da universidade para o estado. Conferência lounching estoniano eUniversity, Tartu, 21.2.2003.
Kess P., O finlandês Vitual University - lições aprendidas com o desenvolvimento. NVU-konferansen 2003, Stavanger, 24.2.2003.
Kess P., O finlandês Vitual University, Preprints da ACE 2003 - 6th IFAC Symposium on Advances in Control Education, Oulu junho 16-18, 2003. pp 37 ... 43.
Kess P., O finlandês Universidade Virtual - algumas mudanças no trabalho acadêmico. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Applications Telecomunicações e da 4 ª Conferência sobre a Universidade Virtual (ICETA 2003), Košice, 11-13.9.2003. pp. 39 ... 43.
Sinko, M., TIC no ensino superior finlandês: impacto sobre a aprendizagem ao longo da vida. Workshop sobre "Aplicação das tecnologias de informação e comunicação na aprendizagem ao longo da vida" Catania, 6 - 8 de Abril de 2000
http://www.virtualuniversity.fi/

www.eadtu.nl / e-Bolonha / ... / EADTU_Kess_Finlandês_Virtual_.doc

Management of Educational Projects

2010-03-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

The e-Learning concept

1.1. A wide terminology…

e-Learning stands for “Electronic-LEARNING” with a clear emphasis on the learningdimension. This doesn’t mean that teaching has been neglected but it stresses thatthe target of every teaching process is more than ever enabling the learner to learn!Although concepts as eTeaching or eTutoring are closely linked to the previous one,the use of the e-Learning term wants clearly to prioritize a learner centred approach.There are numerous similar terms used to discuss the e-Learning issue, each ofthem trying to emphasize one or another specific characteristic:
 "Open and Distance Learning" (ODL)
 Distance education
 Teletraining
 E-Learning 2.0
 "Computer Mediating Communication" (CMC)
 Web-based learning
 Web-Based Training" (WBT)
 Internet-Based training
 Net-based learning
 "Distributed Learning"
 Online learning
 "Enhanced-Learning through Information Technologies"
 Cmputer supported collaborative learning
 Technology supported learning
 Networked learning
 Virtual learning environment
 Virtual classrom
 Virtual school
 Virtual campus
 Virtual univeristy
 Blended learning
 M-learning
 Etc.
Three key ideas emerge from this diversified terminology:
a) Distance: Distance Education, Teletraining, Remote, Distributed, Blended,Mobile;
b) Digital (electronic): Internet, Web, Online, Net, Network, Computer, Virtual,ICT1, Environment;
c) Learning: Education, Training, Classroom, School, Campus, University;

1.2. e-Learning Definitions

There are also many different definitions that try to figure out the e-Learning concept:
1. “An umbrella term for providing computer instruction (courseware) online overthe public Internet, private distance learning networks or in-house via anintranet.”2

2. “Electronic learning or e-Learning is a general term used to refer to computer-enhanced learning. It is used interchangeably in so many contexts that it iscritical to be clear what one means when one speaks of 'e-Learning'. In manyrespects, it is commonly associated with the field of advanced learningtechnology (ALT), which deals with both the technologies and associatedmethodologies in learning using networked and/or multimedia technologies.”3
3. “Education via the Internet, network, or standalone computer. E-learning isessentially the network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge.E-learning refers to using electronic applications and processes to learn.E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms, and digital collaboration.Content is delivered via the Internet, Intranet/Extranet, audio or video tape,satellite TV and CD-ROM.”4
4. “e-learning was first called "Internet-Based training" then "Web-BasedTraining" Today you will still find these terms being used, along with variationsof e-learning such as e-Learning, E-Learning, and e-Learning”.5
5. “There may be other definitions, but I define e-learning (also called e-Learningor e-Learning) as the delivery of a learning, training or education program byelectronic means.E-learning involves the use of a computer or electronic device (e.g. a mobilephone) in some way to provide training, educational or learning material.(Derek Stockley 2003)E-learning can involve a greater variety of equipment than online training oreducation, for as the name implies, "online" involves using the Internet or anIntranet. CD-ROM and DVD can be used to provide learning materials.Distance education provided the base for e-learning's development.

E-learning can be "on demand". It overcomes timing, attendance and traveldifficulties. An e-journey is one type of e-learning or online training.Blended learning is e-learning combined with other training methods.”6
6. “Internet-enabled learning that encompasses training, education, just-in-timeinformation, and communication.”7
7. “e-Learning is any virtual act or process used to acquire data, information,skills or knowledge. In the context of our research, e-Learning is enabledlearning, learning in a virtual world where technology merges with humancreativity to accelerate and leverage the rapid development and application ofdeep knowledge.”8
8. “Any educational content delivered in, or using, digital form.”9
9. “Electronic or digital learning on a computer.”10

10. “e-Learning – for the purposes of this site, e-Learning is equated with onlinelearning. E-learning is an all encompassing term generally used to refer tocomputer-enhanced learning, although it is often extended to include the useof mobile technologies. The term is generally used to refer to the use oftechnology in learning in a much broader sense than the computer-basedtraining or computer aided instruction of the 1980's (source: Wikipedia). Asonline learning continuously grows exponentially, e-Learning is often beingused synonymously with online learning.”11
11. “e-Learning 2.0 – refers to a second phase of e-Learning based on Web 2.0and emerging trends in e-Learning. It can include features such as:e-Learning where students create content, collaborate with peers throughmechanisms such as blogs, Wikis, threaded discussions, RSS and others toform a learning network with distributed content creation and distribution ofresponsibilities.
e-Learning that takes advantage of many sources of content aggregatedtogether into learning experiences.e-Learning that utilizes various tools including online references, courseware,knowledge management, collaboration and search.The term itself is meant to imply that the traditional model of e-Learning as atype of content, produced by publishers, organized and structured intocourses, and consumed by students, is turned on its head. Insofar as there iscontent, it is used rather than read— and is, in any case, more likely to beproduced by students than courseware authors. And insofar as there is structure, it is more likely to resemble a language or a conversation rather thana book or a manual. The e-learning application, therefore, begins to look verymuch like a blogging tool. It represents one node in a web of content,connected to other nodes and content creation services used by otherstudents. The term first appeared in 2005 in an online article e-Learning 2.0,by Stephen Downes. (source:Wikipedia).”12

Filandia

2010-02-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

TASK1: Online/Distance education country profile
a) Choose one of the countries listed hereafter: Canada, Finland, Portugal,Germany, Greece, France, Sweden, and Brazil.
b) Register the choice of your group on the WIKI page “e-Learning Countryprofile” of the course Web site:a. If the country has already been chosen by another group, choseanother one: the group that has registered the first has priority;b. If not register your country choice;
c) Browse the Web and search for relevant information in order to describe thecurrent online or open and distance education profile of the selected country; published documents, reports, analysis, etc. can also be used;
d) Focus your search on key “facts and figures”;
e) Find out which is the most important open and distance/online educationorganization in this country and present its main characteristics(demographics, financial, etc.);
f) Point out strengths and weaknesses of the current of the e-Learning situation;
g) The references related to facts figures and comments must be mentioned(URL of the Web pages, sources of documents, etc.);
h) Write a paper of 5 pages, including tables and charts in MS-Word format (fontsize, 12);
i) Publish your group work on the Moodle course web site in the “Assignment01-Task1” folder;
j) Assessment - grades: 20 points; part of the group work portfolio (group workportfolio: 50% of total grade).
k) Use the forum “Assignment01”, topic “Task1”, for questions and comments;
l) Deadline: Sunday 07 March 2010.

TASK2: e-Learning instructional system profiles
a) Considering an e-Learning instructional approach, compare the instructionalsystem profiles in the three following cases:
a. Conventional face-to-face teaching in classroom
b. Online training via the Web
c. Blended learning

2010-02-28T09:51:00.000-08:00

Com base nas diferentes leituras, torna-se dificil escolher uma boa definição, porque se umas favorecem uns aspectos outras referem outros, igualmennte importantes.
O meu critério foi a simplicidade e a clareza.

Gestão Projecto Educativo

2010-02-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

A promoção da saúde sexual e reprodutiva dos indivíduos é um importante contributo para a sua formação pessoal e social e tem ganho um protagonismo crescente nos sectores da Educação e da Saúde.
A aprovação, em 6 de Agosto, da Lei n.º 60/2009 estabelece o regime de aplicação da educação sexual em meio escolar, integrando-a no âmbito da educação para a saúde, permitindo recorrer à metodologia do trabalho de projecto, para melhor enquadrar e orientar aquele que é um dos imperativos expressos no Artigo 7.º, o Projecto de Educação Sexual da Turma. Na mesma Lei estipula que a Educação Sexual faça parte do Projecto Educativo de cada Escola de uma forma explícita, intencional e pedagogicamente estruturada. No entanto, pela experiência que tenho enquanto formadora nesta área, os professores sentem alguns constrangimentos para abordar esta temática devido, essencialmente, à mentalidade e às reacções dos pais, bem como às reacções dos próprios alunos e o conservadorismo do meio. Surgem, ainda, muitas dúvidas: como responder às questões colocadas pelos alunos de uma forma clara, objectiva, verdadeira e acessível à sua compreensão? Por tudo isto são confrontados com inúmeras dificuldades para a planificação e implantação de acções nas escolas (dados que constam de diversos estudos realizados em diferentes níveis de ensino). Esta situação, quando existe uma formação adequada por parte dos docentes, é ultrapassada. Mas todos os intervenientes consideram que a Educação Sexual na escola é um dos factores que contribui para o conhecimento e valorização dos direitos sexuais e reprodutivos no que diz respeito à tomada de decisões sobre a fertilidade, saúde reprodutiva e maternidade/paternidade responsáveis.
Com este curso on-line qualquer constrangimento é mais facilmente ultrapassado do que se o mesmo for presencial
Poderia frequentar este curso qualquer docente do Pré-escolar, 1º Ciclo, 2º Ciclo, 3º Ciclo ou do Secundário, de qualquer área de formação (uma vez que este é um conteúdo transversal), de qualquer região de Portugal.
Com base em estudos realizados e pela minha própria experiência, este curso online pretende que os professores adquiram competências para :
- Educar para a sexualidade humana;
- Clarificar conceitos: sexualidade / educação sexual;
- Capacitar os professores para: lidarem positivamente com a temática da educação sexual, fomentarem uma metodologia de trabalho sobre assertividade;
- Reflectir sobre estratégias de intervenção;
- Formular estratégias de implementação de um projecto de intervenção sobre o tema na Escola / Turma;
- Produzir e avaliar materiais pedagógicos que integrem os conteúdos nas áreas curriculares.

2010-01-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

Dear Paulo,No I don't have finished to evaluate your works in the wiki and during the course but it's not the same kind of evaluation so it doesn't have any impact on your final exam. The final exam is an individual one and is based only on parts 1, 2 and 4 of the course, with 2 questions : one theoretical and another one more practical.For the final grade, all evaluations will be important : your activity during the course, your collective expertise and the individual exam. Please refer to my message about it : http://www.fcsh-elearning.edu.pt/acient/mod/resource/view.php?id=1014.Best regardsLuc Masso

2010-01-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

Resposta do Prof:
Je suis surpris par le contenu de votre message étant donné que je vais respecter le contenu du cours que je vous avais annoncé en début de semestre. Je l'mensagem mon explique clairement dans publié fin décembre à ce sujet: http://www.fcsh-elearning.edu.pt/acient/mod/resource/view.php?id=9444L'ensemble du contenu du cours sera mais délivré donc pour des questions de calendrier qui s'est raccourci cette année (début les examens auront lieu et non début Janvier Février), je ne pas vous pourrai évaluer sur l'exercice d'publié perícia dans la partie 5 de mon cours. Je vous donc propor malgré tout le début de 2010 faire pour les étudiants qui le souhaitent mais cela ne pas comptera nota finale dans votre simplement.Pour les partes 6 a 9 mentionnez que vous, je les publierai comme je l'ai fait chaque année durant le mois de janvier 2010 et je Continuerai à assurer un feed-back via les forums mail ou par. Pour des questions de délai, il aurait été trop densa de publier l'intégralité des contenus avant fin décembre.Tout respecté soros, rassure je vous! Il faut simplement distinguer le calendrier des examens qui se termine début Janvier et celui de la fin du cours qui continuera durant le mois de Janvier.Enfin, j'ai toujours dans les forums répondu aux questions que les étudiants me posaient InterAgir avec pour eux.J'espère vous avoir Rassure et merci de transmettre ce message aux autres étudiants si vous le souhaitez. Je reste à votre disposition pour en reparler.Bien cordialement,Luc Massou

Cher Monsieur,
Comment allez-vous, Monsieur, respecter le contenu de votre cours, si, en ce moment, je pense, tout comme moi, tout le monde est accablé par les examens. J'espérais que les contenus des cours fussent enseignes dans les délais du premier semestre.
«Pour des questions de délai, il aurait été trop densa de publier l'intégralité des contenus avant fin décembre. » Mais qu'est-ce-que c'est ça? C'est n'importe quoi! Est-ce qu'on ne vous a pas datas informé des des examens? Quelle est cette organização?!
C'est incroyable! On a été datas informé des des examens début du mois d'Octobre 2009 et par ce que je lis, les profs ne sont pas informes de examens leurs propres? C'est-à-dire que début Octobre n'aviez nous pas l'Information des examens datas des agencer mieux pour les contenus du cours!
Vous avez raison: C'est bien malin de la part de l'université, les cours termineront le 30 Janvier 2010, tout comme l'évaluation. Que comprenez Est-ce que c'est vous importante pour pouvoir être un étudiant évalué dans tous les contenus d'un cours?
Je ne suis pas du tout rassurée, et ne vous en faites pas, monsieur, les collègues liront certainement ce que vous avez transmissão. Et ce que je peux conclure, que c'est l'année dernière, c'était bien organisé mieux que cette année, malheureusement pour nous.
Bien cordialement,

2010-01-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

Unidade 4
a)

Definition
References : Pierre MORELLI, “Blogs et médias, quels rapports aujourd’hui : essai de typologie », EUTIC 2007 international conference, Athens (please find the complete paper in a separate file)

As Pierre MORELLI mentions it, blogs are “media technologies which articulate functions of information (writing of texts, storing information) and communication (deposits of comments, direct links towards other blogs - blogroll -), which automate the contents’ implementation (syndication) and introduce a reciprocity into the direction of information flow (push + pull)”. Thus blogs affect in a notable way the relationship between emission and reception, they take part in the form’s transformation of the public, from a formless mass to a whole of individuals. On the one hand, authors of blogs, on the other hand, readers, Net surfers, bloggers or “simple readers”, sometimes brought to engage the dialog through deposits of comments.
Pierre MORELLI considers that blogs question how media actually work : emergence of individual media of masses ? Improvement of existing media mechanisms ? Birth of new communication diagrams ? The public of blogs takes share in the construction of information. It is not any more the abstract figure of ideal receiver but the real individual in the singularity of its tastes and acts, therefore of its participation and/or its media contribution. Reception and emission modes are also upset since any receiver becomes a potential transmitter.
Always according to the same author, the relation to information meets other fundamental modifications : individualization of reception, automation of procedures by data processing. “To the logic of flow in traditional media succeeds a logic of action based on initiative framed by the modular choice available, a reticular offer which articulates contributions of several types and origins in a complex, syncretic and sometimes reciprocal way. The receiver takes an active share in selection and organization of information. Better still, user is now able to act directly on it, under the seal of comments or by taking part in the drafting of contents put on line.”
Joël DE ROSNAY (please see links after this text) joined the analysis of Pierre MORELLI and proposes new definitions corresponding to the current stakes of the numerical media :
- “infocapitalists” = holders of creation, production and diffusion means for informational contents under copyrights, generally under digital form. They force users and purchasers to use vectors of diffusion or distribution they control (big television channels, editors, music majors… = mass media).
- “pronetarian” or “pronetariat” (of the Greek pro = “in front of, before, favorable to”, and of English Net = “network”) = new class of users of numerical networks able to produce, diffuse, sell digital non owners contents, being based on “new economy” principles to create important flows of visitors on websites, to allow free accesses, to make pay very personalized services at low prices, to exploit effects of amplification on the web… They are more and more in competition with traditional “infocapitalists”, to which they do not make any more confidence, to get information, to listen to music, to see videos, to read books or to communicate by telephone.
- “media of masses” = new large and distributed modes, coming from “pronetarian” expression. They use digital techniques of collaborative creation, connection and exchange which gradually supplant some of traditional vectors of mass media.

Typologies
References :
Dominique CARDON, Hélène DELAUNAY-TETEREL, « La production de soi comme technique relationnelle. Un essai de typologie des blogs par leurs publics », 2006, Réseaux, n° 138, LavoisierLaurence ALLARD, « Termitières numériques ou les blogs comme technologie agrégative du soi », 2005, Multitudes, n°21, Les Belles Lettres (published on line in 2006)Rebecca BLOOD, The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog, 2002, Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA, USA.Rebecca BLOOD, « Weblogs and Journalism in the Age of Participatory Media », 2003, Norman Reports, vol. 57, n° 3,
We mention below typologies of blogs identified by Pierre MORELLI in his paper (read its complete text for more details).
According to Rebecca BLOOD (2002), 3 macro-categories would be enough to include the main trends in blogs:
- personal newspapers, which publish personal feelings,
- notebooks, whose contents are more sophisticated (like on line essays, syntheses…)
- filters = interfaces which have a purely utility relation with information (editorial monitoring, events annoucements,…).
Always according to BLOOD (2003), she identifies 4 types of blogs which would make journalism :
- blogs held by journalists,
- blogs proposed by professionals about professional issues,
- blogs written by individuals who are witnesses of significant events,
- those which offer direct links to news.
According to the Italian blogger Giorgio Nova, we can classify blogs according to the dominant activity of their author on the Web:
- “hunters” (or explorers, gatherers) = expert in art to find information, to flush out innovations of any kind (quotations, hyperlinks). They are reactive and publish in a very regular way. Principal interest = to offer to Net surfers personal paths through the informational “magma” of the Web, like a press review.
- “weavers” (or farmers) = proposes longer and less frequent articles. Their first concern is to formalize meaningful contents starting from collected information, which they take time to give in form, to articulate, to confront with various points of view found on the web.
- “chamanes” = great capacity of extrapolation, they can build a page from very few data. They are narrators, poets of the Web who apprehend the writing, not like an expression form but like an object in itself. For them, the Web is a wonderful window display, a exposure place of testimonys, to make their “poietic” skills more visible.
According to Laurence ALLARD (2006), blogs are more than setting on line diaries. They bring to think “a new articulation between spaces, methods and conceptualizations of relation between oneself and oneself in writing process”. For individual that they are, contributions fall under a “polyphonic dynamics” and form a “large autobiographical intertext”.
Dominique CARDON and Hélène DELAUNAY-TETEREL (2006) distinguish four trends in blogs :
- intimist blogs = exhibition of his interiority which engages the author in a process of recognition based on anonymous and interpersonal relationships, controlled by the author in a certain way, i.e. with a certain distance (comments only addressed to the author, no dialogs between readers),
- familiar blogs = more opened to dialog with readers, they describe environment and/or daily activities of the author (relational network is primarily made by close relations),
- community blogs = crystallizes contents and exchanges around some aspects of author’s profile (its skills, abilities…). They build a community identity starting from confrontation of experiments, shared practices (exhibition of personal collections, sharing of collected contents, subjective exchanges about common cultural practices…),
- citizen blogs = the statement is completely detached from the author’s personality. Blogs of distanciation, of open discussion and criticism, privileging a citizen approach of subjects, they prohibit any community affiliation by principle.
Lastly, Pierre MORELLI proposes his own “visual typology” for blogs :

Here are the explanation he gives of the various tops in the previous figure :
(1) very personal and very committed newspaper (the blogger gives his opinion about all the news)
(2) co-construction of a general-interest, contributive and impersonal resources’ space,
(3) resources’ space relating to a very specific set of themes (only facts, without comment nor opinion),
(4) thematic, objective, contributive and impersonal resources’ space but co-edited by several authors,
(5) citizen forum of ideas’ exchange without specific set of themes,
(6) blog of a consultant, asserted expert in one specific field,
(7) participative democracy.
Complementary links to consult :
- table of contents of a special issue of Norman Reports review, with a chapter about “Weblogs and Journalism” (papers are downloable in Pdf files by clicking on their titles).
- http://www.technorati.com/ = a famous search engine for blogs, currently tracking 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.
- definition of vlogs in Wikipedia, which are “video blogs”, taking advantage of web syndication to allow distribution of videos over the Internet (using R.S.S. or Atom syndication formats, for instance) and playback on mobile devices and personal computers (podcasting).
- Steve Garfield vlog (as an example)
Complementary texts to read :
To go further on this subject, you can read 2 famous books (one in French, another one in English) that are now available online :
- « La révolte du pronétariat », written by Joël DE ROSNAY in 2005 (Fayard) and entirely on line since June 2006, describes in details current social changes in the media with development of Internet for the masses.
- « We the Media », published by Dan GILLMOR in 2004 (O’Reilly) and now on line. « This book is about journalism’s transformation from a 20th century mass-media structure to something profoundly more grassroots and democratic. It’s a story, first, of evolutionary change (…). This is also a story of a modern revolution, however, because technology has given us a communications toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost and, in theory, with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been remotely possible before. »
b)
References :
Gautier POUPEAU, “Blogs et wikis. Quand le web s’approprie la société de l’information », 2006, BBF, t. 51, no 3, Paris
Julien LEVREL, « Wikipédia, un dispositif médiatique de publics participants », 2006, Réseaux, n° 138, UMLV/Lavoisier
Brian LAMB, « Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not », 2004, EDUCAUSE Review, 5, vol. 39, pp. 36–48, University of British Columbia

Definition
According to Gautier POUPEAU, wiki is a Web site allowing all the visitors to modify the various pages of them at will. The word “wiki” comes from the hawaian term “wiki wiki”, which means fast or informal. Wikis make it possible gradually to build a structured content by additions, constituting units, and an organized one, which facilitates the exploitation of it while taking again the principles of communication and division’s model of forums. Each page of a wiki thus contains a hypertext link which goes to a page making it possible to edit contents and thus to carry out modifications immediately without validation a priori by some authority. Design and structuring of the Web page are done by an easily understandable syntax. This method allows to create external and internal links, which are in fact new pages coming to be added to the existing wiki structure. Structure of a wiki Web site is not fixed a priori; it evolves/moves progressively by addition of pages in the site. To set up a wiki, we found, in the same way that for blogs, platforms called “farms” and application softwares called “engines of wikis”. Among most used engines in France, Xwiki makes turn the Xwiki.com farm, or Mediawiki, developed within the framework of Wikipedia, which is also used by Wikicities farm.

Uses
Always according to POUPEAU, wikis are well appropriate for all projects in which groupware is important. The most widespread use of wikis is the installation of encyclopedias, like the most known wiki on the Web, Wikipedia, launched by Jimmy Wales. Wikipedia aims to create an universal encyclopedia in free access and supplied with visitors of the site. Wikis interest also more and more companies which use it within the framework of knowledge management. Lastly, more and more softwares, in particular under free license, propose wikis to write documentation in a collaborative way.
The community aspect is obviously even more present for the wikis. But, unlike blogs, a community is established around a wiki and not around all the wikis. The “Wikipedians” speak about “wikification” to indicate the act to add links refering to various documents of the same wiki. The community aspect also results in meetings of bloggers or “wikists” in the “true life”.
The case of Wikipedia was more particularly analyzed by Julien LEVREL to establish the main operational features. He founds ten statutes of different users, with specific functionalities and additional rights of writing in Wikipedia device. The three principal statutes are the following :
- the anonymous participant = is not registered in the project and has neither a pseudo nor a personal page. He can consult, create and publish articles and pages of discussion.
- the recorded participant = reaches, through pseudo and a personal page, a configurable space according to his practices. He can consult, create and publish, but also rename pages, download files and reach a list of follow-ups. He is invited to take part in decision makings while discussing and voting proposals he considers adequate, or while proposing new ones.
- the statute of administrator = “Wikipedian” named by the community to ensure maintenance of the encyclopedia. Administrators can protect and unlock pages in writing, consult and restore removed pages, purge files of pages containing copyright violations, block and free IP addresses and, finally, consult a special list indexing the articles which no participant has on his list of follow-up.
According to LEVREL, in spite of a similar name, the administrator within Wikipedia is closer to the figure of regulator, because he is not a special contributor. He is subjected to the same principles as the whole of participants. Although he has additional functionalities, he cannot, in theory, make decision without agreement of the community. This political operation basically modifies the assumed hierarchy of electronic forums, decisions in Wikipedia device being legitimated by the respect of deliberative procedures and not by the recognized merit of the participants. Thus, the accession to administrator’s statute is carried out on the basis of voluntariate of participant who declares his candidature (in 3 specimens on the wiki and 1 in the list of discussion). This candidature opens a special wiki page dedicated to the election of administrators, which remembers to each participant the procedure of election. Thus, participant willing to become administrator must prove he’s reliable with respect to the encyclopedic horizon and must be recognized by his voters.
LEVREL explains finally why the rationalized memory (by data-processing techniques) constitutes the masterpiece of inspecting and security device of editorial space, by producing a whole of objective evidence relating to the participants and their commitments :
- history of an article = makes it possible to see the article’s lifecycle, step by step, and also to facilitate management of vandalism while returning to a previous version when necessary.
- list of follow-up = allows a recorded participant to supervise the articles he wishes, mainly those in which it took part. With each connection, the list of follow-up automatically informs him about modifications made by other participants, proposing indicators on nature of these changes (which, when, where, comments associated…).
- “recent modifications” = centralize on an uninterrupted up-to-date page, on the same principle as history, modifications related to the whole of articles in editorial space.
- an automatically updated list indexing the whole of articles which are not reproduced on any list of follow-up of recorded participants (Unwatchlist). This list mentions particularly many outlined articles and is one of the “dark regions” of Wikipedia.

Pedagogical uses
Concerning teaching uses of wikis, Vivian SYNTETA (2002) from TECFA (university of Geneva, Switzerland) notes that “research has shown that teachers and students can get very creative and develop innovative and very useful activities for learning, inspired from constructivism and socio-constructivism like :
- Information sources (simple websites easily created)
- Student assignement hand-in (with the advantage of peer ratings)
- collaborative web-writing (to co-construct collective knowledge)
- problem solving
- project spaces
- anchored collaboration (anchored newsgroup-like discussions for reviews)
- focused discussions (forum-like discussions)
- case libraries (projects "Hall of Fame")
- cross class/courses projects (interdisciplinary projects)
- community building among students (common interests, adventure games…)
- learning to collaborate (to change the individualism culture of traditional instruction).”

According to Brian LAMB, pedagogical challenges in using Wikis are the following :
- “Tracking work created in wiki spaces can become a logistical nightmare, and course management can spin out of control quickly if pages are allowed to spawn without some set of protocols to regulate or index them. (…). Seemingly minor contributions to a collaborative document may have major effects, effects that may be near impossible to assess fairly or even to detect.”
- “As with the security issue, most of the pedagogic dilemmas presented by wikis can be addressed by "traditional" management approaches. (…) Instructors may choose to establish categories, topics, and other prompts to direct student participation into more orderly channels”.
- “Indeed, an instructor could structure and regulate interaction to such an extent that the wiki is effectively transformed into a stripped-down course management system. (…) This process involves not just adjusting the technical configuration and delivery; it involves challenging the social norms and practices of the course as well.”
- “This particular challenge bears resemblance to the one posed by constructivist teaching philosophy. To truly empower students within collaborative or co-constructed activities requires the teacher to relinquish some degree of control over those activities. The instructor’s role shifts to that of establishing contexts or setting up problems to engage students. In a wiki, the instructor may set the stage or initiate interactions, but the medium works most effectively when students can assert meaningful autonomy over the process.”

Complementary links to consult :
- “Wikis Described in Plain English” : another good definition and frequently asked questions about wikis, with a very simple video about it.
- Wikispaces : easy-to-use Wikis for non-expert people.
- « Tourbus » : offers guided tours of wiki sites all over the world.
- "Westwood" : a well-known example of pedagogical use of a Wiki in classrooms.
Complementary texts to read :
- “Teaching and learning online with wikis”, 2004, Naomi AUGAR, Ruth RAITMAN and Wanlei ZHOU (School of Information Technology, Deakin University, ASCILITE 2004 Proceedings) : this paper illustrates how e-learning practitioners can use wiki technology to enhance social interaction amongst students online, for the dissemination of information to the student body, for building information repositories or for the collaborative production of documents.
- “Uses and Potentials of Wikis in the Classroom”, 2006, S. PIXY FERRIS, Hilary WILDER (Innovate, 5, vol. 2, Fischler School of Education and Human Services, Nova Southeastern University - free online login is required to see the complete article -) : this paper considers the uses of wikis in classroom from the perspective of praxis. It places the uses and potentials of wikis along a continuum on which the traditional print-based educational paradigm anchors one end and the secondary-oral paradigm the other.

2010-01-01T05:27:00.002-08:00

Unidade 2
a)
Reference : Texte et ordinateur. L'écriture réinventée ?, Jacques ANIS, 1998, collection "Méthodes en sciences humaines", De Boeck & Larcier s.a.

Jacques Anis considers that the relationship between text and computer must refer to a theoretical framework going from language sciences (linguistic, semiology, semiotics) to psychology, computer science and artificial intelligence. He considers that the text processing by a computer allows a “meta-writing” = dematerialization of the text (which becomes volatile object, created and modified by the word processing), meta-scriptural and reversible operations, offering various tools of textual organization, control, remote setting and objectivation of the text. Electronic text offers a diversity of views, plasticity and mobility (to visualize together or separately such or such element of the text, at various levels of granularity), memorization of the reading paths = appropriation and consultation’ strategies.
Data processing widens considerably the field of writing, by integrating multimedia components (texts, images, sounds…). The writing becomes inclusive by integrating these components. The text becomes mobile, increased by the multiplicity of its states, supports, views and options. The writing is removed from its sacred character by the text modifiable at will. The split-up between author and reader is erased with the hypertextual devices.
-------------------------
Reference : "L'ordinateur et la critique littéraire", Paul DELANY, 1994, Littérature, n°96, Larousse

Paul Delany reconsiders in this text contemporary literary criticism where the structuralism of the Sixties and Seventies declines to be replaced by work in network, pack of relations without hierarchy nor center (see Roland BARTHES: “work is a proposal”) = advent of the textual information data processing. The hypertext is a part of it = intertextuality, fragmentation and off-centring as in authors’work like DERRIDA, TODOROV, BARTHES or FOUCAULT. The literary analysis then will gradually adopt structures and vocabulary of the hypertext. A new kind of writing in hypertext or hypermedia appears, with hypertextual fiction and blocks of autonomous narrative units, giving an infinity of paths through the structure of the blocks and links built by the author = “narration at zero degree”.
The value of the hypertext is not in the “explosion” of the narration but in the new combinations of narrative and space structures. Time is then perceived like a geometrical space. Hypertext makes it possible to build an impenetrable very big and unified (via the network) text, collection of often fragmentary texts, separated from their authors and arriving in a jumble, as in oral conversation (= “electronic orality”).
------------------------
Reference :: "L'écriture hypertextuelle : pratique et théorie. A partir d'une recherche sur Rigodon", Roger LAUFER, 1994, Littérature, n°96, Larousse
According to Roger LAUFER, hypertext presents an open design of the communication object, authorizing mixture of media, discontinuous reading, modifying the access times, facilitating the updates. It allows plurality of points of view, association by references, invitation to complementary readings. It means also the pleasure of being surprised in the text construction through a hidden device. This fuzzy logic allows balancing of points of view and arguments.
----------------------------
Reference : "Gérer la complexité" et « Dispositifs », Jean-Pierre BALPE, 1997, université Paris 8.

According to Jean-Pierre BALPE, it is necessary to consider a collection of knowledge as a whole in the hypertext (or hypermedia) and to take into account its complexity by not imposing a hierarchy. It is thus necessary to consider this just like a system (set of interrelated elements), to regard the components’ definition as related to the observer and its point of view. According to him, taking into account the observer is absent from many multimedia devices, with predefined and not-evolutive reading. Hypertext requires to integrate some slack, some blur, some evolution one, some relativity = “intelligent adaptivity”, depending on the points of view given by the readers’ path. An “ergonomic scenarisation” offers thus various levels of self-adaptation according to the reader’s profile, necessary compromise between minimal structuring of knowledge and freedoms imposed by the reader’s needs.
Relationships between data processing and literature evolved from a passive reading tool (data-processing analyzis) to an active writing tool (data-processing literature). The data-processing literature is an evolutionary writing, it is a chaotic device : pages, chapters and sequences are always with single reading, in real-time generated, without end, built on an unlimited series of irreversible local divergences = dynamic of chaos, open production.

Hypertext of fiction
References : "L'hypertexte de fiction : naissance d'un nouveau genre ?", Jean CLEMENT, 1994 communication au colloque de l'ALLC, Sorbonne, Paris,"Afternoon, a Story. Du narratif au poétique dans l'œuvre hypertextuelle", Jean CLEMENT, 1994, actes du colloque "Nord Poésie et Ordinateur", Mots-Voir et Gérico, Circav éd., "Fiction interactive et modernité", Jean CLEMENT, 1994, Littérature, n°96, Larousse

Jean CLEMENT wrote a lot about fiction’s hypertext, which is based on fragmented narrative units, neither completely structured, nor completely unorganized. It is a collection of semi-organized fragments which invites to the walk and can be left at any time. Absence of intrigue is due to a partial and often illogical reading. We thus slip from a temporal to a space dimension, from narrative to poetic one. Hypertext inserts narrative sequences in the multidimensional space of an open structure = diverse and tabular reading. Text thus only exists as created by a particular path (from one single reader), or only in a virtual mode, being defined as the sum of its potential readings.
Hypertext is going thus from figurative to configurative dimension, discharging from its narrative function, from reading to writing (= “scriptorial interactivity”), from readable text to “scriptible” one.

Comments
Hypertext of fiction is one of the most known forms of literary hypertexts, with a specific hypertextual writing, where the text and its reading are not completely structured and defined in advance. Hypertext can sometimes be created during the time of interaction (= generative hypertexts, as described by Jean-Pierre BALPE).
Complementary links to consult :
- Storyspace = famous hypertext writing environment that is especially well suited to large, complex, and challenging hypertexts.
- Eastgate = famous on line editor of hypertexts (fiction, non fiction), many ressources about hypertextual writing
- Charabia.net = examples of funny and small generative hypertexts (in french) : click on "entrez", then select one generator in the list (Java must be installed in your browser/PC), then click on "cliquez pour générer". A totally new text will be created in real-time by the generator (at each click). You will find an explanation of the tool just below the generated text.
- The Electronic Labyrinth = a study of the implications of hypertext for creative writers looking to move beyond traditional notions of linearity.
Complementary texts to read :- "The Shaping of Hypertextual Narrative", Sergio Cicconi, 2000, The Integrated Media Machine: A Theoretical Framework, M. Yla-Kotola, J. Suoranta, S. Inkinen & J. Rinne, éd., Helsinki: University of Lapland. pp. 101-120 = interesting text to give a more detailed typology of narrative hypertexts.
b)
References :
"Comprendre le cinéma et les images", 2007, René GARDIES, dir., Hors collection, Armand Colin"Sous les vagues, la plage", Jean-Louis WEISSBERG, 1995, in "Ecrit, image, oral et nouvelles technologies", actes du séminaire 1994-1995, Publications de l'Université Paris 7"Le cadre comme entité relative", MORELLI Pierre, 1999Champs Visuels n°12-13 « Penser, cadrer, le projet du cadre », L’Harmattan
Nota bene : We refer here in quotation marks to the collective book (coordinated by Rene GARDIES) to which I took part as author of the chapter about interactive images.
An logician identity
In the chapter devoted to interactive images, I could insist on their numerical dimension, “the most important of the characteristics of interactive image (…) : the image is translated in a data-processing language which enables it to be created and/or modified via application softwares. This “logician identity” introduces a new dimension into the possible practices of image processing : the digital image is “written” in a data-processing language made by figures (succession of 0 and 1), it can be “calculated” by a program before being posted (the most known example is the digital images in movies, which calculation can take several days), it can also become “calculating”, i.e. ready to evolve/move/change according to the request of a user”.
We can find various examples of these interactive properties of digital image : scientific digital images (directly easy to handle on screen), multimedia CD-ROM (about museums by instance, with possibilities of zooms and navigation in the image), websites (in particular in the field of numerical art, where multimedia artists allow the user “to handle/interact” with their work). Certain authors as Jean-Louis WEISSBERG speak about “meta-image” to define the interactive image. “That means that image changes from “visible” to “readable” state : the image is written in a data-processing language, it thus becomes interpretable, flexible, calculable. The user does not perceive only the image but must control the interactivity of it (…): he must learn how “to read” the image more than “to look at it” if he wants to exploit all its potentialities”.

An incomplete image
“The first consequence of the logician state of interactive image is its incomplete dimension : the spectator will see only part of the image, one of the possible forms of this image but seldom its totality. Interactive image is thus basically “incomplete” as Jean-Louis WEISSBERG (1995) underlines it : it shows only one state at one moment of its display on screen. According to the requests of the user, the image will be able to evolve/move and change, for example, of form, size or color”.
Multimedia CD-ROM and websites frequently use this ability of digital images to change and to display only part of its contents : “rollover” action with the mouse (entering or leaving a zone on screen) which reveals or makes disappear an object or a text at screen, offering several reading levels according to the user’s needs (overflight of contents or in depth reading).
A latent image
“The second consequence of this logician state is the importance of interaction between image and user : if user does not interact, image remains generally fixed. It “awaits” an action from him to change maybe (if needed be). Jean-Louis WEISSBERG (1995) speaks about “latency” : an interactive image is brought up to date according to the user’s requests. This latency gives a particular status to the interactive image, which leads certain authors to establish comparisons with the “image-time” of Gilles DELEUZE (1985), when the cinematographic image becomes readable, thinking, no more being “image-action” (“sensori-motor” one) and leading the spectator to question itself on his position and on the images’meaning. In another way, interactive image invites also the user to think, to decide on its path in the multimedia application, where and how to click to obtain such or such result”.
By instance, some websites like GabonArt (about artistic Gabon of yesterday and today) propose virtual visits of real places through interactive images : the user browses in a virtual museum in digital images (simulating a visit). A virtual presenter goes with him during his visit and comments the different rooms and objects. Without action from the user, the point of view remains fixed and the visit does not progress. “Even in the case of faintly interactive images (fixed and non-modifiable photographs or graphics for example), a multimedia application invites the user to click to continue his consultation. (…) The screen of computer invites to interaction”.

A fertile image
“The characteristic of interactive image is thus to be able to reappear perpetually depending on interaction between image and user. Pierre MORELLI (1999) speaks about “fertile” image, able to evolve according to external parameters from the image itself and that the author controls more or less according to his initial choices of programming (in the data-processing sense). In certain cases, we can find multimedia applications where conditions of the images’change are pre-established by the author (zooms on the image, extraction of fragments, modification of the formal parameters of size/position, moves in virtual spaces…). This is the case of the majority of multimedia applications on CD-ROM and Web. In other cases, the author releases more strongly the conditions of interaction, going even until giving up any control of the final result seen by the user: artistic and interactive images generated in real-time (…), virtual worlds showing objects having an “autonomous life”, close to the real life.”

The visual thought
References :
"De l’économie informationnelle à la pensée visuelle", Alain RENAUD, 1993, Réseaux, n°61, CNET"Le virtuel, vertus et vertiges", Philippe QUEAU, 1993, collection "Milieux", INA, éditions Champ Vallon
This concept of “visual thought”, proposed by Alain RENAUD, means that we can think the digital image like a new relation mode between discursive and visible order. Computer is a meta-machine allowing handling and digital processing of signs. The multimedia devices allow a new field of polymorphic (texts, images, sounds…) and sensitive experiments (body experiment). Digital image integrates an operational, dialectical (= interactivity) and metaphorical dimension (perceptible and flexible form). It is an image “in becoming”, like the model of mental image.
According to Philippe QUEAU, virtual image is an interactive, browsable and real-time displayable database, in three-dimensional digital images = feeling of immersion, no analogy. Digital image allows sensitive perception of the subjacent and understandable models (= internal mathematical models of calculation). At the same time, this image has thus physical and symbolic constraints (like traditional images), it is a representation of a model and a moment in the process of interaction with this model.

Complementary links to consult
- Digital artists : Michel Lavigne (http://www.pigpix.org/ = digital images easy to handle and to program), Philippe Bootz (« e-poetry » = generative work with images, words and music), www.incidents.net (list of many interactive works on line) = all are good examples of digital images, calculated and calculating, with which the spectator can sometimes interact.
- virtual visit of the museum of Gabon Art = splendid work of digitalization of the Gabonese cultural heritage in a virtual museum you can visit on line. Click on “Visiter le Musée Virtuel » link on the left (under the speaker).
Complementary texts to read
- "Présences à distance. Déplacements virtuels et réseaux numériques : pourquoi nous ne croyons plus la télévision", Jean-Louis WEISSBERG, 1999, L'Harmattan = see more particularly chapters 5 and 6 about interactivity and « image actée » (= image in interaction with the user).
- « La pensée virtuelle », Philippe QUEAU, 1993, Réseaux, n°61, CNET : = interesting text on the characteristics of virtual images. Philippe QUEAU is the founder of IMAGINA festival in Monte-Carlo about digital works (especially in 3D).
c)
References :
"Les enjeux de la numérisation des objets temporels", Bernard STIEGLER, in "Cinéma et dernières technologies","Ecrire pour l'interactivité", Daniel THIERRY, 1989, Réseaux, n° 33, CNET
Bernard STIEGLER describes digitalization of videos as a process which makes it possible to delinearize the accesses, the audiovisual program becoming a document which can be browsed as a book with tools like table of contents, index (see the current case of the DVD for example, with many menus and options to select only parts of the film) but also search engines. Audio-visual flow (like in TV channel) is thus delinearized. The digital videos can be declined on several formats (duration, film editing…) and supports (cinema, TV, mobile phone, Internet…). We can thus access to clickable audiovisual contents or browse among them.
Daniel THIERRY worked on writing of interactive films, equivalent to the interactive literary fiction which has been studied by Jean CLEMENT in France. According to him, three structures are possible in interactive videos:
- horizontal one = strictly random and not hierarchical structure, simple catalog readable like a book with selection in a menu;
- arborescent one = hierarchical basis based on a scenario, offering various choices at certain times of the history
- matric one = conditioned by a systematic analysis of the navigational context (history of navigation, previous paths…).
According to these cases, author can thus cut out the audio-visual document in more or less modular modules, with fixed or variable entry and exit (connectable with only one or several other modules). This kind of interactive writing is less adapted to fiction (because it induces a poverty in the scenario) but is more interesting for documentary, informative or ludic films. The author must manage the dialog between the audio-visual contents and the spectator which will interact with them.
Complementary links to consult :
- www.anonymes.net = 3 examples of interactive videos. You must understand how to interact with parts of the film...
- www.nicolasclauss.com/ = website of the multimedia artist Nicolas CLAUSS, who proposes some online and interactive creations with video and animations.

d)
References :
"Transposition de l'encyclopédie de l'imprimé au multimédia. Application à la cible jeunesse", Marianne DUMET, 1998, thèse de Doctorat en Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication, Département Hypermédia, Université Paris 8"NTIC et nouvelles formes d'écriture", Franck GHITALLA, 1999, Communication et langages, n° 119, éditions RETZ"Métaphore et multimédia", Gérard POULAIN, 1996, La Documentation Française

Definitions
According to Franck GHITALLA, new technologies of information and communication brought new practices of writing based on semiotic heterogeneity (texts, images, sounds, videos), space-time organization of a writing device, multiple paths, an intrinsically variable text. The act of reading is carried out in a complex environment, in true handling spaces making reading a technically dynamic process. The fundamental characteristics of multimedia writing are thus:
- semiotic heterogeneity = various sensory formats exploited, immediate modes of representation, symbolic and abstracted systems
- a multiple topography = hypertext links, multiple windows on screen
- an ideographic dimension = direct simulation of the conceptual elements (for instance : charts, diagrams…)
- a dynamic configuration = exchanges of signs, scenarisation, handling potentialities of modification or recombining of consulted spaces.
According to Marianne DUMET, multimedia writing is based on a syntax using visual page layout, movement, action, setting in scene of knowledge and a new form given to the text. The visual page layout uses visual tables (synthetic views : maps, synopses…), images’ scenarios (succession of steps, varied points of view …), a dynamic visual composition (interactive visual representations, dynamic layout of images…).
Syntax by movement uses several figures :
- animation of visual representations = “image-relations” (to show interactions between knowledge : plays of appearance/disappearance of elements on screen…), “image-time” (to present deformations, transformations, displacements of elements…), “image-action” (to show an operation)
- animation of text = to make it more expressive, to guide the screen reading, to express importance of something, to call with the reading…
- animation of signs = visual assistance to the understanding (transformation…).
Syntax by action is based on concept of interactive model, which approaches alive and easy to handle models, making it possible for the user to change/move elements on screen and to see immediately consequences of it (displacement of objects, permutation of signs…). The multimedia writing thus offers an active pedagogy making act directly on knowledge to discover its components and its functioning. It also offers multiple points of view by the action : juxtaposed (in the same screen) and superposed ones (on several frameworks or windows open in the screen), answering themselves or appearing in various contexts :
- points of view related to perception = zooms (free or programmed), run of images, images to be discovered by graphic treatments (routings, appearances by layers, rollovers…), point of view’s modification on objects (QuickTime VR or VRML sequences …).
- points of view attached to reference frameworks = to give various points of view on the same topic.
Multimedia also makes it possible to carry out or make experiments : construction, deconstruction of objects or abstract representations, various measurements, experiments to be made…
Computer' screen thus opens on a virtual space where each object can give place to an event, giving a living aspect to the scene and creating a dynamics of reading.
Lastly, the text endorses a new role, it can be accompanied by a voice which comes to support the written text, to comment images, to tell stories or to cite someting.

Roles of the media
According to Gérard POULAIN, media can play various roles in an online (website) or offline (CD-ROM) multimedia application :
- text = to provide great quantities of information, to guide the users, to write reports
- sound = to add a presence and a context to information, to draw user’s attention
- graphics = to show statistics, to try out ideas, to represent virtual objects, to indicate relations in space
- still images = to illustrate detailed informations, to represent pictorial information, to show photographs
- cartoons = to show evolutions of objectives, to create imaginary characters, to express imaginary actions
- animated images (videos) = to illustrate pictorial or socio-cultural information, to show real actions.

Complementary links to consult :
- examples of Quicktime VR sequences : online virtual visit of a boat (= click on diagram zones on the left in order to open QTVR sequences, zoom in and out inside the sequences with the menu bar at the bottom of the sequence, turn on the left- or right-hand side while clicking the image).
- example of a famous Web site exploiting the multimedia writing very well (syntax by movement and action, dynamic presentation, new form given to the text…) : Leo Burnett (= navigation and activation of parts and contents of the site are done by various movings of your mouse cursor in the screen and by clicking on titles, the screens are true settings in scene of contents, according to user’s actions). I recommend you to take time to browse the whole parts of this website !

2010-01-01T05:27:00.001-08:00

Unidade 1

a)
HypertextFirst definition (from T. Nelson in Literary Machines) :
Collection of written materials or images connected together in a so complex way which they could not be suitably presented or represented on paper.
Other definitions :
- database technology typically characterized by textual fragments of small size connected together by links managed by the computer.
- analogy with the semantic network, diagram of representation of knowledge employed in artificial intelligence, directed graph where concepts are “nodes” and their relations are “links”. The indexing is being done on the semantic contents of the concepts rather than on an arbitrary order (alphabetical for example).
Hypermedia :
Multimedia dimension of the hypertext = integration of still and animated images (videos, animations…), sounds and texts in hypertexts.
Typology of hyperlinks :
Several typologies exist. Among them :
- according to CONKLIN (Conklin, J., 1987, “Hypertext: An introduction and survey”. IEEE Computer, 20 (9)) : referential links (notes, quotations, annotations…= non-hierarchical links, connecting two parts of the hyperdocument) and organisational links (hierarchical links = presenting materials at various levels of detail, increasingly large, and connecting a link-“father” with his “sons”)
- according to VERCOUSTRE (Vercoustre, A.-M., INRIA, France) : explicit links (defined by the author in the hypertext), implicit links (dynamic ones : unexpectable), executables links (which are lauching scripts or programs)
- according to PARUNAK (Parunak, H.V.D., 1991, “Ordering the Information Graph”. in Hypertext/Hypermedia Handbook, Berk, E. & Devlin, J., eds., Intertext Publications/McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc., New York) : associative links (from a word in the hypertext to the proposals, from proposal to other proposals, paraphrase, illustration), links of aggregation (connect a whole to its parts and vice-versa, like a metonymy), links of revision (connect a node to its previous or posterior versions).
Comments :
It’s important to understand that hypertexts are based on concepts of network (semantic network between nodes) and association (with links).
Complementary links to consult :
- "Definition of hypertext" (by J. Blustein, Faculty of Computer Science Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada) : more definitions and points of view about it (click on the links in the text : Ted Nelson's definition...)
- "Fourth generation hypermedia: some missing links for the World Wide Web" (by M. Bieber, Hypermedia Information Systems Research Laboratory, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, U.S.A) : more explaination about typology of links in hypermedia systems.
Complementary texts to read :
- "As we may think", Vannevar Bush, Athletic Monthly, 1945
b)
Vannevar Bush faces the problem of the sum of the experiments and human knowledge which increase at extraordinary intervals, making their manual exploitation impossible. Technical solutions appear - photo cells, advanced photography, thermal and cathodic tubes - to allow a transformation of the scientific recordings. For instance :
- combination of optical projection and photographic reduction on microfilms (ratio from 1 to 20),
- possibilities of reducing this ratio by 1 to 10000 between the original and the recording on microfilm (= compression associated with a possibility of consultation),
- possibility of recording the document oneself directly, without having to use various intermediaries.

Vannevar Bush thus puts ahead the importance of the selection, currently difficult because of the mechanisms of alphabetical or alphanumeric indexing. The human spirit works by association of ideas, with an intricate collection of trails carried by the cells of brain, the transitory statute of memory, the fast action, the details of the mental images. It is impossible to translate accurately but we can be inspired some :
- selection by association first (rather than by indexing)
- selection to be mechanized (without reaching the flexibility and speed of human spirit).

Vannevar Bush’ proposal of the “Memex” is an individual bookstore allowing to store personal files, supplement of memory of the user with office, screens, keyboard and levers to question, record and consult its documents. It offers the possibilities of :
- visualizing various positions of projection on documents
- adding notes and comments on documents
- linking two items together, thus building a track, naming it and indexing it
- marking the items by a code (a pointer will draw attention to them).
- going directly from one item to another and coming backward

He proposed a new profession of “trail b lazers” = to propose useful ways in broad common recordings of knowledge.
Comments:
The text of Vannevar Bush is considered as the first conceptualization of hypertext, without naming it. Bush insists on the importance of selection, annotation and combination of documents in a semantic network. His proposition of a new job called “trail blazers” can be linked to actual roles of search engines and portals on the web.
Complementary links to consult :
- Vannevar Bush's biography
- presentation of theoretical hypertext computer system Memex (Wikipédia)
c)
Source : “Hypertext and hypermedia”, book, Jacob Nielsen, 1989, Academic Press
History :
Here are important dates to retain in the history of the hypertexts:
- 1945 : “Memex” (Memory Extender) project of Vannevar Bush = knowledge management tool which prefigures the concept of hypertext
- 1965 : Ted Nelson invents and publishes the word “hypertext” for the first time. His objective was to create a document starting from a vast whole of varied ideas, not structured, non-sequential and multimedia. He conceives also the project “Xanadu” = large, worldwide and multiple hyperbase of multimedia datas, distributed and based on a worldwide network of computers (with franchise agreements), allowing consultation, publication and recovery of information. Each document can include some flexible links, omni-directional ones or pointing towards other informations, and some sensors (informations stressing a characteristic of the document).
- 1968: Douglas Engelbart creates the NLS, “super”- word processing software including a mailing tool
- 1986-87: the software “Guides” (on PC) and “Hypercard” (on Macintosh) democratize the creation of hypertexts for a large and non-expert audience.

Fields of applications
Ben Shneiderman (in 1989) has defines 3 main rules to characterize a hypertext system :
- a big quantity of informations organized in fragments
- the fragments are connected together by links
- the user needs only a part of the whole information.

We can identify 5 categories of hypertexts (according to D. Scavetta):
- literary hypertexts (examples: Augment, Xanadu, Intermedia) = adaptation of literary works in hypertexts, with annotations’ possibilities, prevalence of the links on the internal structure of the nodes
- structural hypertexts (examples: KMS, gIBIS, Notecards) = information management and assistance to the argumentation, with nodes more important than the links and reduced possibilities of annotation
- hypertexts of presentation (example: Hyperties) = technical documentation, with separation between “author” (creation) and “reader” (browsing) modules
- hypertexts of groupware (example: Augment) = software engineering, information management inside an organization, where links and nodes are important and annotations are free
- hypertexts of exploration (example: KMS, Intermedia) = research of ideas in the processes of writing, formulation and exploration of problems with space metaphors, to work with information elements like concrete entities.

The fields of application of hypertexts are thus numerous:
- data processing : on line documentation, assistance for users, software engineering
- business : handbooks, dictionaries and reference books (encyclopedias), audits, commercial demonstrations, catalogs of products, ads
- intellectual work : organization of ideas, support for brainstorming, journalism, research
- education : self-training, supports of course, languages’ training, traditional literature, culture, museums
- entertainment : tourist guides, bookstores, bibliographical research tools, interactive fiction.

Considered prospects
In 1989, J. Nielsen imagined the following prospects for the future of hypertexts :
- in the short term (3 to 5 years) : emergence of a mass market, integration of the hypertext in various data-processing equipments
- in the medium term (5 to 10 years) : widened publication of hypertexts and hypermedias, solution for the compatibility between hypertext systems, development of editors and distributors specialized in hypertexts
- in the long term (10 to 20 years) : emergence of very large hypertexts, spaces of information shared between universities and companies, arrival of specialists and advisers in hypertexts who make a selection of recommended/official nodes and links, recording of users’ votes, impacts of non-sequentiality on the society, in particular in the training.
Complementary links to consult :
- Xanalogical structure (Xanadu project) : very interesting article about the project + link to Ted Nelson's homepage (he's still alive !) at the top of the page
- hypertext of presentation "Hyperties" : description and screenshots
- presentation of "Hypercard" (Wikipédia)

d)
This part is a small (and not exhaustive) list of hypertext/hypermedia tools, to illustrate previous conceptual definitions of hypertext.

KMS
Reference : “KMS: a distributed hypermedia system for managing knowledge in organizations”, Robert Akscyn, Donald McCracken, Elise Yoder,1987, Proceeding of the ACM conference on Hypertext, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, pp.1-20, ACM Press
“KMS is a commercial hypermedia system developed by Knowledge Systems for networks of heterogeneous workstations. It is designed to support organization-wide collaboration for a broad range of applications, such as electronic publishing, software engineering, project management, computer-aided design and on-line documentation. KMS is a successor to the ZOG system developed at Carnegie Mellon University from 1972 to 1985. A KMS database consists of screen-sized WYSIWYG workspaces called frames that contain text, graphics and image items. Single items in frames can be linked to other frames. They may also be used to invoke programs. The database can be distributed across an indefinite number of file servers and be as large as available disk space permits. Independently developed KMS databases can be linked together. The KMS user interface uses an extreme form of direct manipulation. A single browser/editor is used to traverse the database and manipulate its contents. Over 85% of the user's interaction is direct—a single point-and-click designates both object and operation. Running on Sun and Apollo workstations, KMS accesses and displays frames in less than one second, on average.(…)” (abstract of the article published by ACM Press)
KMS is a famous example of hypertext system for knowledge management in companies, to improve individual and collective productivity and to limit efforts devoted to shared databases’ maintenance. Its interface does’nt distinguish navigation and edition of contents (nodes are directly editable at the screen, like a Wiki : you can move, copy-paste, re-organize them…). This paradigm of direct manipulation and time multiplexing (very fast display on screen) is associated with collaboration tools (simultaneous and multiple access to the same project, communication tools and direct annotations).

NoteCards
Reference : “Reflections on NoteCards: seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems”, Halasz, Frank G., 2001, ACM Journal of Computer Documentation, Vol. 25 , 3, pp.71-87, ACM Press.
“NoteCards, developed by a team at Xerox PARC, was designed to support the task of transforming a chaotic collection of unrelated thoughts into an integrated, orderly interpretation of ideas and their interconnections. (….)” (abstract of the article published by ACM Press).
NoteCards is another famous hypertext system for workstations, to help brainstorming and structuration of ideas through a network of electronic cards. It offers various possibilities of organization, storage, information retrieval according to different ways of display, manipulation, modification and navigation. The links are named by the user, anchored via an icon towards another card. A browser represents a diagram of the structure of cards’ network and repertories propose to gather cards together. It is a 2nd generation hypertext system (the 1st one corresponds to only hypertextual systems with simple interfaces, like NLS or ZOG) which supports multimedia and offers several overall views of the network, for an individual or collective use, with a more advanced interface.
The paper of Frank Halasz however mentions several weaknesses in NoteCards and proposes solutions for hypertext systems of 3rd generation :
- System little adapted to networks of big size, broad and heterogeneous. To use preferably for on-line interactive presentations with small scales. Solution: fish-eyes views, graph flyovers, “contents” (individual nodes) or “structure” (networks) oriented retrieval informations’ system ;
- Static and split up structural model, not being able to reconfigure itself with each change in the contained informations. Not-virtual system, not-dynamics, imposing a premature organization of datas at the beginning (cards, titles and fileboxes quickly become obsolete). Solution: segmentation, naming and filling “delayed” in various ways, virtual or dynamic structures based on a description of components and a mechanism of research allowing to generate new compositions of nodes and links, to which the user can add properties (“virtual” links).
- Storage and passive recovery system. Solution: system including processes, maintenance and various computational engines
- No versioning to maintain and handle a history of modifications in a network. Solution: to allow consulting simultaneously various configurations of the same network, to offer a personalized context for each user of the same network.
- Weak possibilities of groupware : to create annotations, to maintain various organizations of the same network, to transfer messages between users in an asynchronous way. Solution : simultaneous multi-user access to the same network, notification of a material change to all users, social interactions to manage.
- Limited extensibility and flexibility : currently too generic system, not managing a work on the significance of datas and links (semantic approach). Solution: to allow adapting, personalizing, parameterizing the system with a particular task via an application interface accessible to non-expert persons.

FreeMind
This software belongs to category of intellectual hypertext systems, like you can find easily on the web (for free in general). For example (according to its official website), it helps you in many uses :
- Keeping track of projects, including subtasks, state of subtasks and time recording
- Project workplace, including links to necessary files, executables, source of information and of course information
- Workplace for internet research using Google and other sources
- Keeping a collection of small or middle sized notes with links on some area which expands as needed. Such a collection of notes is sometimes called knowledge base.
- Essay writing and brainstorming, using colors to show which essays are open, completed, not yet started etc, using size of nodes to indicate size of essays. I don't have one map for one essay, I have one map for all essays. I move parts of some essays to other when it seems appropriate.
- Keeping a small database of something with structure that is either very dynamic or not known in advance. The main disadvantage of such approach when compared to traditional database applications are poor query possibilities, but I use it that way anyway - contacts, recipes, medical records etc. You learn about the structure from the additional data items you enter. For example, different medical records use different structure and you do not have to analyze all the possible structures before you enter the first medical record.
- Commented internet favorites or bookmarks, with colors and fonts having the meaning you want.
Ideas are organized like a map including many nodes and links to different ressources.

CD-ROM : Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott)
This CD-Rom, published by in 1995 by BookWorm, is a good example of literary hypertext, based on a novel (firstly published as a book). Hypertext version gives you different ways of reading and using text and multimedia materials : annotations, clickable words (linked to a glossary), vocal reading of the text, links to additional multimedia datas (pictures, sounds, animations), margin notes, index, research tool, interactive table of contents, highlighter, bookmarks.
Please look at my Powerpoint presentation including screenshots of this CD-ROM, as examples of annotation index (slide 1), highlighting text and bookmarking pages (slide 2), annotation and cross referencing tool (slide 3), discussion editor (slide 4) and dictionary (slide 5).

Complementary links to consult :
- presentation of the “Mind Maps” method, including a video (in YouTube) from Tony Busan (inventor of Mind Maps) and a list of mind mapping softwares.
- very interesting interactive presentation (like a map !) of FreeMind (in French) : click on the differents nodes to open new parts of the map and select icons (near titles of nodes) to open new documents.
Complementary texts to read :
- “Control Choices and Network Effects in Hypertext Systems” (E. James Whitehead, Jr., 1998) : compares 3 categories of hypertext systems (monolithic ones, open ones and WWW) from the perspective of control decisions embedded in their architectures. This text gives a good perspective on 3 generations of hypertext systems we have mentioned in our course.

e)
I’ve collected below different definitions (and typologies) of interactivity in multimedia applications, according to various researchers in France in the domain of Information and Communication Sciences.
Definition 1
According to Isabelle Rieusset-Lemarié
Reference : « Esthétique de l'interactivité: approche historique », 1995, in Ecrit, Image, Oral et Nouvelles technologies, MC Vettraino-Soulard, dir., Actes du Séminaire 1994-1995, Publications de l'Université Paris 7 - Denis Diderot
Interactivity is opposed structurally to the dimension of spectacle because it moves away the spectator from any position of actor (in the sense taken in the Greek tragedy). The tragedy induces the active participation of the citizens, a phenomenon of “desindividuation” (mythical relation with the universe, allowing to transcend the individuals and to found the social body). On the contrary, according to the author, interactive television is an imitation of interactivity because it is reign of the individual, generalized insulation. The esthetics of interactivity must transform in-depth the social link to make emerging a symbolic dimension able to generate a way of being in the world. For instance, the rites make it possible to create links of a true community.
Definition 2
According to Roger Odin
Reference : « Cinéma et interactivité », 1993, Cahiers de recherche du CIRCAV, n° 3, Université de. Lille 3, pp. 19-26
4 criteria are needed to define an interactive media :
- direct contact between speaker and receiver
- interruptibility (to be able to act on course of events)
- reversibility between speaker and receiver (role reversal)
- possibility of acting on contents of the communication.
Definition 3
According to Pierre Lévy
Reference : « Remarques sur les interfaces », 1989, Réseaux, n° 33
Interactivity is a mutual and simultaneous action from two participants who can pursue together the same purpose but not necessarily. 4 consequences:
- the interruptibility (model of the conversation)
- the interaction should not be blocked by a request impossible to satisfy
- the “limited horizon line” (impossibility of knowing if the initial goal will be achieved, not too much solidified communication and interaction’s horizon line)
- feeling of an infinite database (15 choices at least in front of the user).
Then, Levy takes 3 metaphors of animals (which he borrows from Heyer) to express three types of interactivity:
- the herbivore grazes (inactive)
- the bee gathers (very selective but without a priori on the objective, systematic overflight and zapping)
- predatory seeks a specific prey.
An “intelligent” device will thus integrate 2 dimensions :
- the interactivity one (conversation, play, exploration and gathering, with hypermedia)
- the selection one (to benefit from the quantity by selecting, structuring and organizing the interesting documents among the network).
We go from devices of reception (like TV) to interfaces of selection, recombining and interaction.

Definition 4
According to Geneviève Jacquinot
Reference : "L'interactivité ou le dernier des postulats fondamentaux et menteurs", 1998, in Cinéma et dernières technologies, Leblanc, Beau, dirs, INA/De Boeck
We have entered the era of electronic “intertextuality” = direct access with images and sounds stored in memory, contextualisation at will, mix of images and various real-time handlings, simulation of virtual worlds… The digital image does not represent any more reality but translates an algorithm (calculated, exact image, without out-field). The digital image founds new methods of how to explore the seeing/hearing/knowing and is based on an intermediate semiotic statute (between “index” and “symbol” in Pierce terminology), playing an important role in structuration of knowledge, comprehension, memory and imagination.
Do multimedia devices propose a fusion between the understandable and the sensitive ? According to the author, the interactive devices do not allow oneiric consumption (implying and identification-making as in cinema). They block the emotion because of the need for acting (to select icons and buttons). We slip thus from interactivity into interaction.
It is also necessary to distinguish 2 kinds of interactivity:
- mechanical, functional, transitive one (actions on keyboard and screen) = functional level of the interactive terms (human-computer interaction)
- mental, intentional, intransitive (communication between user and software through choices of contents, structure, navigation) = meaning level of interaction’ scenarios.
It is the second type which makes it possible to develop a sensory, emotional, intellectual activity. The specificity of the interactive training experiment (with multimedia) is “to try out by”, which replaces “to live again with” (like with the cinema, TV and photography) = more directly operational relation with the learning experience, articulation between learning “by doing” and learning “by observation and instruction” between the physical and the abstract knowledge.

Definition 5
According to Jean-Louis Weissberg
Reference : « La simulation de l'autre, approche de l'interactivité informatique », 1989, Réseaux, n° 33, CNET, Paris
2 kinds of interactivity are existing :
- conversational interactivity = linguistic communication where the machine can analyze messages and send an identifiable message back to the user (anthropomorphism projected on the machine who “includes/understands” the messages).
- “interactivity of order” = role simulation, selection of pictograms, direct intervention on the image to realize the interactivity (consisted mediation by the software to organize materials and to produce the simulation effect).
Interactive communication is the relationship between an user, a software and its author = “auto-communication”, since the user realizes a conversation with himself (and the software makes it possible to activate).
The contact between user and interactive contents has 4 characteristics:
- not complete (it’s impossible to know all the possible combinations in a hypermedia)
- mediatization (no direct access to contents)
- segmentation (segmented contents)
- latency (the “spect-actor” must act “to wake up” the interactive contents).
The user becomes thus his own programmer of information taken in the stock produced by the author.

Definition 6
According to Sylvie Leleu-Merviel, Jean-Marc Laubin and Alain Durand
Reference : “Vers une classification des procédés d’interactivité par niveaux corrélés aux données”, 1997, in Hypertextes et hypermédias: H2PTM'97, Balpe, Jean-Pierre; Lelu, Alain; Nanard, Marc; Saleh, Imad, éd., Paris, Hermès, pp. 367-382
We can classify the interactive supports according to 3 types of datas :
- fixed datas,
- evolutionary datas (multiples combinations are possible),
- generative datas (not created in advance)
and according to 6 levels of “scénation” (= organized structure with which the user is put in interaction):
- audio-vision (linear and continuous diffusion: no material or conversational interactivity, but a communication interactivity) = cinema, TV
- reading (interruptible but sequential linear diffusion) = video tape recorder, books.
- consultation (indexed structure, sequential reading by request) = directories
- navigation (sequence of paths designed in advance) = tree structure
- exploration (networks of links allowing to individualize the paths) = encyclopedia
- virtual visit (not sequential diffusion, all depends on the user’s actions) = virtual guided visits.
Several levels are combinable in the same multimedia application.
Definition 7
According to Philippe Quéau
Reference : “Alteraction”, 1989, Réseaux, vol. 7, n° 33, pp. 27-46
Interaction is a potential of non foreseeable states by their author. 3 types of interaction are possible:
- heteronomous interaction (fixed laws)
- autonomous interaction (simulation of artificial life)
- “alteraction” (altering interaction, where the model controling the interaction deteriorates itself successively during the time of interaction).
Comments
You will notice that many scientific points of view have been published on this concept of interactivity. The question is not so homogeneous as for hypertext and hypermedia, and debate is always open.
Complementary links to consult :
- Svanaes, D., 2000, Understanding Interactivity: Steps to a Phenomenology of Human-Computer Interaction, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. PhD (in public domain) : please see the chapter 2 (pp. 20-86) about additional definitions of interactivity in Human Computer Interface litterature (another scientific domain). This text is a little hard to read (it's a PhD), but it gives you other scientific points of view on the subject, not always specialized in multimedia products.

Conteúdos Web - aspectos negativos

2009-12-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

Aspectos negativos

Na qualidade do conteúdo Web salientamos os seguintes aspectos negativos:
a) qualidade de apresentação:
Quando existe um texto longo não é dado ao utilizador a opção para ser baixado para impressão, e na projecção de elementos de um determinado texto não aparece os componentes que enfatizam os componentes importantes da página Web.
Relativamente à qualidade do estilo a maior parte dos artigos apresenta jargão, ou seja, tem vocabulário científico demasiado específico. No entanto, em algumas circunstâncias é dado ao utilizador a hipótese de verificar o conceito.
No que concerne à qualidade da estrutura, a regra da "Pirâmide invertida" não está aplicada: ao utilizador é dada a oportunidade escolher dentro de um subtema vários assuntos, permite continuar a navegar no site com temas relacionados, mas não apresenta determinado conteúdo do geral para o mais específico e com leitura de vários níveis. O parágrafo introdutório não apresenta o maior volume do artigo.
O interesse útil para o utilizador, na qualidade do conteúdo, caso o utilizador não apresente literacia científica, poderá não se revelar interessante para o mesmo.
Relativamente com a exactidão foi encontrada uma informação que não está correcta, pois é uma questão polémica no mundo científico e do campo da medicina, não sendo pacifico: a questão relacionada com os órgãos vestigiais ou inúteis. Segundo Amorim, A (2006) a Adenoamigdalectomia não é pacífica não se devendo apresentar, então, este órgão como inútil.
Exemplo: http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2008/organs/organs-01.html
Na organização de conteúdos Web, os temas não estão divididos de acordo com a natureza do visitante.
Na redacção de conteúdo para a Web, no aspecto relacionado com os hyperlinks não são utilizadas as cores padrão para visitado e não visitado.
No caso do visitante não procurar este tipo de site, o facto de ter muitas imagens e vídeos, pode torná-lo cansativo levando o visitante a não o visitar mais.

(2) Amorim, A. (2006). Adenoamigdalectomia na criança e o seu impacto imuno-alergológico– revisão da literatura. Acedido em Dezembro de 2009 em www.spaic.pt/download.php?path=pdfs&filename=RPI_2006_14_91_IMUNO_14-2_Adenoamigd.pdf função dos adenóides

Conteúdo Web - aspectos positivos

2009-12-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

Seguindo os critérios(1) fez-se a seguinte classificação:
Qualidade do conteúdo Web
A qualidade da apresentação do site foi concebida com uma estrutura coerente, o espaçamento do estilo dos textos foi boa, facilitando a leitura. Acresce, ainda, textos curtos e outros mais longos mas que permitem a opção, ao utilizador, de aumentar o tamanho da letra, assim como Printer-friendly
Exemplo: http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/quest/borneo/about.html
Apresenta, relativamente à projecção de elementos, alguma enfatização dos componentes importantes da página web para orientar/direccionar a leitura nas páginas e mostra uma selecção de artigos do tipo "YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE" para outras opções.
Neste site encontramos excelentes elementos em termos visuais (vídeos, fotografias, gráficos, animações)
Exemplo: http://news.discovery.com/animals/fruit-flies-female-attraction.html
Em termos da qualidade do estilo quer na ortografia quer na gramática não foram encontrados, segundo a análise feita, erros gramaticais e/ou de ortografia, a concisão é precisa e concisa, apresenta frases construídas de uma forma literária correcta, simples e de fácil compreensão assim como alguns artigos não têm vocabulário científico demasiado específico.
O tom é apropriado para os utilizadores, e no que diz respeito à organização, uma vez que o seu objectivo é a divulgação de conteúdo científico é apropriado, pois apresenta itens relevantes para os mesmos.
Os títulos são explícitos chamando à atenção e no final do artigo existem sugestões para o utilizador continuar a ler outros artigos relacionados, permitindo, assim, a continuação da navegação.
Na qualidade da estrutura existe uma coerência do tema principal do conteúdo, apresentando em todas as páginas um conjunto de temas centrais. No que diz respeito à regra da "Pirâmide invertida", não é aplicável assim como a existência de um parágrafo introdutório.
Há uma evidente incitação para o utilizador fazer várias opções de outros artigos para continuar a navegar no site.
Na qualidade do conteúdo, o interesse do mesmo, para o utilizador, só é possível se o conteúdo científico e a literacia científica do leitor forem no âmbito dos temas apresentados, pois alguns artigos apresentam uma linguagem muito específica
Uma vez que se trata de uma organização de interesse científico terá todos os pontos para ser bem sucedida e interessante. Os temas muito actuais com a presença de elementos factuais, com informações detalhadas e precisas.
Como forma de fornecer ao utilizador o contexto da informação publicada é acompanhada da data e o autor, para que seja possível localizar a fonte. A presença de vários links associados à informação permitem o aprofundar dos temas. E podem ser:
- uns estão incorporados no texto, permitindo ligações com outros sítios
Exemplo: http://news.discovery.com/animals/one-of-the-worlds-oldest-animals-dies.html
- outros fornecem uma listagem de links relacionados:
Exemplo: http://news.discovery.com/human/climate-greenhouse-gases-health.html
O facto de existir referência às fontes da informação pressupõe que é sempre possível verificar a veracidade das mesmas
Organização de conteúdos Web
Na página inicial os conteúdos estão por secções do site, por tipo; cada secção apresenta diferentes menus, que permitem a abertura de uma listagem por ordem alfabética e apresentam-se divididos por assuntos. Assim o utilizador sabe exactamente o que procurar e de que forma. Só existindo, como componente negativa, o facto de ter um conteúdo tão vasto que pode levar o utilizador a “perder-se” no conteúdo.
Em termos cronológicos existe uma secção “News” cuja organização vai dos artigos mais recentes aos mais antigos.
Os vários artigos apresentam ainda uma action orientada com funções de "enviar" ou “Share”.
Redacção de conteúdo para a Web
A escrita é sem dúvida o elo mais importante na cadeia de instrumentos, tecnologias, software e interfaces que movem ideais na Web – é mais importante do que os tipos de computadores, sistemas operativos, browsers, ou métodos de ligação à Internet utilizados.
Escrever é também o elo da cadeia menos compreendido, e o que tem menos probabilidades de evoluir com a tecnologia. Os webmasters, administradores de sistemas e gestores de conteúdos, até há pouco tempo, estavam mais familiarizados com o HTML e a programação do que com a gramática e a composição de páginas. Escrever para a Web é muito diferente de escrever para a imprensa pois os leitores são diferentes e a forma como lêem também é diferente. Neste site os títulos estão sempre presentes, de forma curta e simples, bastante explícitos e os temas apresentados são interessantes e não de carácter pessoal.
Está presente a regra do 5 “W” na maior parte dos artigos, o seu conteúdo está dividido em vários parágrafos, com uma única ideia por parágrafo, quando necessário existem detalhes adicionados, especializados.
Os links quer em relação ao seu conteúdo quer em relação ao seu número estão presentes de forma muito positiva.

Em termos conclusivos podemos dizer que:
- o leitor pode ficar mais tempo nos artigos longos, mas normalmente ficará apenas 4,4 segundos a mais para cada 100 palavras escritas, e terá lido apenas 18% do texto.
- os leitores lêem metade da informação (50%) apenas naquelas páginas com 111 palavras ou menos.
- os visitantes de um site perdem algum tempo para perceber o Layout da página e ver as imagens.
- na situação em que o leitor pretenda apenas ler um determinado site, quando o abandona terá, em média, apenas lido 20% dos textos.
Por tudo isto consideramos e compreendemos Blaise Pascal, o filósofo francês do século XVII, quando se desculpou a um correspondente: “Escrevi esta carta mais longa do que habitualmente, porque não tive tempo para a escrever mais curta”.

(1) Hardy, (2001-2007)

Batien, J & Scapin, D.(1993).Ergonomic criteria for the evaluation of human-computer interfaces. Versão 2.1.Le Chesnay: INRIA
Kyrnin, J.(1995).10 Tips for Web Writing. Acedido em Dezembro de 2009 em http://webdesign.about.com/od/writing/tp/10-tips-for-web-writing.htm
NIELSEN, J. (1997). How users read on the Web. Acedido em Dezembro de 2009 em http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html
NIELSEN, J. (2004). The need for Web design standards. Acedido em Dezembro de 2009 em http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040913.html

Symlog

2009-11-19T09:00:00.000-08:00