Contribution
Description: The growing field of open and distance learning on the university level goes hand in hand with a diversification of the origin of potential students. As a consequence we are witnessing a growing number of intercultural encounters online in educational contexts. These are particularly salient in situations of collaborative online interaction. This type of "virtual" interaction demands a particularly high level of conscious interaction between the participants as it attempts to replace the top-down teaching with a learner centered method. The nature of online intercultural exchanges of this kind is still relatively unknown as is the impact these technological and pedagogical systems have on the communication process itself.The development of open learning and training occurs through technological mediation of the learning experience. Individual and collective actions as well as pedagogical interactions take on either a ritualised, planified or spontaneous nature, depending on the tools at hand or those preferred. Multicultural online learning groups are a place of intercultural interactions of various kinds and varying reactions towards the techno-semiopragmatic system (Peraya) they take place in.In a case study of a multicultural diploma in a specific collaborative learning environment we are trying to evaluate the interference of cultural variables for computer mediated communication.
Methodology: Our methodological approach combines semiotics and conversational analysis.Given the relative absence of non-verbal communication in an online environment coupled with the physical and cultural distance of the participants, the effort to be made for sustaining rich interaction is relatively high. We need to take into account and study closely the techno-semiopragmatic environment (dispositif/device) itself to understand its interaction culture as it is prescribed by its initial conception.The specific corpus for our study focuses on the learning environment and applies semio-pragmatic analysis (Boutaud) to unravel the preconceived interaction framework. We also analyse a body of text, archives of synchronous chat interaction, interactions from group chat sessions in a style qualified by Jaillet as ecrale ("scritten" =Screen+written). Several independent variables are at play : nationality/origin, gender, cultural identity of the participants. The interaction analysis draws on models developed by Henri, Bales, Johnson, Jaillet and others. In this case the learners work together in a distance-learning environment specifically designed with a constructivist approach in mind, working on problem based learning in small groups. Semiotic postures and the resulting exchanges of the participants vary according to the communication mode and the presence of other learners/teachers.
Conclusions: A few interesting observations nourish our main hypotheses which lead to a number of questions:- The communicational profiles of interaction participants differ. A certain number of variables are potentially responsible for this diversity (age, gender, culture). First and foremost we aim to find out more about the importance of each variable.- The online learning environment in question is the result of action-research and thus represents specific characteristics based on the learning model promoted by the creators. This model - the underlying structure - is based on learning interaction as co-action.- A diversity of methods seems to be necessary to cover the dimensions of this case. These methods are to be found at the intersection of Educational Sciences with Information and Communication science. Activity theory and action theory play a non-negligible role in this type of analysis whose results seem to indicate the emergence of a communicational co-culture with time.PS : While reading the list of invited keynote speakers we are inclined to push our reflection one step further :An interesting discussion might arise when we place this study in the context of ECER 2006 keynote speaker Engeström's idea of co-configuration: The question is, as we are before a case of action-research, learners become teachers and sometimes researchers on the system and the system is continually studied and augmented, can we legitimately speak of a case of co-construction in Engeström's sense ?
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