A Study on
Practical Experiences with using
E-education Methodologies in World Market
Prepared by
Mehul D Sutariya,
( Librarian )
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Summary
The objective of this deliverableis to study international experiences with E-education, and to analyze how these experiences can be used for development of a cooperative transnational methodology for use of E-education in Tele -centres.
First different concepts for E-education and their suitability as e-learning methodologies in different contexts are discussed. E-education covers a wide spectrum of e-learning methodologies which all include use of ICT technology.
This is followed by an overview of the World market for E-education and the quality of E-education systems used on this market is provided. E-education is widespread among European training institutions, and there are a large number of small and medium sized suppliers of E-education. However, user satisfaction with the current E-education material is limited.
Thereafter the various concepts ofTele -centres and tele-cottages are presented, and their role in training is discussed. E-education is important for Tele -centres in general and in particular for tele-cottages, where training is an important part of their activities. E-education will enable tele-cottages to broaden their supply of courses, and they may be able to rely on expertise from other regions or even other countries. These advantages can benefit most types of users of E-education, but are particularly relevant for tele-cottages, which most often are located in remote areas.
It is finally concluded that transnational cooperation on provision ofE-education systems will be of benefit for tele-cottages. The World market is however, rather fragmented due to differences in culture and languages. There are a few transnational suppliers of E-education, but they are mainly serving the large business market and are not targeting the needs of small enterprises like Tele -centres. Therefore there isa need to promote transnational co-operation between national suppliers of E-education material designed for serving the particular needs of Tele -centres.
Table of contents
Summary...... 2
1. Introduction …………………...... 4
2. What is E-education?...... 5
Theme A: E-education without presence and without communication...... 7
Theme B: E-education without presence and with communication ...... 7
Theme C: E-education with presence ...... 8
Theme D: E-education used in class-room teaching ...... 8
3. Evaluation of theQuality of E-education ...... 10
4. The role of Tele -centres in training ...... 11
Services provided by Tele -centres ...... 12
Business Models for Tele -centres...... 13
5. The potential of E-education in Tele -centres...... 15
6. Conclusion ...... 17
REFERENCES ...... 19
1. Introduction
This deliverable is a part of the Telecottage project funded under the World wideprogramme. The overall objective of this project is to provide the management of Telecottages with relevant e-learning material produced by the project partners. This material includes course material on Telecottage ICT – needs for the future, Telecottage management and Telecottage rural development.
Other objectives are to providea new methodology of transnational, cost-efficient ways of producing for vocational training materials. The consortium has developed together nation specific and non-nation specific English, Hindi and Gujarati language E-education material and carried out pilot E-education training to would-be Telecottage managers in the participating countries. The impact will be a cost-effective method of sharing already existing national Telecottage building and operating materials through a transnational e-learning material development method to a wide, geographically divided and varied audience of adults living in small villages around world.
The project addresses World wide second priority as it aims to improve the quality of, and access to, continuing vocational training and the lifelong acquisition of skills and competences (especially for people disadvantaged as they live in rural areas where such training is not so available to them as in towns and cities). It provides new forms of e-learning and teaching and basic skills in vocational and education training. This development is focused on use of a specific, existing and tested E-education tool.
The target group of the project isadults preferably with higher education background living in small villages. The potential users of the project's results are the adult educators, mostly educators of national Telecottage organizations, who will carry out the actual trainings to reach the target groups. The target group isotherwise disadvantaged in reaching such e-learning material at their place of living.
Potential users will be the 60 Telecottage managerstrained by the pilot program of the project, plus an approximate 1000 Tele cottage manager trainees in the following 3 years those have to be trained by the partners in the consortium. The potential users could bea more diverse set of people in the mid-term: more partners will be able to use the English language Tele cottage managers training materials, and will be able to adopt it to their language, later they will be able to join the network of Tele cottage-related e-learningmaterial development team. Our transnational cooperative vocational training material development methodology will be used for other Tele cottage-related material development, or could be put to test in vocational e-learning material development project in other issues than Tele cottages.
The Tele cottage is a unique infrastructure-intelligence base serving the local community. Itscomponents are: modern communication technology, office equipment, computational and educational technology, community space, organizational capability and capacity, and accessible expert knowledge, know-how and information. While Tele cottages could be found everywhere in the EU ( India, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom), Hungary is a European leader in developing its network of Tele cottages, numbering 471 for its 10 million inhabitants this number has quadrupled during the last three years. During this work the Hungarian Tele cottage Foundation and its partners developed a good quality, experience-based know-how on building and operating Tele cottages. This know-how is summarized in paper-based e-learning material. This e-learning material is usedto teach the would-be Hungarian Tele cottage managers and it was used to teach some Tele cottage managers from different foreign countries. The Hungarian Tele cottage Association found out that there is a need for good quality Tele cottage manager training material asthey are constantly expanding generating a need for such trainings.
A sound reasoning for the project is that we found out that these e-learning materials were developed independently and overlapping by separate efforts done in geographical distant areas. Developing e-learning materials is a hard, time and money consuming tasks to do. Following identification of similarities in different Tele cottagee-learning curricula this project has experimented with a transnational e-learning material development methodology. In this methodology participants identify nation specific and non-nation specific modules of their developable materials then develop them. However, non-nation specific material will be developed in a common language for easy translation and transportability. They are working in a common environment with a cooperative teamwork software where they can share best practices and lessons learned, while stimulating each others’ creative work starting out a many-to-many dialogue.
The objective of this report isto study international experiences with Tele-education, and to analyze how these experiences can be used for developing a cooperative transnational development methodology for use ofE-education in Tele-centres.
Chapter two discusses the different concepts for E-education and their suitability as e-learning methodologies in different contexts.
Chapter three provides an overview of the World market for E-education, while chapter four analyses the quality of the E-education systems used on the World market.
Chapter five provides an overview of the various concepts of Tele-centres and Tele -cottages, and discusses their role in training.
Chapter six analyses how E-education can be used to facilitate Tele-centres and tele-cottages and discusses various bottlenecks in that respect.
Finally chapter seven provides a summary of the conclusions from the previous chapters.
2. What is E-education?
The idea of using computers as a e-learning tool isalmost as old as the computer, and E-education is one out of several concepts which are used for describing a host of new e-learning methodologies using E-education in parts of or in the entire e-learning process. Concepts like flexible e-learning, distance e-learning, Tele e-learning and computersupported e-learning cover to a wide extent use of similar e-learning methodologies.
The EU E-education Action defines E-education as “the use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the quality of e-learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration.”1This definition is rather broad as it neither specifies the kind of e-learning methodologies nor the kind of technologies supporting it (multimedia technologies may cover almost any kind of computer based applications). It does however distinguish itself from distance e-learning, which canbe done without use of ICT technology. Moreover distance is not a necessarycondition for application of E-education, although one of the most important advantages byE-education is the flexibility it offers withregard to distance.
E-education can be facilitated by use of the Internet or other types of communication technologies but not necessarily. E-education per se does not demand any type of on-line access.
E-education is not confined to any particular part of the educational system – rather the contrary: one of the advantages by E-education is that it makes it possible to extend the reach of educational and training systems into new areas. Thus E-education can be applied both in the formal educational system (public schools, colleges, universities etc.), as well as for vocational training. It can be used both for private use as well as in the public and the private sector.
A report from the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation operates with four different types of E-education methodologies, which illustrate the wide spectrum e-learning methodologies covered by the concept of E-education:
• Theme A: E-education where the teacher and the students never meet physically, and where no dialogue between students or students and the teacher takes place.
• Theme B: E-education where the teacher and the students never meet physically, but where the dialogue between the participants is supported by use of IT based communication services.
• Theme C: E-education where parts of the e-learning takes place in a class room and parts of the e-learning is done elsewhere, where the students work on a computer on their own
– e.g. at home or at their place of work.
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1The eE-learning Action Plan – Designing tomorrow’s education. COM(2001)172 final Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, Brussels, 28.3.2001
• Theme D: E-education where all teaching is done in a classroom, and where computers a used as a e-learning tool.2
Theme A: E-education without presence and without communication
This type of E-education can be done entirely off-line as all information can be stored on a CD-ROM or on a hard disk. Continuous or occasional on-line contact will however enable up-dateof the teaching material.
The user is provided with information on a certain topic, and may thereafter be given training through a number of exercises. The user may also be tested through a number of multiple choice tests. The user may seek guidance through a help function or similar.
The main advantage by this type of E-education is its flexibility. The e-learning can take place everywhere and at all times. This enables use of this type of E-education exactly where and when there is a need to acquire a certain typeof competence. On the other hand it is difficult to design the e-learning process according to the needs of the individual user, and the user cannot seek guidance beyond what is included in the E-education system beforehand. The users must be able to work independent and solve unexpected problems by themselves.
This type of E-education is mainly used for teaching in very specific competences such as use of a particular IT-system, training in a new sales concept etc.
Theme B: E-education without presence and with communication
This type of theme demands some type of connectivity. Communication can either be off-line (e.g. e-mail communication) or on-line (e.g. chat rooms). Communication can either be with a tutor or with fellow students. The model is almost as flexible as model A. As a tutor is involved in the e-learning process, use of an E-education system will often demand the user to register as a participant if he wants to receive advice from the tutor.
The use of a tutor enables use of less automated training exercises and tests. The model can therefore be used for teaching where reflection and dialogue is important for the e-learning process. The model is often used in situations where flexibility in time and space is important. For instance the model is used for cross-border teaching by American universities.
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2 Danish Ministry of Science and Innovation: Perspectives for competence development: Report on E-education, Copenhagen 2003.
Theme C: E-education with presence
In this themeE-education is combined with traditional class room teaching. A wide spectrum ofmodels is here possible. The ‘electronic’ part can be withor without communication and it can either be a minor supplement to the traditional teaching or the traditional teaching can be a minor supplement to the ‘electronic’ part of the course.
Use of classroom teaching adds to the economic costs, but it also helps to make E-education more efficient as it facilitatesa dialogue between students and between students and the tutor also outside the classroom.
This theme is often used in postgraduate university programmes, where the students are employed full time and maybe spread all over the country. The teaching could then be a combination of intensive 1-2 days seminars and use of E-education systems, where the students prepare a number of exercises provided via the Internet in dialogue with teachers as well as other students through e-mail.
This theme has for instance been applied on a master programme in Mobile Internet Communication offered in a co-operation between two technical universities. The two universities are located in different parts of the country and students are spread over a wide area. Therefore the classroom teaching is limited to a few intensive seminars, while the remaining part of the teaching is mediated via the Internet. Even during the seminars E-education is applied, as video-conferencing is used in some of the lectures. This enables students to follow the lectures from both universities, and use oflectures located in other countries. Even the final examinations are conducted by use of video-conferencing facilities connecting the two universities.
The International shipping company Maersk uses E-education as part of their Maersk International Shipping Education. This is a two 2-year education with 600 students from 80 different countries3.
Theme D: E-education used in class-room teaching
E-education can also be used as a tool in the traditional classroom teaching. The major advantage is here that this enables use of new pedagogic teaching methods. For instance use of games and scenarios in realistic settings.
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3Danish Ministry of Science and Innovation: Perspectives for competence development: Report on E-education, Copenhagen 2003.
The usefulness of the different models depends on the environment, the kinds of users and the type of competence that the e-learning process is aimed to develop. Different types of e-learning can be categorized according to the aims of the e-learning process4
1. E-learning as a process for acquiring information;
2. E-learning as a process for acquiring information and processing experience;
3. E-learning as a process for acquiring information and processing experience that effects a long-term change in the consciousness of the learner;
4. E-learning as a process for acquiring information and processing experience in which the learner integrates new information and experience into his/her current knowledge base;
5. E-learning as a process for acquiring information and processing experience in which the learner perceives, selects and integrates new information and experience into his/her current knowledge base, thereby changing it;
6. E-learning as a process for acquiring information and processing experience, in which the learner selects and constructs knowledge that is useful and appropriate for him/herself and in turn uses this to drive and determine his/her own continuous e-learning process;
7. E-learning that becomes an individual process of interaction between the individual and his/her environment, in which the subjective reality of the learner is actively constructed.
Theme A is most suitable for e-learning processes where little interaction is needed for instance acquiring of information. Theme A may also provide individual exercises, but in many areas students will need at least some interaction witha tutor in order to discuss his/her solutions (Theme B). A long-term change in consciousness (3) may be difficult obtain without any social interaction with fellow students. This points towards theme C or theme D. All themes will however be able to include examples and exercises, which it will be difficult to provide in a non IT environment.
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4Graham Attwell a.o.: E-education in Europe Resultsand Recommendations – Thematic Monitoring under the WORLD WIDE DA VINCI-Programme.Nationale Agentur Bildung für Europa beim Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, Bonn 2003.
3. Evaluation of the Quality of E-education
Although E-education is flexible and provides substantial benefits for the users, there is still along way to go before the potentialof E-education can be realized in full. Users of E-education are in general very negative in their evaluation of E-education systems. This conclusion can be made on basis of survey conducted by Bizmediain 2002 on the quality of E-education systems in Europe13
The survey was made as a web based on-line survey carried out in five languages (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian). Most ofthe respondents were training professionals from the public or the private sector.