Symposium 12: Information Society Studies in Practice - a Networked Learning Case Study: Experiences of Teachers in NETIS project

Abstract

Traditional centralised knowledge sharing in an eLearning environment with intensive communication and feedback tools lead to "traffic collapse". The solution can be a horizontal, networked communication between students, between specialists and students, and between institutions.

Participants in networked learning need information about the knowledge structure of each other. The problems are: in which way can we document and share the knowledge in the learning network? What kind of knowledge do we have? In which way can we register and document the prior learning experiment, the tacit knowledge? A possible solution can be the using of knowledge maps and e-portfolios as tools for knowledge sharing. The learning goals in form of sophisticated competence portfolios are helpful tools to manage the self organised learning process and the knowledge sharing in the learning network. The participants can check the competences on their own and steer the learning due to this self evaluation. To reach the given learning goals the course provided so called creative tasks for students.

The most difficult part of the project was to organise effective knowledge sharing between students and to involve other tutors and other student groups in a common learning environment.

The spread of new forms of learning also implies various potential conflicts. There are numerous signs that the new forms of informal network learning can only be fitted into the narrow, bureaucratically controlled framework of traditional institutions that are limited in time and resources, with great difficulty. The pedagogical debate concerning this issue often goes in the wrong direction, because the discussion is between two incompatible conceptual worlds. The linear model and the eLearning 2.0 are two different worlds with different logic and different ideas. An important question of the coming period will be that how the institutions of the official school system will accept this phenomenon. To what extent will the institutions integrate this new logic, and what types of conflicts, compromises and solutions will this process result in?