Learning in a Web-Based Environment - Outclass Project

IST-Africa 2007 Conference Proceedings Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds) IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2007 ISBN: 1-905824-04-1

Learning in a Web-Based EnvironmentOutclass Project António Batel Anjo, Rita N. Gaspar , Alexandre Mota Silva Department of Mathematics, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, 3810-193, Portugal Tel: +351 234 372548, Fax: + 351 234 370207, Email: batel@ua.pt, rgaspar@pmate.ua.pt, alex@pmate.ua.pt Abstract: The Internet and web-based environments increase learner’s opportunities to develop educational and cultural competences. Outclass is an e-community project of informal education for children of elementary educational levels. Engaging in intercultural interaction and developing the Portuguese language and digital literacy, increases the use of computers and Internet as a tool for teaching Mathematics and others sciences. The Portuguese Cooperation jointly with the Minister of Education Mozambique created a different way to use and put the Internet in the centre of the education process.

Keywords: Assisted learning, informal learning, e-community, intercultural competencies, learning environments.

1. Introduction Several researchers have acknowledged the importance of the intercultural interaction and informal learning [1]. Attentiveness to the influence of the one’s cultural background and one’s learning system makes it easier to understand the reaction when confronted with another culture and learning system.

New methods are needed for intercultural training and informal education in schools and with a web-based environment we can develop this type of informal learning [3].

With the exponential expansion of web information and the number of users accessing and working over the Internet, the appearance and implementation of Communication Learning Platforms (CLP) on the web [2] became possible.

In these platforms, knowledge is categorized by flexibility of training and increases of interactive learning processes. Thus, the web is not defined just as a technology of transmitting and accessing information, but also as an interactive and edification learning platform for users.

With these conditions, and having the information and communication networks as support, learning is developed from the creation and interaction of e-communities where new pedagogic perspectives of learning are focused [5].

These perspectives can be described as an informal education, which is defined as a non-institutional, non-programmed and unexpected model where people/students learn in accordance with their requirements, time and determination. This form of education is created outside the normal system of teaching (schools), where activities are organized according to the user needs, in a natural way.

Outclass Project [6, 7] is integrated logistically within PmatE and Pensas@moz projects, and represents this type of informal and intercultural education very well, while

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using a Communication Learning Platform. The social interaction and group identity describes very well this type of “web community”.

It can be observed that several other pioneering educational projects are being implemented, such as Intcultnet (EU project 2003-2005), SNOWBLOG (Middle East 20032006), but this project intends to introduce particularly, in Portugal, a new form of cooperation where a web-based environment is present and creates germination threw education and threw science.

The main purpose of this learning platform is to adapt the contents of learning strategies for children from specific countries, Portugal and Mozambique, who share a common language, the Portuguese language.

2. Outclass Allies Outclass project has the contribution of two other projects, PENSAS@moz and PmatE projects, that we describe as follow.

2.1 Pensas@Moz The PENSAS@moz [7] project has the following objectives: 1. Teaching Mathematics; 2. Development of Portuguese language; 3. Increase the use of computers and Internet as a tool for Mathematics teaching; and 4. Building learning objects – so called models generated questions - to different classes.

Other specific objectives are the indicators of knowledge, teacher’s training and qualification. The Portuguese Cooperation jointly with the Minister of Education Mozambique created a Network of schools with at least one major school in each Mozambican province. To characterize these major schools we developed the concept of “dynamic school”. A “dynamic school” has a laboratory with up to 20 computers connected permanently to the Internet and works as a gateway to the neighbour’s schools – so called “satellite schools”.

The dynamic school teachers must support the training of satellite schools teachers and maintenance of the laboratories. The students and teachers of satellite schools should regularly use the laboratory and learning materials.

2.2 PmatE PmatE is a project regarding Math education, which develops educational software available only over the Internet. Since 1990, the purpose of PmatE is to create a platform of computer-aided teaching from primary schools to undergraduate studies.

PmatE is also involved with higher education. Through TDmat, a diagnosis test in University of Aveiro, all first year students in sciences and technology are submitted to a test to verify obtained knowledge and the basic competences acquired. It also diagnoses the gaps and fragilities that they reveal. It supports disciplines like Calculus I, II and III, the discipline of Numerical Methods and digitalises contents of the discipline of Digital Systems. It also maintains three projects for Primary and Secondary School levels: the Gulbenkian EXI@mat, the INmat and the viver@matemática, an e-manual for the 6th degree that allies the traditional concept of school manual to a system of information in the Internet.

As a result of internationalization, activities in African Portuguese Speaking countries (PALOP) such as Mozambique and São Tomé e Principe have been developed. Currently, with Portuguese Cooperation, there are plans to extend the project to other African Portuguese Speaking countries such as Angola, Guiné-Bissau and Cabo Verde. In Mozambique, PmatE develops a project called Pensas@moz – Platform to Assisted Learning of Mozambique.

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3. Outclass Project 3.1

Project Description

Outclass is a research and development project which combined high-quality language content, science information (mathematics in particularly) and service product developed jointly by two countries, Portugal and Mozambique. In the project advanced pedagogical methods are used for on-line learning, using a peer-to-peer network.

Outclass Project have the following objectives: 1. Development of Portuguese language; 2. Increase the use of computers and Internet; 3. Increase the use of computers and the Internet as a tool for teaching Mathematics and the Portuguese language; 4. Development of digital literacy.

Other specific objectives are the indicators of knowledge, teacher and student training.

Like, one of its partners (PENSAS Project), Outclass creates a different way to use the Internet in Mozambique and puts it in the centre of the education process.

The Portuguese Cooperation jointly with the Ministries of Education in Mozambique and Portugal created a web community with students of two distinct schools (one in Portugal and the other in Mozambique).

In parallel with the installation of the Outclass Network Infrastructure we started, in a first phase, before the beginning of the school year, to test the acquaintance of the teachers with the technological infrastructures within their classrooms. During the first days of the new school year and every weekly until now, we tested the acquaintance of the students.

During the second phase, we worked together with teachers and scientific investigators of University of Aveiro, to create contents and applications of these activities. In the near future, we plan to continue the training of teachers and educators to expand this project.

One recurrent question in projects like this is the sustainability of the infrastructures.

Outclass used one infrastructure installed by INclass enterprise, in Portugal, and other infrastructure installed by PENSAS project in Mozambique. This is a good example of cooperation between a University, Government and Enterprises.

3.2

Background and Objectives

This e-community project aims at helping students and educators: a) To improve the writing, therefore the activities proposals are followed of close by the teachers; b) To develop new ways of expression, the students are obliged to express themselves through the writing, having as immediate effect of increase new ideas and capacity of synthesis; c) To develop social and cultural competences, this is one of the aspects most important and that it exceeds, in many aspects, the socialization objective. The contact with different realities can bring to these students a different agreement of the world; d) Add satisfaction of life; e) To develop the interest of Portuguese language and sciences.

Other related contributions are: a) The familiarization of the students with new information technologies, learning to use tools of communication in real time. b) Develop the interest for sciences and the capacity of work in groups.

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3.3

Practical Results

Development of cultural, social and scientific competences can be regarded as a lifelong transformative process and informal educational process. According to several researchers, transformative learning is fundamentally a process of critical self-reflection and a cognitive rational process. We tentatively describe Outclass as a transformative and informal educational process, identifying the factors that influence this type of learning, with different methods and instruments of work – Internet. This project has been developed and applied in two schools, a Portuguese and a Mozambique school, with students of elementary levels where the number of students in each school is 16 and in a total of two classes, one for each country. In these schools, students are distributed into groups of two, and every week different activities, within their educational content, are proposed to them.

All weekly activities involve the use of computers and Internet by students to accomplish the proposed tasks. Activities are illustrated and adequately applied to students, in a gradual form and with a strong component of technological infrastructures. The primary aim of these activities was to test the acquaintance of the students with technological infrastructures in order to identify the deficiencies and ability to develop the content of the activities. The participative method (PM) is used with frequency in this CLP; its concerns are student needs, self-respect and new opportunities to share experiences. The intentions of applying this participative method to this e-community are to benefit: social welfare of the children, capacity of communication and analysis of the students, ability to express ideas and solve problems and distinct different cultural background. Student’s, when correctly motivated, can successfully obtain the basic abilities of education by means of any learning material available. The identification, evaluation and recognition of learning with informal education and transformative process from this project are basically based on a natural approach. The evaluation of this learning system attends the following objectives: 1. Measures the level of informal learning. In a practical sense, no system can work well if no information of it evolution is know or considered.

2. Measures the interest level of users in e-community.

3. Measures the enthusiasm level of users by working with new information technologies; 4. Measures the capacity level of users to work in group; The activities developed for implementation and learning of this CLP involve: 1. The knowledge of the places where these e-communities are to be installed; 2. Content adaptation to previous knowledge and student experiences; 3. Content adaptation to student knowledge of the Portuguese language; 4. Content adaptation with the propose to motivate and stimulate students to continue learning after the occurrence of the activities; We created a quiz with simple questions (Yes/No) to evaluate if the initial goals are being achieved, if teachers and students like this type of learning method and this transformative process and how they see their evolution in working with new information technologies. The questions 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 measure the interest level of users in Outclass project; questions 4, 7, 8 and 9 measure the enthusiasm level of users by working with new information technologies; questions 2, 3, 11 measure the capacity of users to work in group and finally questions 5, 6 and 10 the level of informal learning (see survey in Appendix A).

A statistic analysis was made from these results. For example, measuring the level interest of two types of users (Portuguese and Mozambique) in e-community we obtained the following results (see figure 1):

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Level interest of Portuguese users in CLP 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

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Figure 1 - Interest level of users in Outclass Project.

As you can observe, both students demonstrated high awareness, respect and interest in this e-community. They became aware of the benefits of sharing experiences also more private thoughts with the other students. In a general way, students and teachers are strongly motivated. Until this moment, some activities were carried out (see Appendix B) with these students, concerning the context of the knowledge acquired in the school. While measuring the level of interest of these activities we obtained the following results (see figure 2): Most interesting activity for Portuguese users

Most interesting activity for Mozam bique users

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Figure 2 - Interest level of users in activities

The last activity carried out with these students resulted in a greater level of interest developed by them. This activity had a component of drawing that induced a very strong interactivity between students of the two schools; they had to paint their country flag and guess how and what colours count in the flag of their colleague’s country (see appendix B).

In a general way, we consider this work to have positive results. The interactivity with computer and Internet, the learning of different cultures and social aspects, the innovation in learning (formal and informal) created a good ambient of friendship and knowledge. This is a pioneer project that starts at the beginning of the school year and we hope to make an evaluation with more precision of this work in the final of this school year.

4. Conclusions Looking to make the informal learning of content possible, Outclass project was developed with the objective of training the Portuguese language in Portuguese official language countries.

This system of e-community is being used with a peer-to-peer network, Skype, and because of its simplicity and easiness of sharing archives makes this mission more sophisticated and simple.

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At this moment, Outclass is in an experimental state with positive results. The students interact with the CLP in an increasing and efficient way, having a strong relationship group.

In order to be successful, at this time, the most vital prerequisites are the well train and culture sensitive of students and teachers. This is a work in progress and more than anything else that could be done and said, the value and need of this project, in two countries, can be described by students and teachers.

Outclass was initiated at the beginning of the 2006/2007 school year and was implemented in two schools: a Portuguese school and a Mozambican one. More Portuguese and Mozambicans schools will be contacted in the near future in order to expand this kind of intercultural and informal learning. The choice of these schools will depend on the network infrastructure situation that the school owns because without the needed network infrastructure this type of project cannot be implemented.

The natural curiosity of these children makes this e-community a strong and important method for children learns.

5. Future Work The Outclass is a learning project of formal and informal education that we desire to develop for new educational areas and enclose on all levels of education. Its main goal is to stimulate the searching for a mathematical, physics and biologics challenge to group a great e-community of informal education for Portuguese language and sciences.

References [1] Varis, V. 2000. Approaches to cultural learning: a case study of a vocational education development cooperation project in Vietnam. University of Tampere. Department of Education. Licentiate work.

[2] BRUSILOVSKY, P., 2001, Adaptive Hypermedia. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, no. 11.

Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 87-110.

[3] Taylor, E.W. 1994. Intercultural Competency: A Transformative Learning Process. Adult Education Quarterly, 44 (3), 154-174.

[4] Alcântara, Fernanda; Martins, Isabel (Dezembro de 2000). “Intercompreensão na Educação Formal e Não-Formal em Ciências – O Desafio Actual”. Revista de Didáctica das Línguas, nº 8.

[5] Ferreira, Ana Fialho (1987). “Material como Auxiliar na Motivação da Aprendizagem”. Noesis, Dezembro 86/ Janeiro 87.

[6] http://pmate.ua.pt , last visit 16-02-2007.

[7] Anjo, António Batel, Pinto, Joaquim Sousa, Oliveira, Maria Paula, "Pensas@moz", IST-Africa 2006 Conference Proceedings Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds), IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2006, ISBN: 1-905824-01-7.

[8] Spector, M. et al. (2002) Networked Learning: Perspectives and Issues, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 1-85233471-1, pp.93–109

APPENDIX A: Quiz Read carefully all these questions and answer each one of them, using a cross (X) in the box of your choice.

Do you like writing to your colleagues using the internet? Yes No Do you like working as a team with your friends at school? Yes No Do you like working as a team with your colleagues from the other school? Yes No Do you find it hard to work on the computer? Yes No

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Have you been learning with these tasks? Yes No Which was, until now, the task that you enjoyed the most to do?

The game The favourite menu First aid rules World flags Do you enjoy the software that you use to talk with your colleagues by the web? Yes No Would you like to work more often with the computer? Yes No

APPENDIX B: Activity 1 Title: The Game Objective: Foment the understanding of the structure and the basic functioning of Portuguese language (verbal and writing); Recognize that Portuguese language is an instrument of transmission and creation cultures; Gradual domain of the expression and communication ways with children’s.

Material: Computer, Internet, world map, digital camera, pen, etc.

Activity 2 Title: The favourite menu Objective: Recognize the importance of a healthful feeding; Identify the most important foods for a normal and greets life; Recognize the different types of food ( Portuguese and Mozambique food); Develop the Portuguese language.

Material: Computer, Internet, pen, etc.

Activity 3 Title: First aid rules Objective: Recognize some first aid rules; Prick of animals; Haemorrhages; Recognize the first aid rules material; Develop the Portuguese language and new technologies of information.

Material: Computer, Internet, pen, etc.

Activity 4 Title: World flags Objective: Recognize national symbols: flag of Portuguese and Mozambique countries; Recognize world flags applying theories of group of mathematics (World flags, PALOP flags and flags of countries with Portuguese language with official language); Develop the Portuguese language and new technologies of information.

Material: Computer, Internet, pen, paper, etc.

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