EIAH, le mots de la recherche (suite)

Ainsi que je l'ai annoncé dans un billet précédent, le 13 octobre, dans le cadre du projet EducMap (PEPS CNRS), Luc Trouche et Olivier Rey ont organisé à l'IFé (ENS de Lyon) le second séminaire "pour une cartographie dynamique des recherches en éducation". J'ai présenté le méta-projet TEL Thesaurus, ses objectifs, sa structure et son état actuel. Je ne sais si cela aura une suite, mais la qualité des échanges de cette journée laisse quelques espoirs.
Par ailleurs, la récente labellisation par l'ANR du projet de réseau de recherche Orphée offre de bonnes perspectives d'avancer significativement la constitution du thésaurus et du dictionnaire des termes de la recherche en EIAH (en anglais, lire TEL voire EdTech).
Je compte que la discussion s'engage rapidement et que des chercheurs intéressés se manifestent pour contribuer à cet effort.

 

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EIAH, les mots de la recherche

Le 13 octobre 2014, dans le cadre du projet EducMap (PEPS CNRS), Luc Trouche et Olivier Rey organisent à l'IFé (ENS de Lyon) le second séminaire "pour une cartographie dynamique des recherches en éducation". Je présenterai à cette occasion le méta-projet TEL Thesaurus, notamment pour la partie concernant les termes et expressions de la recherche en EIAH ; les lignes ci-dessous en résume les objectifs :

La recherche sur les EIAH couvre un large champ de problèmes en étroite interaction depuis la conception jusqu’au déploiement. De nombreuses disciplines sont impliquées. Leur diversité entraine celle des discours et des pratiques scientifiques en particulier lorsque sont soulevées les questions sur la nature des résultats, leur validité et leur légitimité. Les malentendus sont nombreux et les approximations courantes. L’entente est souvent locale et provisoire, à l’occasion d’un projet ou d’un congrès, et rend difficile la constitution d'un corps de connaissances stable. Pour dépasser cette difficulté, nous avons choisi une approche pragmatique en partant des mots du discours pour en faire l’inventaire et poser la question de leurs définitions. Il ne s’agit pas d'imposer une vision unique, mais d'explorer la richesse lexicale du domaine et d’établir, par ce moyen, des relations entre disciplines et traditions scientifiques. Ce dernier point est particulièrement important. S’il est vrai que la recherche sur les EIAH est internationale et que son vocabulaire est le plus souvent forgé par la sphère anglo-saxonne, il n’en reste pas moins que la plupart des chercheurs travaillent d'abord dans la langue de leur institution et pensent encore -- pour beaucoup d’entre eux -- dans leur langue maternelle. La question de la traduction ou de l’interprétation des termes se pose et peut faire apparaître plus que des nuances.

La construction d’un thésaurus de la recherche sur les EIAH a donc été engagée pour répondre au double besoin de consolider la communication entre chercheurs de différentes disciplines et locuteurs des diverses langues. Je présenterai au cours du séminaire la procédure adoptée pour constituer le thésaurus, le dictionnaire et la stratégie éditoriale. La conclusion évoquera les leçons que l'on peut retenir, et proposera des perspectives de développement du projet.

The Arabic translation of the terms and expressions of the TEL Dictionary has been released

The Arabic translation of the entries of the TEL Dictionary has required a considerable effort which demonstrates once more that questioning the Technology Enhanced Learning vocabulary from a multiple perspective is needed. This time five expressions have not found a satisfactory translation: Constructionism, Pedagogical agent, Virtual pedagogical agent, Animated pedagogical agent and Programmable course. The case of "constructionism" is not a surprise, it is in fact in all languages not translated but transliterated. For the next three cases, it is the term "agent" which is resisting. In my opinion,  the last case should find a solution soon. Suggestions and contributions are welcome, for this purpose LinkedIn members are invited to join the LinkedIn "TEL dictionary initiative" group.

The terms documented by the TEL Dictionary are now available in...
English  • العربية • Български • Dansk • Español • Ελληνικά • Eesti • Français • Magyar • Italiano • 日本語 • 한국어 • Nederlands • Português • Русский • Slovenčina • Türkçe • Tiếng Việt • ‪中文(繁體)‬ • ‪中文(简体)‬

Experiential learning, the new entry of the TEL Dictionary

What does exactly mean "experiential learning"? Is it learning serendipitously from an eventful life or is it learning from empirically from experiences one managed for you or that you managed yourself? How far is this concept from "inquiry learning" or "exploratory learning"?

The documented definitions of Experiential learning prepared by Vyara Dimitrova and Paul Kirschner for the TEL Dictionary clarify these issues and are excellent basis for further discussion.

One more question: would "experiential learning" from an educational perspective be a concept enhancing our tool box to understand the theoretical tensions between informal and formal learning?

Learning analytics versus Data mining, questioning definitions

In this communication presented at LAK2013 (Leuven), Kris Lund and myself considered an analysis of the TeLearn archive, of the Grand Challenges from the STELLAR Network of Excellence, of two Alpine Rendez-Vous 2011 workshops and research conducted in the Productive Multivocality initiative in order to discuss the notions of multidisciplinarity, multivocality and interidisciplinarity. We used this discussion as a springboard for addressing the term “Learning Analytics” and its relation to “Educational Data Mining”. Our goal is to launch a debate pertaining to what extent the different disciplines involved in the TEL community can be integrated on methodological and theoretical levels.

You may want to read the [full paper] available on the TeLearn Open Archive.

The Korean version of the TEL Dictionary entries list now available

The Korean version of the TEL Dictionary entries is now available, prepared by Hyo-Jeong So from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Hyungshin Choi from the Chuncheon National University of Education in Korea.  A part from a now classical difficulty with "computational mathetic" (a term coined by John Self, which in my opinion we don't enough pay attention to -- I will come back on this) and "didactical engineering" which is burrowed from research in mathematic education, this translation was successful in translating all the terms. I am not familiar with Korean, but may be some of you are. You may want to have a look and comment.

"e-assessment", a new entry of the TEL Dictionary

Assessment is one of the key functions of a learning environment, be it formative or summative. I would even claim that implicitly or explicitly, consciously or not, it drives its design. The definition of e-assessment prepared by Valerie Shute and Yoon Jeon Kim for the TEL Dictionary reminds us the expectation that technology enhanced assessment would be more efficient than assessment, thanks to the power of the computer. I suggest to add: thanks to the possibility of getting more personalised and accurate information on the learner activity.

As a matter of fact, e-assessment, from a research perspective, might not be far from learner modelling, a term which is not mentioned as one of the related terms Valerie and Yoon enumerate. In your opinion, what ontological or semantic relation can be established between "e-assessment" and "learner modelling"?

The Russian version of the TEL Dictionary entries is now available

The Russian translation of the TEL Dictionary entries, prepared by Diana Bogdanova (Moscow State Railway's University), met some of the now classical problems of this very difficult exercise in spite of the excellent expertise of the translator. Some are solved in a way which preserves enough of the intended meaning, for example the translation of "Inquiry learning" into "Исследовательское обучение". But other are possibly more questionable, for example, the translation of "Educational affordance" into "Образовательная достижимость". As in all the other cases, this first release is tentative, we leave to the community of the Russian speakers to survey the proposal and make suggestions.

"Adaptive learning environment", a new entry of the TEL Dictionary

Marcus Specht at the Mobile Learning Day (2009)

"Adaptive learning environment" is one of the challenges in TEL research, from the very beginning since indeed every one wanted learning environments to be as adapted as possible to... to what? To the learner style and state of knowing, first, but also to the content and the teaching objectives. It means that adaptation is a concern which is present in all aspects and all questions in the TEL research area.

Still, to define "adaptivity" is not too much of a challenge, but exploring carefully this concept in the case of TEL research raises issues which may turn into research challenges. It is the way I understand Marcus Specht, when in the definition he wrote for the TEL Dictionary he refers to "the convergence or possible conflicts between disciplines involved in research on adaptivity".

The learner is a user to who a learning environment must adapt and resist… It must resist when an evolution is necessary for the learning process, but adapt when it facilitates it. This suggests that the concept of adaptivity has to be shaped more accuratly to be useful for the design of TEL environments. Differentiations must be introduced in the models and frameworks, and reflected by the discourse on adaptive learning environments, depending on the fact that the driver of adaptation is the learning process, the learner (as a person), the content or the teacher.

By the way, is there a difference between "adaptivity" and "personalisation" of learning environments?

The TEL Dictionary initiative at the MEI spring school

Jointly held with the first Medical Education Informatics (MEI2012) conference, the Medical Education Content Sharing Technologies Spring School included in its programme a presentation of the TEL Dictionary initiative. The following slide-show introduced the project, then participants were invited to react and comment (see the report here).

Questions from the MEI2012 Spring school about the TEL Dictionary initiative

About 20 PhDs and senior researchers from different disciplines participed in the TEL Dictionary session of the Medical Education Content Sharing Technologies Spring School held  Thessaloniki on April 5th. After a short presentation of the TEL dictionary initiative, participants were invited to scan the current lists of terms and expressions included in the TEL Thesaurus, in order to make remarks and suggestions and express their own priority. Here are the results and some comments.

Participants express their wish to see in the list terms and expressions from disciplines which provide TEL research with important concepts. Here they are: Connectionism, Connectivism, Case based learning, Community of practice, Active learning, Interactive learning, Worked examples, Digital literacy. They are from the learning science. Only one term from computer science was suggested: Intelligent agents. What may be emphasized is that there are no terms specific to TEL research, but terms pointing to concepts and theories from education and psychology that researchers need. So here is the needed extension for the next release of the thesaurus.

Four expressions from the thesaurus were pointed as deserving priority: Distributed learning, Game-based learning, Ubiquitous learning, Collaborative learning. This corresponds well to one of the prominent stream of communication of the MEI 2012 conference: internet as the place were to content is shared and learning communities are emerging.

Then, three questions:

Why is "constructionism" in the thesaurus and not "constructivism"?
Both terms are used as keywords to tag paper in the TeLearn open archive, hence both could have been in the first version of the thesaurus. However, "constructivism" is one of the big concepts in psychology,  for which it is rather easy to find well documented definitions. Since the strategy is to develop the thesaurus in an incremental way, this term has not been included at the first stage. "Constructionism" is a term which has been coined by S. Papert as a response within the Logo framework to the limitation found in referring only to "Constructivism" (one of the foundational reference of Logo). This is then a term specifically introduced in TEL research, and hence we took it (see the definition prepared by Richard Noss).

Why is "Virtual campus" in the thesaurus? It seems to be a direct translation of a French expression (campus virtuel) and not a genuine English keyword.  
It is right that "campus virtuel" is a keyword in the French TEL research area. However, "virtual campus" is an entry of wikipedia where it is defined as "the online offerings of a college or university where college work is completed either partially or wholly online, often with the assistance of the teacher, professor, or teaching assistant." A quick look at Scholar shows that this expression is rather popular internationally and for quite a long while. As suggested by the participant, there is also the expression "Digital campus", which looks rather close and possibly more English. But may be we have to be cautious with such feelings and to take the time to come back to the literature to check the claim against evidences. 

One should notice that "teaching" is not in the thesaurus, why?
To some extend we can consider as a curious fact that the word "teaching" is not present. There is the word "tutor", what suggest that teaching is not completely foreign to the TEL research area, as it were. But it is right that the word is not in the set of keywords from which we started -- those of TeLearn repository and also a questionnaire to the community. One reason may be that the focus on learning and the learned tended to push aside teaching if not the teacher. And this is reflected in the keywords chosen by researchers, even if they use the word in their writings. Another reason  may be that in English there is some "teaching" in the meaning of learning (as it is the case in French where you can say "les élèves apprennent l'anglais", but also "j'apprends l'anglais à mes élèves"...

A conversation on "debriefing", a key stage in the use of learning games

Based on a post on the SOA Science corner blog , originally published on Tuesday 23rd, February 2010 (18:58)

What may be the differences between games and simulations? A paper by Sara de Freitas and Martin Oliver [*] suggests that there is not much, and hence that it is quite natural that many of the learning issues that are relevant for simulations are also relevant for games. If there is one difference to mention, it comes mainly from the entertainment characteristic which is attached to games, and it is exactly this dimension which makes both of them appealing to education and difficult to use. This difficulty rests in the fact that "in educational contexts, there is a need not only to enter the 'other world' of the game or simulation, but also to be critical about that process in order to support reflective processes of learning as distinct from mere immersion in a virtual space" (p.255). The authors notice that the apparent mismatch between the game and the curriculum may be due to “the omission of a clear debriefing session” (p.260). Then, the key question of evaluation: what should be the characteristics of a game (more generally a simulation), so that the debriefing is made possible? This implies that we can tell what the game-simulation is vis-à-vis the knowledge at stake (i.e. the expected learning outcome). This dimension of the analysis which is, in my opinion a prerequisite, is not considered in the paper. Should we add it as a fifth dimension to the four already proposed (context, learner, internal representational world, processes of learning)? Or is it subsumed in a way that I didn’t catch in my reading?

Martin Oliver responded (February the 26th 2010) that...

Sara de Freitas is certainly interested in the kinds of games that resemble simulations - she likes to use the portmanteau "gamesim" to denote this category.

Personally, I think that attempting to draw clear definitions that distinguish games from simulations would be problematic - my opinion is that what makes them useful or not is how they get used. A game can be treated as a simulation, and a simulation can be played with; it's a matter of convention which side of the definitional line they are placed on.

The discussion in relation to the "other world" experience of the game reflects that Higher Education (rather than, say, training) values the ability to reflect upon and critique experience, not just improve it. (Obviously that's a value statement, and not universal, but I'd refer people to Ron Barnett's work for a more general discussion of this kind of issue.)

The debriefing session is an example of a pedagogic technique intended to help bridge differences between play and curriculum performance - in some ways, this could be understood as just one more example of the classic problem of learning transfer. What is learnt from play is unlikely, in itself, to map neatly onto the goals of the curriculum; the debriefing simply recognises that a process of reinterpretation or renegotiation may be necessary. I don't think that "debriefing" describes a well-defined pedagogic interaction - more a class of conventions about asking people to make sense of the experience they have just had. To this extent, all that's required of a game (or simulation) is that people have an experience to reflect upon. We haven't tried to engage with what makes some debriefings better than others; this is, I'm sure, a fruitful area to consider but it's not one we looked at. Matching the game design to that debriefing is then an obvious and sensible approach - but again, it was outside the scope of this particular paper (which focused on evaluation rather than design).

And the conversation continued (Nicolas Balacheff, March the 1st, 2010)

"Debriefing" is a concept worth to be discussed a bit further. In order to explain why I think this way, I will start from the idea that inviting students or trainees to play a game is always (I use this word on purpose), a teaching/training-learning context, with an agenda in mind. This agenda may be hidden to the learners, but it is a key reason why to choose a game and invite them to play it. This agenda can be described in terms of learning outcomes (from a piece of knowledge to a specific behaviour -- possibly at a meta level like in problem solving or socialisation). Even if the game is successful it is unlikely, because of the richness of the game-play and the short time given for the genesis of whatever mental construct, that the learners will realize what was important, new, worth to be made explicit, put in a certain form and kept for further use. It is even more difficult to imagine that they will be able to relate any interesting outcome to knowledge socially or culturally shared by the community they will join after this teaching/training-learning period. So, from an educational perspective, debriefing is critical. Within the frame of the theory of didactical situations this phase is called "institutionalization". Indeed, this is even stronger than "debriefing", it means that the teacher-trainer has a special voice and responsibility in acknowledging the learning outcome and the value of a learning game.

A note after the redeading of: de Freitas, Sara and Oliver, Martin (2006). How can exploratory learning with games and simulations within the curriculum be most effectively evaluated? Computers and Education 46 (3) 249-264. 

Moving research on learning games forward

Retrieved from Nicolas Balacheff (2010) comments on papers available on the SOA scientific portal

Among the text I have recently read about learning games, "Moving learning games forward. obstacles, opportunities and openess" (Klopfer E., Osterweil S., Salen K. 2009) is in my opinion the most comprehensive, insightful and likely to provide a good basis for beginners in this research area.

First it synthesizes efficiently the common views of learning games and of the relations between games and schools, without caricaturing the situation. Second it considers in a contrasted and balanced way digital games and learning games from an economical and a functional perspective (what they are for). Third the paper survey ideas and principles about the design and use of learning games, covering most of the aspects be they technological or cognitive, educational or institutional.

One the one hand, some claim that games are so efficient to favour and enhance creativity and learning that the value of school is questionable, they even may not hesitate to abandon schools. Others consider that games are not relevant or manageable in school context and hence tend to exclude their use. The authors, considering the arguments, argue that there is room for the use of games, and that this use can enhance learning, provided that certain conditions are fulfilled. A first condition is that the school context does not kill the basic characteristic of game-play which is "freedom", while drawing attention to the fact that a game is based on a structured set of rules with "win" states criteria (so "freedom" must not be read in a naive way). The game structure guarantees "fairness by being applied transparently and equitably to all players" (p.5); a point which is important because it allows ending a game not depending on an (apparently) arbitrary decisions of a teacher. In other words, if a game is ruled by some knowledge, then it is this knowledge which will serve to end the game. A principle which is at the core of the theory of didactical situations (*); later in the paper this takes the form of principle: find the game in the content.

After a discussion of commercial games, the authors conclude that "learning games can also be fun and have mass market appeal" (p.9) and suggest that they have not to mimic the high-tech look and feel of video games. One must leave common sense ideas about what a game should be (e.g. game=virtual world) and understand the fundamental characteristics which may make them relevant for learning: "feedback, structure, goals or path to progress" (p.14). Eventually, they propose criteria to characterise learning games: "they target the acquisition of knowledge as its own end and foster habits and understanding that are generally useful within an academic context." (p.21). A puzzling thing here, is that they make a difference between learning games and training games, and seems to associate tightly school and academia. A position which can be understood if "training" is viewed in a very limited way, and vocational studies is marginalized -- what would be a mistake.

Eventually: "what is the magical recipe for a good educational game?" (p.27). Luckily, the authors dare to ask such a question but do not respond by a recipe, but rather by a set of principles and tips (some) borrowed from Castranova (quoted by Baker 2008): "making a game out of learning will most certainly not be the way to approach the development of learning games. However, "finding the fun in that learning" and devising ways to focus on and enhance that fun as a core game dynamic is a good strategy", and "go to the right tech". Then 14 principles of design are listed. A list not homogeneous, addressing different levels and layers. I would retain only a few of these:

"4. Put learning and game play first" (p.31) adding this warning: "There may be some fixed set of constraints on both the technology and learning goals that are unchangeable--and of course, sometimes the combination just won't work";

"5. Find the game in the content", including the quite strong claim that "in any academic discipline, there are elements that are fundamentally game-like", moreover adding that "an educational game should put players in touch with what is fundamentally engaging about the subject matter" (p.28). Such statement converge in a very interesting way with the Brousseau's claims about the game of knowledge when in the 70's he coined the theory of didactical situations (**). Including the refutation of the idea that "games single-handly teach the subject matter". I would add that learning games need a well designed didactical framework (including the teacher).

"11. Define the learning goals" (p.36), this seems to be common sense but I agree with the authors that there is a common view that learning in a game context will happen naturally and be of value. But if we ask "what are kids supposed to be learning?", then the role and outcome of the game is anything but obvious.

To conclude this reading note, let me emphasise this call: "it is imperative that researchers and developers more clearly define their learning goals and corresponding assessment tools be developed and shared openly" (p.37). Definitely this paper is more than a survey, it is a research programme and could be now read as such. Many of the statements hide difficult questions, the game now could be to discover them, state them and propose a research strategy to address them.

Exploratory learning versus Inquiry learning, where is the difference?

You may have recently received the call for the ITS 2012 workshop on "Intelligent support for exploratory environments: exploring, collaborating and learning together" which central object is the designed implementation and use of Exploratory Learning Environments (ELEs).

An occasion to ask whether there is a significant difference between Exploratory learning and Inquiry learning. Both terms are used, do they share meaning or is there a nuance I miss?

Learning aware environments

Retrieved from Nicolas Balacheff (2006) e-Agenda European Forum, Casteldefeld

Once upon a time (Eden research workshop, Casteldefeld 2006), I was asked the question: “Can we introduce learning in every human activity”? From a non-English speaking perspective this question may sound strange. Isn’t it the case that learning is present every where and at every moment in our life?  This is a matter of survival. Learning is a competence shared by all living organism. Learning is life long. It starts with our first breath and continues with it until the very last second. However there is something specific to human beings, which is that not only do they learn to survive in their biosphere, but also they have to learn to survive in a noosphere that humanity is continuously building, renewing, transforming. The noosphere is made tangible by human artefacts, but essentially by language. Learning in the noosphere is so complex that specific strategies have been developed to support it, namely teaching (or education, instruction, training, coaching, etc.).

Designing environments likely to stimulate and support learning outside formal education and training experience—or situations mimicking these—was in most cases out of reach until the emergence of the digital technology which bridges the biosphere, where our bodies and activities are developing, and the noosphere where minds and intellectual constructs are developing. While language and the related symbolic technology (writing and reading) were the privileged tools to support learning, digital technologies go beyond by producing highly interactive simulations and virtual worlds. But more significant is the development of augmented reality, the systematic embedding of sensors and system on ship in all artefacts which open the possibility of a “merge” of both spheres. Here is the challenge of ambient computing.

Just as the rest of our environment, modern digital technology cannot support learning if they have not been designed on purpose by incorporating teaching (coaching, instructing, scaffolding, or else) features. This is the challenge of designing, implementing and understanding learning aware environments. That is environments which have the capacity to recognize and capture relevant events from observing the human activity, the ability to understand the learning needs and then to provide the adequate feedback in whatever form. This is a scientific and technology challenge for ambient computing and research on cognitive systems. This is also a political challenge because the full development of learning aware environment will not be possible without addressing ethical (protecting the individuals and the communities) and economical problems (accepting that knowing is a universal right).

Teaching, an emergent property of learning environments (2)

Retrieved from Nicolas Balacheff (1999) notes for the EU/US conference, Stuttgart

One of the main characteristics of complex knowledge is on one hand that to master it requires to master several different pieces of knowledge organised in the form of a system, and on the other hand that its use depends on methods which are not mere algorithms. Such knowledge cannot be constructed spontaneously even when the learner is provided an adequate problem-situation, an in some cases such situations are still unknown (e.g. linear algebra). As a result complex knowledge requires specific learning environments and content specific teaching strategies.
The complexity of such knowledge also comes from the fact that the corresponding conceptions, i.e. cognitive constructs, can be very different the one from the other and rather complex to understand and to model. The current research on students' understanding of the concept of "function" in mathematics or of the concept of "energy" in physics witnesses it. The development of technological tools to use these knowledge (formal computation, simulation, etc.) increases the difficulty by modifying within a kind of systemic loop the nature of the users conceptions.
One cannot expect one universal agent to be able to handle the complexity supporting the learning process in the case of complex knowledge. On the contrary, there is a need for specialised agents, either artificial or human, able to cooperate and to coordinate their actions in order to provide the best support to the learner.

The development in Grenoble of the project TéléCabri, within the "Computational Environment and Human Learning Group" (EIAH) of the Leibniz Laboratory, allows us to get an insight of this complexity at different levels:

• At the epistemological and educational level, e.g. all the problems of learning in an environment which associates the best technology, like the microworld Cabri-geometry, and the classical means (books, notebook, etc.), as well as the teaching problems raised by the cooperation of teachers through the technology but also with the technology, with a full distribution of learners, teachers and resources within space and time.
• At the technological level, e.g. the problems of ensuring that the platform which associates different types of machines, visiocommunication, TCP/IP and H320 protocols, access from the TéléCabri site as well as from students or teachers places. At this level the institution has to realise that education may quickly need not only buildings, teachers and administration staff but also engineers.

A platform like that of TéléCabri is structured by several different axis of interaction and cooperation: between teachers and artificial agents, between human teachers with the mediation of the technology, but also between learners mediated by the technology. Indeed we must add the interactions between learners and teachers either in an asynchronous mode or in telepresence, and between learners and the learning environment. Learning does not occur because of one specific type of interaction, but because of the availability of all of them depending of the needs at the time when the interaction is looked for.

It is rather clear that the solution to the problems one meets on such a platform cannot be solved by one super-ITS being implemented on a learner super-machine. It is also clear that the availability of human teachers is crucial either because of the limits of the technology or because of the needs of students for a human presence. Then, the learning environment should be constituted by lot of resources, content specific as well as conception specific (taking into account the variety of learners possible conceptualisations); the teaching power of the whole system will not the property of one of its components but the emergent property of the interactions of all the agents involved either artificial or human, learners or teachers. May be it is just rediscovering that education has never been the result of the action of one isolated tutor but of the Society at large...

Cuban wrote in 1987: "[Teachers] will either resist or be indifferent to changes that they see irrelevant to their practice, that increase their burdens without adding benefit to their student learning, or that weaken their control of the classroom" (p.71). After more than a decade focussing on the learner, we could rephrase this quotation to emphasise the need for more investigations on what could be the conditions for the educational efficiency of learning environments from the point of view of general education or training as well.

Up to now, most of the basic or applied research, have been carried out in classical environments (schools or training centres). This has strong limits since it is not true that teachers and learners can involve in a radical way the new technology.The TéléCabri project is an attempt to do so, targeting students being not being able to join the classical schools (they are cured at home or in an hospital). By the way, this platform developed in the Grenoble Academic Hospital is an excellent example of a EU-USA collaboration (it is the product of a joint effort from the EIAH group, Hewlett-Packard and PictureTel).

A step further would be to set up an Educational Technology Centre (like those suggested by the "President's information technology advisory committee" to President Clinton—august 1998), this would be a very expensive and complex initiative which would surely benefit from an international synergy, putting together the best of education and technology from EU and USA.

Teaching, an emergent property of learning environments (1)

Retrieved from Nicolas Balacheff (1999) notes for the EU/US conference, Stuttgart

The trend of research in educational technology, during the last decade, has been to focus on learners and learning. The evolution of the ideas could be sketched in the following way : the initial paradigm was to design Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) as autonomous machines with strong instructional functionalities and some sort of modelling of learners' needs and cognitive characteristics, a second paradigm has been the development of learning environments (eg microworlds) opening to the learner a real space for the exploration and the construction of knowledge. The former has not led to clear success, the later has evidenced serious difficulties (well documented by the Logo literature) and the need to complement the environment by teachers input and guidance. The lesson then, is that if teaching reduced to instruction is not the more successful avenue, the absence of teaching features in a learning environment does not guaranty either the quality of the learning output.

What are the lessons ? Clearly the need to search for a new paradigm which could ensure a better equilibrium between learning and teaching, between human and machines. The common interest of Europe and the US, either in general education or professional training (lifelong learning), to overcome educational difficulties especially in science, mathematics and language learning, together with their common recognition of the potentialities of educational technology, should lead to a fruitful synergy in this area.

The reasons why the learner, either a child or an adult, needs "teaching inputs" are very often hidden as a result of the strength of the emphasis on the constructivist principles of design of learning environments. These needs are especially important with modern environments which are largely distributed and provide a potential access to a huge range of knowledge and information. These reasons could be sketched by the following questions which acknowledge that the learner has in general a low level of control on the events which are on the edge of the learning process in which he or she is involved—unlike the expert problem-solver:

"How to look for something you don't know? "
"How to know that you have found what you looked for? "
"How to know that you have learned?"

A last question raises a crucial question related to the fact that in many cases learning is related to a willing to get the adequate qualification with respect to a given competence or activity. Indeed, the issue of certification must be considered together with the design of a learning environment, since…

"How will others know that you know?"

These issues, which call for the involvement of teaching (agents) in the learning environment, are even more essential in the case of complex knowledge (as opposed to basic skills).

Education, éducation and bildung... far out of reach

Retrieved from the TEL opinion blog, January the 4th, 2007  

"Science Education” or “Mathematics education” are not expressions easy to translate in French; we would prefer to speak of “apprentissage des sciences” ou “apprentissage des mathématiques”, or alternatively of “enseignement des sciences” or “enseignement des mathématiques” but we have the “éducation physique” which has recently been renamed “Activités physiques et sportives” (APS) after the emergence of the “Sciences et technologies des activités physiques et sportives” (STAPS) as an academic domain. Still we have the “éducation civique” which aims at educating the learner as a citizen, with as an alternative the “instruction civique” which seems more like teaching than educating. This quick sketch of the linguistic context in which we have to communicate, demonstrate that the word “education” is a difficult one, which seems not to translate well in English when we compare the French use of the word with the English use which seems to be a bit larger.

I suspect that the same happens with the German word “bildung”—a word even more complex than “éducation” if one considers the 10 pages it deserves in the “Vocabulaire Européen des philosophies”. I will not here try to summarize the “bildung” section of this dictionnary, but just notice that its connotation is much closer to culture and civilisation, although indeed it is far from being a synonymous of any of them. The distance between “bildung” and “das lernen” or “das unterrichten” appears to be larger than between “education”, “learning” and “teaching” .Indeed, this raises a serious question when translating “Artificial Intelligence and Education” and using AI-ED as a key word in our domain. Not to mention all the key words using the word “education” or one of its versions.

However, John Self acknowledges a difficulty of the same nature, when writing that:

“If a field is to call itself ‘AI in Education’, then it seems necessary for it to say what it considers ‘education’ to be. However, despite its name, AI-ED has never been concerned with education in its broad sense but only with the specific issue of learning. We may believe that the whole purpose of education is to promote learning but in reality the process of education includes many activities only indirectly related to learning, as any textbook or conference on ‘education’ will confirm. 

The term ‘education’ is generally taken to mean ‘formal education’, that is ‘paid-for education’, rather than the ‘informal education’ we receive for free from our culture’. There is a nostalgic preference for the latter, with the former being considered to stunt individual learning capabilities. These polemic views will not be our concern. We will be concerned only with the nature and effectiveness of the learning processes.” (Self 1995, p.6)

The best decision may well be to avoid “education” as a key word, or part of a key word in our metadata. Indeed with one exception: AIED… 

Self J. (1995) Computational mathetics: towards a science of learning system design . November 1995 draft version (available online at that time, sometimes refered to as Technical Report 96/23, Computer Based Learning Unit, University Leeds) Cassin B. (ed.) (2004) Vocabulaire Européen des philosophies . Paris: Seuil & Le Robert

Learning, not so far from teaching

Retrieved from the TEL opinion blog, November the 18th, 2006
 

We have all experienced difficulties in translating our papers and talks into English, and some of our English colleagues have taken up the same challenge when preparing their communication in an other language. The difficulty is classical: translation is not a mere transduction, words from two different languages rarely match: beyond the definition there is the connotations induced by the context or shaped by the history and the culture. This is not only a problem when translating our papers and talks, it is also a problem when establishing an ontology or metadata from an international perspective. This is especially a problem for research on TEL because most of our work does not develop in a formalised framework: the meaning of our words is not stable or fixed, even for recent neologism like e-learning (or elearning, or eLearning…).

I take here a first example from among all the problems we had to solve with Lucile Vadcard and few Kaleidoscope colleagues when building the metadata for the description of the documents to be uploaded on the TeLearn open archive that Kaleidoscope recently launched. This first example is “learning”. Indeed, “learning” is a word which is at the core of our discourse, and essential to any of our theoretical or practical activities. Here are a few of the expressions one could consider, they are taken from what is often proposed as keywords by conferences or journals: collaborative learning, ambient learning environment, learning environment, augmented learning environment, blended learning, distance learning, learning object, learning grid, situated learning, tangible learning, etc. When translating in French, it is clear that a “learning environment” is not “un environnement qui apprend” but “un environnement pour apprendre”, or to make it provocative: “un environnement qui enseigne”. This is more evident with the expression “blended learning” which is difficult to translate in a simple manner, it could mean “apprentissage mixte” (as suggested by Wikipedia) but this misses that eventually it refer to a teaching strategy which makes the best benefit of different possibilities, either digital or not, to stimulate and support learning. Again, we see that there is some “teaching” in the meaning of “learning”. It is very likely that the source of our difficulty is there. It is possibly why some of our colleagues decided not to define the expression “mobile learning ”!

Invited to participate in the workshop eAgenda, I had to consider the question: “can we introduce learning in every human activity?” One may understand now why, at first, this question embarrassed me. To elaborate a comment, I thought interesting to come back to the origin of “learning” and “teaching” in the English language. Both English words, “learning” and “teaching”,  has a German origin, tracing back respectively to "læran ” and “tæcan ” in Old English. While the latter meant “to show” or “to persuade”, the former was preferred to mean “to teach” or “to guide”. Then, could we suggest that the English word learning has a teaching connotation, and that as a result the meaning of  the question is: “can we introduce læran in every human activity?” In other words: can we empower every environment with “teaching” capabilities.

Indeed, such a discussion goes beyond a problem of translation. It raises the problem of understanding what is our field about. In my opinion, it is about “technology for human learning.” In this expression “learning” point more specifically the human epistemological challenge, passing to the small word “for” the burden of the teaching connotation. Moreover, it translate well in French: “technologies pour l’apprentissage humain”!

If you are interested by continuing this discussion, and not only reacting to this blog,  just click here

A didactical view on authenticity

Retrieved from the TEL opinion blog, August the 27th, 2008

The search for authenticity of learning situations is a concern for most designers of TEL environments. Most of them realise soon that this is a desperate project since any environment is a representation of some kind of a reference, often called "reality", which keeps staying at a distance. To be as close as possible to reality does not mean much, unless we can qualify or quantify the closeness. Indeed, this is a challenge and we are not be well equipped today to take it up. A solution might be to find a theoretical framework within which we can formulate the problem, and then search for a solution within this framework. This first step will put limits on this solution, but it will make it much more tangible and so accessible to further progress. Currently we too much lack definitions and references to ensure that we can seriously discuss the issue. But, let's try something...

 First, we may agree that a learning environment becomes such if it is embedded in a situation which can contextualise the learner activity and hopefully stimulate, support and validate his or her successful learning. Be they formal or informal, these situations have an objective which can be made explicit in learning terms at least from the point of view of their designers; the fact that this objective is explicit for learners is another story. Following Brousseau(*), let's call "didactical" these situations. Didactical situations can be distinguished from other situations by their explicit intention to "teach". And here is the problem! As soon as the learner identifies this intention and bases on it his or her activity, it is very likely that the learning outcome will not have the expected "authenticity". All the search for authenticity of learning situations (and learning environments) is dedicated to the overcoming of this difficulty.

Second, let's consider the limit case of a didactical situation which didactical intention is completely transparent. If learning occurs in such a situation, we could ascertain that its outcome has the expected "authenticity": it does not owe the didactical intention (in other words the reasons for the activity of the learners are in the knowledge at stake not due to any guessing of the teacher or trainer expectations) These are "adidactical" situations, let's quote Brousseau:

"[The student must know that] this knowledge is entirely justified by the internal logic of the situation and that she can construct it without appealing to didactical reasoning. Not only can she do it, but she must do it because she will have truly acquired this knowledge only when she is able to put it to use by herself in situtations which she will come across outside any teaching context and in the absence of any intentional direction. Such situation is called an adidactical situation. Each item of knowledge can be characterized by a (or some) adidactical situation(s) which preserve(s) meaning; we shall call this a fundamental situation." (Brousseau p.30)

These three concepts: didactical situation, adidactical situation and fundamental situation will allow us to locate our problem of authenticity, and to formulate it.

So, designing an authentic learning situation depends on our capacity to characterize the related fundamental situation in relation to the piece of knowledge which learning is at stake. The problem is then not the closeness to reality, but the fact that the situation has the epistemic properties specific to this piece of knowledge. The specification of a so-called authentic environment requires first the expression of these epistemic properties and of the way they can be "translated" in the tangible world. However, once we have such a situation, there may be still a long way to designing an adidactical situation likely to be made available to learners. The design of this adidactical situation and the related environment is the challenge of designers of authentic TEL environments. After that, there is still one issue for the teacher: bring to life this adidactical situation in the classroom without damaging its "authenticity", what is the didactical challenge!

A quick example to conclude this post: the concept of "angle" in mathematics finds its full meaning when linear measurement is not possible or too "expensive" (for example when sailing on the Atlantic). Let say that the fundamental situation for "angle" is the problem of locating a point in the macro-space. We can realize that the classroom can hardly host a macro-space, we have then to find a situation which has the characteristics of the macrospace (linear measurement being impossible or too "expensive") and can be implemented in a classroom. If the problem were presented in the frame of a piece of paper (micro-space), the situation may appear quite artificial in the students eyes (a ruler is enough), then the corresponding didactical situation would be delicate to negotiate and in the end fragile. Technology can offer a solution, opening the window of the computer on the macro-space...

Brousseau G. (1997) Theory of Didactical Situations in Mathematics . Springer (Kluwer Acad. Pub.)