Session Information
16 SES 01 B, Self-Regulated and Collaborative Learning
Paper Session
Contribution
The paper focuses on the question of how to build a blended language learning environment and how to enhance collaboration through mobile devices.
E-learning has become a means to overcoming obstacles in learning, created, for example, by long distances and classroom walls. Especially here in sparsely populated Northern Finland, the opportunities provided by the use of e-learning are important. Today’s Internet connections enable Web-based learning in the major parts of Lapland, and by 2015, broadband will reach even the remotest villages up North. Therefore, it is important to research the possibilities to a build collaborative, learner-centered, versatile network environment for primary school-aged pupils. The resulting model will facilitate distance learning to extend education to rural, sparsely populated areas. This will promote regional equality and prevent exclusion. Pupils’ age may be a challenge; pupils from 11 until 12 are not able or allowed to work on the net independently. Consequently, asynchronous, independently taken Web-based courses are not for primary school-aged pupils. The target was to build a blended learning environment that is suitable for primary school pupils and that will enable different classroom structures and practices.
According to the structural approach—for example, Kagan and Kagan (Sahlberg & Sharan 2002, edit.)—classroom structures are chains of varying interactions between pupils and a teacher. Languages are learned explicitly in the interaction, so every part of the chain of interactions that is missing or is not possible to put into practice undermines the learning possibilities. This is noteworthy, especially when the pupils are physically located in different schools. It is important to find the ways and means to maintaining interaction and collaboration in a network environment.
Therefore, the primary purpose of my research is to develop an optional, versatile e-learning environment for language learning in Primary School Education, which takes into account interaction and as many classroom structures and elements as possible. An additional purpose of this research is to examine how to enhance collaboration through various mobile devices and social media.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Harris, J. February 1995. Mining the Internet. In The Computing Teacher, 22 (5), 66-69. Available at http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/Mining/February95-TCT.html. Kumpulainen, K. 2007. (Ed.). Educational Technology: Opportunities and Challenges. Acta universitatis ouluensis, E Scientiae Rerum Socialum 87 . E 87 Oulu 2007. Kynäslahti, H. & Seppälä, P. (2003) Mobile Learning. Finland: IT Press Pulkkinen J. 2007 . Teoksessa Educational Technology: Opportunities and Challenges. Acta universitatis ouluensis, E Scientiae Rerum Socialum 87 . E 87 Oulu 2007.
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