Integrating Learning Processes Across Boundaries of Media, Time and Group Scale

Abstract

Recently, we have seen integration as a theme and purpose of educational media usage of its own right. The genuine value of integration is primarily characterised by improving the richness and directness of educational interactions. This article takes its starting point by looking at classroom activities. A good integration of interactive media in the classroom including groupware functions can already facilitate smooth “learning flows”. Specific design principles can be extracted from the experience gathered in several recent projects. E.g., the "digital mimicry" principle refers to the extrapolation of expertise with conventional tools to similar computerised tools. The general issue of interoperability and connectivity includes aspects of software and hardware interfaces and even goes beyond technology in that it requires mental interfaces that allow users (teachers and learners) to realise and make use of the possible connections. These interfaces are conceived at design and provide implicit learning process support in the learning environment. In analogy to “business process modelling”, there is also an explicit approach to integrating learning processes: The use of specific representations to describe and potentially operationalise the orchestration of learning scenarios. In Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), the integration of media and of group scales, e.g. between individual, classroom and community, relies essentially on mechanisms for handling emerging learning objects in terms of production, exchange, re-use and transformation. In the spirit of constructivist pedagogical approaches, we have to cope with “emerging learning objects” created by learners and learning groups in partly unanticipated ways. This assumption gives rise to specific new challenges for the indexing and retrieval of such learning objects (or products). Automatic indexing derived from the task-tool context and similarity based search allow for an asynchronous exchange of learning objects within larger anonymous learning communities. In this sense, objects of common interest may trigger social processes in learning communities.