The symposium "eLearning, Communication and the Internet" offers a number of different European perspectives on learning and communicating using the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The first six contributions focus on the use of ICT in learning environments. The Nijmegen group (Ton Mooij, Ed Smeets & Diana Aarntzen) tries to cope with the complexities of the variety of learner aptitudes and learning situations. In the first contribution, Ton Mooij introduces a diagnostic and instructional management system (DIMS), an Internet-based software that was developed to help educators in handling curriculum, instructional, evaluational and organisational changes. They have developed software that is to help learners to develop and assess their self-regulation activities; at the same time, the software can be used by teachers and parents to support their children in these activities. The software also allows to evaluate the learners progress and compare them with their age-mates. The results of pilot projects will be reported that have been carried out at kindergarden, elementary and secondary school level. Nelleke van Wouwe and Jos Beishuizen from Leiden University report on a study which investigated the effects of learning style and degree of expertise on performing two different tasks, one in the area of expertise and another one in the area of interest in the experiment. Ss were IBM employees and their search activities in the Internet were recorded to provide for process modelling and the assessment of amount of learning. Bettina Pfleging from Cologne University presents an Internet-based eLearning environment for university students of art, history and classical archaeology. In all of these disciplines, images are of prime importance. The author demonstrates how an open source learning environment can be used to produce image- based learning material. Antonio Bartolomé from the Barcelona University reflects on the use of digital video in educational contexts. He believes that due to its use, changes have been taking place in audiovisual communication and in the research methodology that is being applied in the field of education. Roberto Carneiro from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa conducted a large-scale study on a sample of Portuguese organisations, both public and private.that, to investigate the impact of ICT on new training and learning particularly from the perspective of emerging bonds between organisational change and enhanced learning patterns. Empirical data were collected (a) by surveying a significant sample of HR managers and (b) by qualitative fact-finding visits and selected case-studies focusing on two innovative experiments with e-learning (a corporate initiative and also a government-led agency experiment). A second group of contributors focuses more on ICT-based communication. Hermann Rüppell from Cologne University suggests that Internet-based learning might take the form of a competitive game. The software he developed presents the learner with a number of problems and gives him feed- back on how he does with respect to his own prior performance as well as with respect to the other students participating in the competition. Karl Steffens, Anna More, Nina Rosinski & Maria Woltering from Cologne University have collected data on Internet use with students and regular Internet users. They were interested in the impact of Internet use on people's lives, how it is used to establish personal relationships and if it changes communicative behaviour. Jean Underwood and Taiichiro Okubayashi studied the effect of communicating via mobile phone text-messages on spelling; in particular they investigated effects on word and phrase reduction and on graphemic and phonemic substitution. The contributions to this proposal come from authors of six different universities from five European countries. Although not representative for European research in education, they do convey a good idea of different European perspectives on the use of the new Information and Communication Technologies in the field of education. Paper 1 Optimising pedagogical-didactic support in and around schools by ICT Ton Mooij, University of Nijmegen Research reveals characteristics of home environments, schools, and professional youth instances which may promote or hinder children's development or learning processes. How can ICT help to optimise the development and learning of children at risk in particular? Theoretical attention is given to a multilevel 'pedagogical-didactic kernel structure' which can be made concrete in coherent sets of 'instructional lines'. In these lines, development and learning activities are ordered according to developmental area, kind of activity or difficulty level, or both. Different kinds of indicators are used to measure learners' progress within this pedagogical-didactic architecture. The kernel structure thus allows an integrated, consistent diagnostic estimation and evaluation of a child's features and progress in individual, social, and age- related aspects. Methodologically, the focus is on a pilot project to design and realise the necessary pedagogical and educational changes in and around schools. Also, Internet-based software to assist the pedagogical, curriculum, instructional, evaluational, organisational, and management changes will be presented (see www.dims.nl). The software is developed by means of a user-based design. Results will be given by means of developmental and implementation experiences in different kinds of educational practice. It will be illustrated that practice and software developments will, in interaction, enable the development of diagnostic, instructional management systems (DIMS). Paper 2 Designing high-standard ICT learning arrangements for pupils in mainstream and inclusive settings, and highly able pupils Ton Mooij, Ed Smeets, & Diana Aarntzen, University of Nijmegen Instructing pupils in inclusive settings, but also educational provisions for highly able pupils, call for teachers using planning and instructional techniques that accommodate pupils to diversity in many respects. Collicott used an approach called 'multi-level instruction', emphasising that teachers should consider the overall goals of instruction, the concepts to be learned, the ways of presenting information to the pupils and the ways of determining achievement. ICT can play an important role in supporting these diverse actions in integrated ways. It may aid learners, teachers and parents to develop and check self-regulation for the learners. Also important is an integrated, consistent diagnostic estimation and evaluation of a learner's features and progress in individual, social, and age-related respects. Methodologically, we concentrate on two developmental pilot projects in educational practice. A first pilot occurs in kindergarten and elementary education, and a second pilot is taking place in secondary education. By means of structured and open-ended interviews with teachers and management, and by observing in the schools, the theoretical framework and the assumed multilevel processes and effects will be checked in a qualitative way. Furthermore, the functioning of the specially developed software application with learners and teachers will be in the focus. Paper 3 Searching in a hypermedia environment: effects of learning style and expertise Nelleke van Wouwe & Jos Beishuizen, Leiden University The new generation of learners uses the Internet as an important source of information. Learning by searching a hypermedia environment may be added to the taxonomy of learning behavior. Effects of learning style on learning outcomes in a hypermedia learning have been reported but the picture is far from clear. Expertise has not been related to learning style in hypermedia studies. In this study, learning style was assessed by administering Vermunt's Inventory of Learning Styles. A distinction was made between deep and surface processing styles and internal regulation versus external regulation of learning. Participants were 40 IBM employees, working in either the sales area or the computer science department. Participants received two assignments, one in their own area of expertise and one in the area of interest in this experiment. Based on Ellis and Haugan's model of searching in a hypermedia environment, a process model was developed to analyse on-line recorded search protocols. Pretests and posttests were administered to establish learning effects. Effects of learning style and expertise on both search strategies and learning outcomes will be reported. Moreover, implications for adapting hypermedia environments to learning style and expertise and implications for learning by searching in a hypermedia environment will be discussed. Paper 4 PROMETHEUS - E-Learning in Art History and Classical Archeology Bettina Pfleging, University of Cologne Teaching and learning in the academic disciplines of art, history and classical archeology traditionally rely on the image as the main medium of discourse. PROMETHEUS (The Distributed Digital Image Archive for Research and Academic Teaching), a cooperative university project financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, has set out to develop an Internet-based knowledge platform that brings together a whole range of distributed digital image archives. Based on this joined image archive and its media-specific potential PROMETHEUS will provide a variety of didactic units (for example: (1) topic fields like "Mural painting in ALTENSTADT", (2) trainer for terminology, (3) coach for description) to support academic teaching and learning, including distance learning with the open source learning environment ILIAS, developed at the university of Cologne. PROMETHEUS is considered one answer to the challenging developments in information technology. It seeks to offer an easy-to-use learning environment for academic teaching and learning that effectively uses the genuine properties of the Internet. PROMETHEUS may smooth part of the way in the on-going discussion of media change, its circumstances and effects, and it might open venues for the future. http://www.prometheus-bildarchiv.de http://www.ilias.uni-koeln.de/ios/ Paper 5 Digital Video. New possibilities in Education Antonio R. Bartolomé, Universitat de Barcelona During the last decade a strong movement in video technology has evolved through the digitalisation processes. Now it is time to consider if this basically technical process constitutes only a change in physical support, or if we are facing a new communication medium and, in this case, if it can contribute in new ways to education. Digital Video offers a wide range of possible applications, from the communication processes linked to "mass media" as digital TV to some new uses linked to individual-global communication through the Internet. When we focus our analysis on computer based video we find sufficient evidence for appreciable changes in audiovisual language construction: the screen proportions with new composition rules, the step from "Tertium Quid" to "Parallel dimension" in the audiovisual sentence construction, new perspectives on rhythm, continuity and progression, spectator interaction and media integration. As a consequence we propose a new direction in research on educational applications: Digital video provides for truly audiovisual communication and this is likely to increase its presence and relevance in e-learning processes which at the moment are mainly based on written texts and graphics. Another aspect is the important role of digital video recordings in educational research which allow for the application of the new audiovisual observation analysis and methodology. Paper 6 An Assessment of ICT Impacts on Organisational Innovation, Training and Learning Roberto Carneiro, Catholic University of Portugal The proposed presentation will bring forth the results of a seminal study that was conducted on a sample of Portuguese organisations, both public and private. The impact of ICT on new training and learning strategies was reviewed particularly from the perspective of emerging bonds between organisational change and enhanced learning patterns. Empirical data was originated (a) by surveying a significant sample of HR managers and (b) by qualitative fact-finding visits and selected case-studies focusing on two innovative experiments with e-learning (a corporate initiative and also a government-led agency experiment). The presentation will describe some of the most relevant findings concerning the Portuguese landscape such as ICT- enhanced learning solutions under adoption in the corporate and institutional worlds, best practices and pilot experiments in this field and market failures and opportunities for public policies. The presentation will provide a concrete framework of e-competencies that underpin organisational change and new learning strategies. Also, it will advance a complete list of indicators designed to monitor and assess progress in e- learning and new learning, in the framework of a projected Observatory that is being proposed in Portugal. Paper 7 Motivating Through Competition in the Internet Hermann Rüppell, University of Cologne There are various approaches to using the motivating power of competition for learning. One of theses approaches is TEAMS-GAMES-TOURNAMENTS. This approach was applied successfully in American schools. Like in many sport-games the class is divided in teams which compete at different levels with other classes or other schools. However, most of the approaches to use competition for learning were hard to implement. Today the Internet offers a new attractive opportunity for learning through competition. We developed a software and organisational structure for direct competition in the Internet for pupils and students from different schools and universities. The first step is the preparation phase where the learner can train and prepare himself with tasks and problems which are similar to ones used in the competition. The second step is the game-like competition. Different tasks and problems are presented, and most of them have to be done within a narrow time limit. Immediately after each problem, the learner's score is plotted on a normal curve. He can see how many students are better and how many are worse. He can also see how his position on the curve is changing during the competition. We expect that many students will take part in these competitions in order to get a feedback on their achievements and competencies. Pilot studies show that they are highly motivated to engage in sportsmen-like- competitions like this. Paper 8 Internet Communication: an Explorative Study Karl Steffens, Anna Morre, Nina Rosinski & Maria Woltering, University of Cologne Although the use of the Internet is often discussed with respect to activities of learning or information seeking, there are a number of other activities that people engage in when using the Internet. People also use the Internet for online shopping, online banking and online booking. But they also use it for private communicative purposes like exchanging e-mails, chatting or taking part in an exchange of opinions via a forum. The present study aims at finding out exactly for what purposes people use the Internet and to what extent the Internet has become a part of people's lives. It then focuses on private Internet communication and its importance for getting to know people. It was also of interest to us whether relationships that began on the Internet continued in real life. Since using the Internet for communication is still, despite the advances in audio-visual communication, a text-based procedure, we finally wanted to find out how much effort is made to introduce non-verbal aspects into the text-based communication. The study was done using a questionnaire with students of educational psychology and with regular Internet users. The students were given a paper-and-pencil version, while the Internet users filled in a web-based version. Paper 9 Communicating by Text Messages: A Return to Flexible Spelling? Jean Underwood and Taiichiro Okubayashi, Nottingham Trent University In 2001, the NOP Research Group found that 48% of children aged 7-16 owned a mobile phone and that on average they sent 2.5 text messages per day. In England, doubts have been expressed by both academics and teachers about the quality of English used when sending such messages as they tend to be in an abbreviated form of English. After years of standardised spelling, flexible spelling in the form of texting is on the increase. What is the impact of such messaging on the use of language, and in particular on the development of orthography? This study is an investigation of the language of text messaging of two groups of participants - Japanese students living in a Japan (JJs) and English in England (EEs). Both societies are highly technical but have languages with different orthographies, syntax and semantics. Despite these differences we questioned whether the technology had promoted similar developments in the two languages? Thirty students, in each of the three groups, were asked to translate into text messages a set of standardised phrases presented in their mother tongue. We measured the degree of word or phrase reduction in the two languages and the type of reduction including phrase truncation; and graphemic and phonemic substitution and truncation.