Manuela Delfino

Online or face-to-face? Experimenting with different techniques in teacher training

This paper illustrates a 5-year case study (from 2001 to 2005) regarding a course in educational technology that involved from 100 to 150 student teachers per year for a total of more than 500 trainees. Since the first version of the course, which was entirely based on a face-to-face approach, computer mediated collaborative learning techniques have gradually been introduced into the training program. The paper outlines the main problems faced in the various versions of the course, where different combinations were experimented with, and discusses the solutions adopted. The difficulties concern the demands of a large, diversified population and the methodological problems related to the non-neutrality of the introduction of online learning in the socio-cultural and organizational context of the study. The solutions include a highly flexible course design and a good balance and strict integration between traditional and online training techniques in the delivery of the course and in the assessment of trainees. Finally, we suggest possible directions for further research aimed at facilitating the infusion of online techniques in initial teacher training.

Coding procedures to analyse interaction patterns in educational web forums

Analysis of interaction patterns is one of the most important indicators of quality of learning in educational web forums. Social network analysis (SNA) is gradually assuming importance in the study of interaction patterns as it focuses on the analysis of the interrelationships between individuals, thus providing a holistic perspective on group performance. However, most of the studies that use SNA in computer-supported collaborative learning scenarios derive their data from server log files, on the assumption that this data source reflects the way people really interacted online. This study, the purpose of which is to better understand the communication flows that really occur among users, challenges these assumptions through an experimental study that makes a comparison between the structural method normally used to detect the posting addressees and an approach enriched with semantic coding. Results show that this new coding schema, if compared with traditional structural coding, detected a greater number of addressees, thus allowing a greater number of postings to be included in an SNA adjacency matrix.

Learners’ Representation of their Affective Domain through Figurative Language in a Web‐Based Learning Environment

This study investigated how the participants of an online learning course employed figurative language to express their emotions and feelings during the learning experience. Textual analysis was carried out in the social and metacognitive discussion areas as those related to the expression of the social dimension. Its aim was to analyze the distribution of figurative language across the course, to understand if figurative language elicited the creation of new figurative language, and to classify recurring types of conceptual categories. Results show that figurative language use increased in coincidence with crucial, social events; it did not necessarily encourage the production of further figurative language; and it allowed participants to represent their affective domain and to conceptualize the learning environment in an original manner.

Self-Regulated Learning in Virtual Communities

This paper investigates self‐regulated learning (SRL) in a virtual learning community of adults interacting through asynchronous textual communication. The investigation method chosen is interaction analysis, a qualitative/quantitative approach allowing a systematic study of the contents of the messages exchanged within online communities. The results of this study consist of data on SRL‐related events that took place during two subsequent learning activities, aiming to understand if any facet of SRL was privileged over the others. These events were coded according to an original taxonomy of SRL indicators distinguishing between the three cyclical phases of SRL (planning, monitoring and evaluation), between cognitive and metacognitive versus motivational and emotional aspects, as well as between actions carried out at individual or social level. This approach provides data which reflect the evolution in time of the investigated aspects.

Foundational skills and dispositions for learning: an experience with Information Problem Solving on the Web

Active participation in the information society requires the ability to find some order in the chaotic nature of the Web and not to get lost within the endemic presence of inaccurate, misleading, biased and false information. This article presents an approach to Information Problem Solving (IPS) – that is, finding, understanding and assessing information on the Web – and discusses a study carried out in an Italian secondary school, using an experimental and a control group. The study aimed at exploring how to best foster IPS skills, and observing whether and how IPS activities could promote the development of more general learning dispositions and competences. After a period of training with IPS activities, the experimental group showed different dispositions towards learning from a text and engaging with open-ended questions. Despite serious limitations in the depth of analysis, most students were able to reach acceptable solutions; at the same time, they felt empowered and developed an embryonic critical attitude on which it might be possible to build further.

Boosting Innovation in an Italian Online University

This paper describes the process of boosting an innovative e-learning system in an online university in Italy. The system relies on a satellite-terrestrial telecommunication infrastructure and allows for different interaction types, including synchronous, asynchronous, textual, audio and video communication modes. The adoption of this infrastructure was preceded by a training initiative proposed to the university staff to favor its intake. The paper analyses the effects of both the training initiative and the technological innovation based on qualitative data derived from the observed differences between the pre-existing courses and their re-design and quantitative data tracked by the system during a pilot test that lasted eleven months. These data show a trend reversal in the e-learning approach, from a prevalence of transmissive mode to a more interactive one, although there is still a long way to go before more radical changes can take place.

Unfolding the Potential of ICT for SRL Development

We live in an era of rapid technological change, affecting not only the sphere of work, but also (and perhaps to a greater extent) our social lives, our way to obtain information, our security and our learning. Learning has never been something that could be done once and for all in human life, and the ability to cope with innovation and change has always been important, not only to succeed, but even to survive. So, what’s new? Firstly, the speed and the extent of change; secondly, the fact that major changes are taking place not only in what we learn, but also in the tools used for learning. By this, we do not mean merely the technical tools, but the conceptual tools as well.

An approach to digital literacy for adults: the EuNIC proposal

Recent surveys point to the need to enhance digital literacy competences among adults. Still, digital literacy courses addressing adults usually face a number of problems due to the lack of common backgrounds and purposes among learners. This paper illustrates NIC (Nucleo Informatico Concettuale - Conceptual Informatics Nucleus), an approach to adult digital literacy that focuses on few key concepts and skills and adopts a problem-based approach. NIC, which was developed and widely tested in Italy, has been recently transferred to a European context by the EuNIC project. The main results of this process are reported together with some reflections about strong points and weaknesses of the suggested approach and, more in general, about critical aspects of adult digital literacy actions.

Technology and educational innovation. The thirty-year history of a learning unit in quantitative geography

This article describes a project in computer-mediated educational innovation for the teaching of geography which has been carried out at the Don Milani Experimental Middle School in Genoa. The project concerns a learning unit in quantitative geography that has helped to change the way this discipline is taught in the school. Given its special features and durability over time (28 years), this experience represents a benchmark for studying (a) the way in which a technology-mediated educational innovation project can germinate and grow to involve all school classes, and (b) the conditions that ensure sustainability over time.

Who’s there? Electronic school rosters and emergency evacuation plans

If a school opts for electronic attendance rosters, what happens in case of emergency evacuation? Can you establish exactly who’s on school premises without falling back on paper-based lists?