Released on: October 24, 2008, 6:57 am

Press Release Author: palabea

Industry: Internet & Online

Press Release Summary: The process of adapting traditional methods of distance
learning was one of the logical foundations for eLearning, being the other the
programmed computer based/supported learning. Distance education has since its very
start always represented an alternative to traditional forms of education and
training, and therefore has had to battle for recognition and consequently early
developed procedures for monstrating quality...

Press Release Body: Elearning 2.0 applied to the language learning market

Introduction

Under eLearning, it is generally understood the educational methods, were computer
is used as the instructional medium.It is a planned educational experience,
involving both teaching and learning, using mainly IT technologies to reach its
audience. The European Commision and the Elearning Action Plan (2001) defined it as:
The use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the quality of
learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote
exchanges and collaboration."


From elearning to elearning 2.0

The process of adapting traditional methods of distance learning was one of the
logical foundations for eLearning, being the other the programmed computer
based/supported learning. Distance education has since its very start always
represented an alternative to traditional forms of education and training, and
therefore has had to battle for recognition and consequently early developed
procedures for monstrating quality.
The convergence of both traditional and computer based learning methods has
organically evolved thanks to the parallell evolution of the primitive online world
into the so called web 2.0. giving birth to the concept of eLearning 2.0. Terms like
wiki( a hawaiian word for "fast"), blog, social network, podcast and feed, are by
now familiar to million of internet users. They have become the ones who generate,
use, share and remix the content, mutating from their previous passive role to a
definetely hyperactive one.

The internet has hanged dramatically in the last years, and so has changed with it
the average user. The democratization of the online world, has provided the culture
medium where users, regardless their interests, have found the way to connect the
dots with like minded people around the globe. They have taken the creative role
reserved previously to University proffesors and researchers, who already had the
chance to network in such a manner during the past decades. These changes can be
regarded as a social revolution, more than a merely tehcnological one.
File-sharing, free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses for content
are already viewed not only as necessary but as essentials for the creation of
current and future learning networks.Such a prestigious institutions like the MIT,
has launched big efforts in this direction, providing online resources through the
"Open Courseware Project" (by the way, using Creative Commons licensing). It is a
Web-based publication of the educational materials from virtually all of the MIT
faculty's courses enabling the open sharing of the faculty's teaching materials with
educators, enrolled students, and last but not least self-learners around the world.

E-learning offers significant benefits and some unique attributes compared with
traditional course delivery, such as: time and location shifting, flexible
sequencing, widen access and increasing diversity, access to extensive resources,
and improved communications and acceleration of feedback . On the other hand,
removing completely the social element linked to knowedlege Akquisition, regarded as
fundamental, seems to be the biggest danger if eLearning is to be considered
individually. The human touch, as the social creatures that we are, should always
remain a basic factor, as part of the learning experience. The key word here seems
to be "blending". The power is in the mix, getting the best of both worlds, to
achieve a required balance between the needs of students to socially interact with
other students and teachers, not only through the new web 2.0. technologies but also
in the old real world.

Considering second language learning, many "blending" models have been suggested. A
good approach is the one proposed by Daniela Munca. She considered the specific
problem of how to design taskbased instruction for teaching grammar using Wikis. She
followed Chapelle approach, implying that task-based language teaching should be
devoted to opportunities for subconscious acquisition rather than conscious
learning. In this manner, she combines both syntactic and semantic methods to
produce linguistic output out of closely related tasks to the learner's actual
communicative needs. A practical example of this, was to engage learners in exchange
of comments, using the thread communication" feature present in the wikis. Since
all posts refering to a grammar unit were posted on the same page, every student in
the class can access the entire work of the whole group, enabling a great enviroment
for collaboration, feedback and similar interactivity.

After this stage, she designed "goals" regarding specific outcomes whic diverged to
the input" stage were learners could process the multimedia info provided, using
each wiki unit as background support to find more resources for deeper processing.
The final stage is considered by Daniela Munca as procedure" regarding to what
learners will actually do with the input of the learning task. She allowed to
practice several skills at the same time, reinforcing the output through this new
chance to stabilize the recent ly acquired knowledge.
As we can see,what happenened is that primitve "delivered" learning (
one-directional learning software and similar "chalk and talk" strategies) has
become a content-authoring tool, where learning is "created". Instead of reading
content, it is now being used, more likely to be produced by students than by course
developers.
The next big question is how to asssure quality in eLearning. To overcome the
barrier of filtering the excess of information and bad content. Ehlers (2004) argues
that of all the dimensions and aspects of e-learning quality the perspective of the
learner is probably the most important. Education differs from other products in
that learning is not a product that the consumer buys, "...learning rather constitutes
a process that they (the learners) have to carry out by themselves."

Brief Case Study: palabea.net

Let's consider the approach to quality in eLearning, considering a brief case study
of palabea, elearning 2.0 language learning platform.

1.Community of Practice: According to Etienne Wenger, in the world of eLearning, a
community of practice is the closest to a social network It is characterized as a
shared domain of interest where members interact and learn together, developing a
shared repertoire of resources.With this idea in mind, palabea has incorporated this
concept into its platform, creating a language learning community of practice, where
users are able to create the learning content in their desired language thanks to a
broad choice of technologies which combines both formal and informal eLearning.

2.Cooperation and communication in the course: The online eLearning course can focus
on social interaction through discussions, or focus on discourse of controversial
topics and knowledge creation in argumentative and collaborative settings. Palabea
also offers an offline language exchange" feature where users can find native
speakers in their hometown, enabling the unique face to face" social experience.

3. Technology: palabea's e-learning platform has the possibility of adapting to the
users' settings and provides thanks to the virtual classrooms" feature
the possibility of starting where the user finished his last learning period. The
platform has the possibility of synchronous communication (through a communication
tool enabling textchat and video-chat), as well as asynchronous communication
(through e-mail, forums,i-Paper generated documents, comments to podcasts and
video-lectures). The content may beavailable in different formats and the learner
may be able to download course materials on his/her own computer, avilable for
offline use. It is also possible to link and embed to the virutal classrooms videos,
podcasts and all kinds of multimedia content.

4. Costs - expectations - value: The cost and effort the learner has to invest in
the course relative to benefits and outcomes are important. Expectations towards
online learning may be that it is flexible in time and individualized in course
structure regarding content and support.Non-economic costs relate to the effort it
takes to learn and to concentrate on the course within an individualized learning
scenario. Palabea's learning platform is free of cost, but it offers also the
possibility of booking "in situ"courses from well acredited language institutions
worldwide.

5.Information transparency: Counselling and advice before entering the course can be
and important dimension of quality. It may also be of importance to learners to be
able to access information about the course, the tutors and the institution that
provides the course. Another important dimension for learners is access to detailed
information about the course. Palabea's network of language schools provides all
kinds of detailed informations regarding their courses and offers. Users have also
direct communication to the language schools, for any concrete questions they may
have.

6. Course structures: This field contains the learner's requirements concerning the
structure of an elearning course. Some learners see presence (face-to-face) periods
(blended learning) as important, while other learners prefer pure online learning.

7. Didactics: This field contains dimensions such as preference for access to
background materials related to the e-learning course content, and also the use of
multi media and several ypes of enrichment media. Other quality dimensions are
whether the course is structured in a goal-oriented way, whether it includes support
in gaining learning literacy (learning to learn) and life-long learning skills,
whether tests and exams are integrated in the learning materials and whether the
learning tasks are designed to fit the individual learner's needs.

Being totally aware of the importance and the future impact that the use of
collaborative tools will bring. Prospective educational models will need to contain
in their designs the existence of learning activities where interaction,
collaborative work and self-learning should be basic features. The major future
challege regarding eLearning is the integration of learning activities into every
situation of our life, synthesizing learning with living, and above all how to use
all the available resources to improve the most important skill we posses, the
ability to communicate.


References

1. eLearning action plan of the European Commission.(2001)
2. MIT Marks OpenCourseWare Milestone.November 2008. MIT Press release
3. eLearning 2.0. by Stephen Downes, on eLearnmag, 2008
4.Daniela Munca, Double Wiki Grammar Teaching, language magazine, August 2008.
5.Quality on eLearning from a learner's perspective.Ulf.D.Ehlers. July 2004
6.Etienne Wenger. Communities of practice, a brief introduction. 2008
7.Netskills, achieving quality with eLearning
8. www.palabea.net

Web Site: http://www.palabea.net

Contact Details: Palabea e-Services GmbH
Neue Bahnhofstr. 9
10245 Berlin

mailto: press[at]palabea.com
web: http://www.palabea.net