Daniel Peraya[14] stresses the importance in studying educational mediated communication of considering both the mediation of content and the mediation of the relationship. In the following examples, the first , learning by assimilating facts and figures (4.2.1), leans heavily on mediation of content leaving little or no room for mediation of the relationship. The second, learning by doing (4.2.2), includes the pedagogical relationship in a non-mediated form in which the instructor is in the same room as the learners (MIGROS, Hewlett Packard,.). The third, collaborative learning (4.2.3), involves a degree of mediated communication between the instructor and the learners and between the learners themselves (Global Teach).
Hannes Lubich quotes Bair[15] in defining a hierarchical classification for computer-based user interaction. Comparing cases studied with these categories seems to us worthwhile, but has its limits in that the classification was intended for computer supported co-operative working, not all of which maps onto the learning process. The following are Blair's four categories:
In this approach the learner assimilates facts and figures from amongst those provided by the technological medium. This can be done by providing product information via the Web (Digital, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Silicon Graphics); by using a CD-ROM (Federal Personnel Office) to inform about federal structures and governments or to illustrate processes (MIGROS); to provide basic knowledge about a particular subject (Global Teach, UBS). Little or no interaction takes place between the learner and the provider of the information.
It could be argued that browsing through product information on the part of members of the sales force with a view to preparing presentations for future clients is not a structured learning experience. Those people we spoke to who employ such a system do however consider it to be learning. Effectively, in a leaner-centred approach, structuring of material is increasingly shifted to the learner.
As the name suggests, learning by doing involves actually doing those things that are to be learnt. This implies a certain amount of trial and error on the basis of the instructions given. Two types of learning by doing cropped up in the cases we studied :
Collaborative learning involves a learning process taking place within and between the members of a group. A number of the case studied involve collaborative learning (MIGROS, Nestl) but the collaboration itself is not mediated as in the case of JITOL and Global Teach.
Global Teach potentially[16] allows on-line exchange between learners and teachers in a virtual classroom set-up.
JITOL, sets about getting learners to capitalise on and develop their own knowledge in co-operation with others. In doing so, it addresses the task of building on informal peer-exchange as a rich, organic source of knowledge. Building knowledge becomes a common goal of all participants and, as a peer group, no one person is singled out as instructor nor as author of the developed knowledge.
[14] Peraya D., (forthcoming) Educational Mediated Communication, Distance Learning and Communication Technologies. A position Paper, in Educational Mediated Communication.
[15] Bair James H., Supporting Co-operative Work with Computers: Addressing Meeting Mania, In IEEE Computer, 4, 208-217, Apr. 1989, quoted in Lubich Hannes P., Towards a CSCW Framework for Scientific Cooperation in Europe, Springer, Lectures Notes in Computer Science, 889, Berlin, 1995.
[16] Cost , according to Heinz Gerber of Global Teach, currently makes having the necessary facilties to use this facet of Global Teach beyond the scope of most users.