Title: Is eLearning conditioned by Educational Context?
Ivan Pogarčić1, M.Sc; Jana Žiljak Vujić2, PhD candidate; Antun Koren3, PhD
1Polytechnic of Rijeka , Rijeka, Croatia; ;
2Polytehnic of Zagreb, I. Lučića 5, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia; ;
1University of Zagreb, Faculty of Graphic Arts, Getaldiceva 2, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia; ;
Abstract: Significant ICT application in all human activities lays before us a basic problem: acquiring knowledge and skills in mastering ICT technology necessary for carrying out professional activities. Skills and knowledge are usually acquired through various forms of education. Furthermore, we can observe schooling as carrying out a process through element interaction: between the pupil, teacher and contents with defined goals in determined contexts. A more significant application of ICT in schooling is also altering the position of certain elements of the teaching process as to their function and their structure. Speed, quality and quantity of these changes require re-definition of the standard organization context form under which schooling is done. The paper also considers the changes in organizing certain time phases and education forms in the vertical respect that may be recognized today in continuity as life-long learning. An attempt is made to give answers to the following questions: Are education phases beginning from the basic one through higher learning to university learning altered in context by ICT application and in what way? In what manner does context determine schooling form?
Keywords:eTeaching, eLearning, eEducation, ePupil, Educational context, ICT
Introduction
Education may be observed as a system consisting of five basic elements: the pupil, the teacher and the contents. These elements are set in a direct relationship. Besides the listed elements education as an integral whole has goals to be achieved and the context within which tuition is carried out (Pratt, 2003).
Education may also be observed as a process. In the abstract sense as a process education is the possibility to carry out interaction between three basic elements: the pupil, the teacher and the contents. In concrete situations schooling is carried out through two supplementary processes: teaching and learning. These processes are the result of the listed elements' activity. The basic goal in schooling is acquiring knowledge and skills. During the process the pupil's and the teacher's activities are realized through interactive communication between them and with the third element – the contents. Their approach to contents is different, but their goal should be common: to learn the contents as best as they can in the shortest period of time.
Both the processes: learning and teaching are organized and are carried out with the help of various technologies and technical backup and application of certain methodologies. Application of computer and communication technologies sub sequentially leads to significant changes in education in comparison to its traditional forms. Significant or overall ICT implementation into schooling leads us to its contemporary form known today as eEducation.eEducation from the this paper's point of view is to be understood as
eEducation = eLearning + eTeaching. Depending on the quantity and quality of ICT implementation in education, two of its more significant executive forms will be differentiated.
- Blended learning is the combination of multiple approaches to teaching or to educational processes which involve the deployment of a diversity of methods and resources or to learning experiences which are derived from more than one kind of information source. Examples include combining technology-based materials and traditional print materials, group and individual study, structured pace study and self-paced study, tutorial and coaching. (Bonk and Graham, 2005),
- Online learning - a course delivered through the Internet and web-based software. Students interact with the instructor and other students via email. This class format is very flexible for busy schedules due to the fact that you can log on to the course at any time of the day (or night). However, certain computer skills and a degree of determination (no procrastination) are necessary to be successful. (Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland, 2004).
Special attention will be paid to the relationship between the four mentioned education elements observed in various contexts.
Context – the fifth element
Good quality interaction as a type of activity where two objects, in this case the pupil and the teacher influence one another is carried out through different forms of their communication. However, communication in education may take over more complex forms and is not only the basic simple interaction between the pupil and the teacher or the pupil and the contents, etc. Combinations of many simple interactions can lead to surprising emergent phenomena. During education the pupils may communicate between themselves, and in some cases the teachers communicate with one another. Therefore, interaction is not necessarily pinned down to two elements that form education as a system. (Green, 2004)
The mentioned basic four elements on which education is built on exist in this concrete case by being placed in a certain context. According to (Pratt, 2003), context is the fifth element of education. The meaning of context is used differently depending on the various different situations. In general terms context is: the set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event. To be more concrete: context specifies an access pattern (or path): a set of interfaces which give us a way to interact with a model but and the complete environment in which an artifact is found, including its exact location (in education it is a class), its surroundings (school at all, primary, secondary, etc.), and its relationship to other artifacts.
Context also means that the significance of an action must be analyzed in several contexts such as society as a whole (human, national), the affected region, the affected interests, and the locality. Significance varies with the setting of the proposed action.(Pickard and Dobie,2003)
In the education framework, especially in eEducation, we can limit ourselevs to the idea of: educational context.
When observing education, i.e. the elements it consists of, we can determine the context where it is positioned from various standpoints. It is essential that determining context does not change the education essense, i.e. the basic goals.
From the aspect of organization, education contexts are the circumstances in which education is carried out. The circumstances determine the pupils' and teachers' standing in respect to other elements, especially in respect to the goal of education. All in all and in respect to the possibilities that implementation of ICT in education provides we may as well speak about the context of lifelong education. The application of ICT in education promotes this idea in a more significant manner although it is not something very new. ICT application in all human activities requires capability and readiness in respect to lifelong learning and flexibility in the necessary working knowledge and skills.
However, the context of lifelong education has a finer division where it may be defined having two directions:
- Formal consisting of basic education, secondary/vocational education and higher and high education in all its phases,
- Informal – integral learning, training according to necessity or hobby as the consequence of personal or group acquiring of knowledge and skills
Concrete realization of the educational process includes some concrete elements regardless of the level we are at in respect to the mentioned division. This means that at a certain point in time and in a certain place, i.e. in a certain situation, education is fully determined by certain factors and circumstances. Further to this Brisk speak of the situational context of education. Situational context of education includes: linguistic, economic, social, cultural, and political factors, as well as conditions, such as students' personal characteristics, family support, and quality of instruction. All of these factors influence the lives of students and their academic performance and contribute in many ways, some subtle and indirect, to making the educational experience more or less difficult for different students. (Brisk at al, 2003)
The listed contexts are significant for any form of education, whether it is traditional or in eForm or mForm. However the weight and significance of certain conditions and circumstances are not the same in education forms.Circumstances determining the social context are as follows: Social background - income, parental education, and family structure. Diversity - among students can optimize the learning environment in a school. Yet differences among students can also increase challenges in meeting the education needs. Family background - the diversity of family experiences for learning. Differences in schools. Resource equitymeasured across several types of resources, including differences in class size, types of programs offered, levels of teacher qualifications, teacher salaries, and so on.
The political context of education is also significant and it usually depends on the political system in which eduaction is carried out, and the viewpoint of individual communities in respect to education organization. (Picard and Dobie, 2003). A good direction for regulating these circumstances, in EU and other Europian countries, is proclaimed by the Bologna declaration.
eContext – what is changing, what is new
In what way is the educational context changing and is it conditioned by ICT application. The answer may be found by observing changes that certain educational process elements have gone through within that context.
In general – eEducation as a form does not depend on the time or place where it is carried out. However, it is highly dependent on technical possibilities that are at the disposal of pupils and teachers. It is assumed that a technical infrastructure exists and this factor is the most influential one from the aspect of education context.
The teacher – even if he has at his disposal the mentioned technical conditions, the teacher is positioned in the eEducation context where he must acquire certain competencies. Preparation and carrying out tuition is organized through team work, and this assumes that certain conditions are fulfilled, i.e. there is readiness and capacity for work in such a context.
The pupil – if he does have the mentioned technical conditions, in the context of eEducation the pupil is placed in a position in which he must acquire certain competencies in the same way as the teacher. However, due to time period and location independencies eEducation places the pupil in a more favorable position. The possibility of independent communication with teachers and the other pupils is a strong motive, and the possibility of collaborative and cooperative work is quite exceptional.
Goals – the basic goal of the educational process is acquiring knowledge and skills, regardless of the context. However, goals usually have their pragmatic side determined by the final goal of education. Hence the goals of obligatory education or education according to necessity of a working post will be stressed in different ways than in hobby-wise education, or similar. The goals are not the same in basic education and in hobby oriented education. To put is simply, the obligations of the pupils and teachers in one or the other educational-organizational contexts are not identical.
Contents – the influence following ICT application is most obvious in the area of educational contents preparation. The advantages and possibilities provided by ICT application are of exceptional importance. The possibilities of combining and creating final forms of some educational contents are positioned in frameworks allowing the creative capability of teachers to be applied. Creating educational prop repositories decreases dramatically education costs, and social software, wiki, blog and similar also allows the pupils to show their creative characteristics.
Communication – as the basic form through which education is realized is an element that is raised to a higher and better level in eEducation. The possibility of each element communicating with every other element (even organizational contexts with other such contexts, i.e. establishment with establishment) affects directly the results of the educational process, i.e. its contextualization.
Conclusion
Finally: Is eEducation conditioned by educational context?The answer to the question posed in the title is not a simple one. If we observe functional conditions in which eEducation is carried out, then the conditioning is indisputable: where there is a lack of financial means, there is no eEducation. It is a fact that eEducation can decrease other educational expenses in a most drastic way, especially in conditions where technical backup is constantly becoming less expensive. The possibilities provided by open source tools, LMS, social software, blogs, video-conferences, Internet with the adequate communication infrastructure may condition education in certain educational contexts. The conditioned quality of eEducation is in other circumstances that form the educational context.
There will be various limitations put on eEducation in the framework of basic education by those in the range of higher education, due to the simple necessity to adapt it not only to pupils, but to teachers as well. However, the strictest conditions will be set in the area of hobby oriented education or education needed for certain working posts. As a form eEducation was actually first present in the range of corporations as a way to educate and to provide extended knowledge for operators. The mentioned circumstances are present today as well, because education in global aspects is becoming a profitable business. The offered contents are for the time being class oriented, and not LO oriented, and this is a fact that determines in the strictest manner the relation of eEducation and the context in which it is carried out. The similarity in building LMS and informatics systems in the methodological sense imposes yet another important condition in implementing eEducation as a form. It is standardization, i.e. the necessity to avoid redundancy and useless jobs.
Reference:
- Bonk, C. J., Graham, C.R.:The Handbook of Blended Learning: Global Perspectives, Local Designs, Pfeiffer Wiley, 2005, ISBN 0787977580
- Brisk, M.E., Burgos, A.,Hamerla, S.R.: Situational Context of Education: A Window Into the World of Bilingual Learners, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1 edition (December 2003), ISBN-10: 0805839461
- Dabbagh, N., Bannan-Ritland, B.: Online Learning: Concepts, Strategies, and Application,Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN-10: 0130325465
- Green, N.: Axioms from Interactions of Actors Theory, Kybernetes, 33, 9/10, (2004). pp.1433-1462.
- Pickard, W., Dobie, J.:The Political Context of Education After Devolution (Policy & Practice in Education) Dunedin Academic Pr Ltd (October 2003), ISBN-10: 1903765161