Motivation
:
New media, open and distance learning,
and information and communication technologies are much more than techniques
and tools. They include new ways for accessing knowledge, new ways for
co-operating with others. In the context of a “knowledge society”, a society in
which knowledge has become a valuable good, necessary for human development,
education is one of the most important investments for the future, and new
media and open and distance learning raise new challenges for education. Even
if the computer is now one of the most familiar objects we have with us, the
core concept of the “digital society” we live in is no longer only technology.
The computer is a technical tool,
which enables us to do a huge variety of different activities, but the main
issues come from the development and merging of two domains: Information
technology, which processes digitized information, and communication
technology, which transports digitized information. Different kinds of
information can be put in a digital form: text, images, pictures, movies,
sound, voice, music ... And once it has been digitized, it can be transported
and processed as a digitized object, i.e., as a sequence of “0” and “1”. It
makes technology evolve, and tools get closer and closer to each other: Computer,
telephone, fax, camera, television, CD player or DVD player, PDA, MP3 player,
etc., are different tools for processing digitized information, and they can be
related to each other.
Two concepts are central: the merging
of different information processing technologies, which leads to the concept of
“multimedia”, and the possibility of transporting information, which leads to
the concept of communication technologies, and enables us to communicate and
collaborate with others at a distance. Confira a melhor
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Information and Knowledge:
In such a context, a fundamental element is
“information”. Digitized information can be stored, processed, transported,
exchanged, bought, sold, etc. Therefore, it becomes a raw material, a good
which has an economic value. We speak of the “information society”: the society
in which information becomes a valuable good. And then appear all the problems
linked with information in society: how to deal with information, how to store
it, how to make it accessible, how to improve equity in the access to
“information for all”. The “digital divide” is of course first a technological
divide, increasing the gap between those who have modern technologies and those
who don’t have, but it is mainly an inequity in accessing information. When
information and communication technology (ICT) develops so quickly, providing
permanently new tools, new techniques, how can we ensure that it will be accessible
and usable by everyone in the world? The increase of inequity in accessing
information has economical consequences, and has become a major problem in the
“information society”.
In Geneva (2003) and in Tunis (2005),
the World Summit on the Information Society tried to address these questions.
The creation of the “Digital Solidarity Fund” is an attempt to solve such a
question. But as educators, fully involved in the digital society, we must be
aware that the fundamental element of education is not “information”, but
“knowledge”. Knowledge and information must not be confused. Information is
made of facts, comments, opinions, expressed through words, images, sounds,
etc. It can be stored and circulated. Knowledge is the output of the
reconstruction of information by a person, according to his/her history and
context. Confira a melhor solução supletivo a distancia
ensino fundamental
Information can be transmitted, but knowledge
must be acquired and constructed. Learning is the acquisition and construction
of knowledge, and of course it needs processing information. Because of the
development of information and communication technologies, education must take
its place in the information society. But because information and knowledge are
not the same, education must take into consideration the concept of a
“knowledge society”. Knowledge is strongly influenced by the development of ICT.
Knowledge plays a central role in the social and economical aspects of
societies. Knowledge is improperly often considered as a good which could be
sold, bought, exchanged, and more and more professions need an increased amount
of knowledge. Knowledge is not only a set of data. It also has to do with
competences, abilities, capacities. According to the report of the UNESCO
international commission on education for the twenty-first century, acquiring
knowledge means learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together
with others, learning to be. Knowledge has to do with the relationship between
persons.
A “knowledge society” is a society in
which knowledge plays a central role; it is a human society, in which knowledge
should contribute to bring development, solidarity, democracy, peace, a society
in which knowledge could be a force for changing. Providing universal and
equitable access to information and to knowledge is a major challenge in a
knowledge society. In a knowledge society, “new media” and “open and distance
learning” provide new possibilities for accessing and sharing knowledge. New
media include all the forms in which information can be found, processed and
transported. It means of course the technological aspect (CD, DVD, USB key,
online media, mobile media, etc.), but also the way it is organized (texts,
images, sounds, hyperlinks, hypermedia, web pages, etc.).
It is not only a way of storing and
distributing knowledge; it has an influence on knowledge itself, it changes
knowledge. Open and distance learning offers a possibility to get free from
some constraints of time and space. It enables to be involved in learning
activities at a distance, and to master differently the constraints of time:
synchronous and asynchronous activities. But furthermore, open and distance
learning gives the opportunity of new ways of collaborative work, of new ways
of interactive learning activities. Confira
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Distance Education :
Distance education has a long history.
For a long time, distance education institutions offer courses through postal
mail, for pupils and students who cannot attend a school. But ICT suddenly
increases the possibilities, resources and tools for distance education. In a
knowledge society, distance education is no longer only a replacement for those
who cannot attend school, because they are ill, or far away. It has become a
core component of education. A knowledge society needs competences linked to distance
education, such as being able to learn at a distance, to learn through distant
resources, to learn through digitized systems, to learn through collaborative
distant tools such as learning environments and learning platforms. More and
more, presential education also offers distance activities as a complement to
presential courses. Distance education is not only technology.
Designing a distance course needs a
specific pedagogical approach. It is not just transferring traditional courses
to CDs or web pages. It needs to reconsider the pedagogy, the relationship
between the student and the knowledge, the interaction between the student and
the teacher, and the collaboration between students. Confira a melhor solução supletivo gratuito ensino
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It needs to reconsider the content of
the course, and to organize it in a specific scenario. New Media and Open and
Distance Learning 47 Distance education is not only courses available on
digital supports or on the web, it also includes services. It may be access to
diverse resources, it may be evaluation, but it is mainly tutoring.
The development of distance education
and e-Learning has involved a huge development of tutoring, under diverse
forms: e-mail, chat, etc. More interesting is not the technical aspect, but the
changes it brings in the relationship between the student and the teacher.
Distance education has also enhanced collaborative work among students. It may
be organized and structured. But it may also be more informal.
Many distance education institutions offer
their students a kind of “blog”, where they can discuss freely, and the
development of such relationships between students is interesting. Distance
education has a tradition of considering students as lonely individuals. But
more and more collective activities are offered, on learning environments or
learning platforms. The concept of a “virtual classroom” shows how new
developments can be made in distance education. In a virtual classroom, students
and a teacher work together, at a given time.
They connect to a specific environment
from their computer, and they can see each other, talk and share common
resources. A session has a fixed beginning and a fixed end. Each student can be
at his/her home or in any place, but they must respect certain social rules
during the lesson, such as being on time and not doing anything else during the
lesson. As it would happen in a traditional classroom, the teacher can give a
course, demonstrate, explain.
The students follow the course on
their computer. A virtual blackboard is shared by the whole group: everyone can
write on it, comment what others write or draw. Students can also communicate
between them, in a hidden or visible way; on the opposite of what happens in a
normal classroom, chatting with others does not disturb the whole class! The
virtual classroom allows the teacher and the students to perform collaborative
work to an extent which is not easily reachable in a normal classroom.
Distance education can also be a tool for
educational systems for improving equity among pupils, making them able to
access high quality courses in any subject, independently of their local
conditions. Confira a melhor solução supletivo grátis ensino
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More and more, distance education is
used by schools for specific subjects which are not necessarily available in a
presential way, or for complementing their regular programme and for supporting
pupils having specific difficulties. At the world level, distance education can
bring some help for making learning accessible for every child, but this needs
strong policies at different levels.
