Internet-assisted learning
Editor: Charles Crook
This is a series of features that address teaching and learning developments mediated by the Internet. I hope this can become a regular and useful item in the Journal. Moreover, I hope that readers will help by alerting me to new developments that they know of.
The Internet invites treatment in the style of a 'review' because a critical catalogue of what is out there (as with book reviews) must be a useful community resource. In addition, the presentation of such information is probably best done in the journalistic format of a 'column': topics will be diverse and transient such as to encourage speedy and less formal reporting. Finally, I should comment that I hope the 'columnist' will not always have to be me - at least beyond the task of soliciting and coordinating. Relevant contributions to this space therefore are most welcome from the whole community of readers.
The piece below illustrates these and other aspects this new column. Enrique Hinostroza and Pedro Hepp provide a launch for us with their sketch of some recent internet-mediated innovations by Latin American colleagues. The Enlaces project in Chile is an ambitious scheme to reform educational practice through accessible wide-area networking. Their account incorporates a number of Web links through which interested readers may discover a sense of how such an ambition is being realised in one particular cultural context. Other links reveal the variety of Web-based resources that are being deployed by the participants in Enlaces. Finally, I am sure they would welcome correspondence from other researchers and designers and it is likely that there are Web-mediated links between institutions to be explored.
Use of the Web in the Chilean Educational System
E. Hinostroza & P. Hepp
Universidad De La Frontera, Temuco, Chile
Chile is presently under a major educational reform that started in 1990. A new curriculum for both primary and secondary education has been proposed. New teaching and learning methodologies are being implemented in order to achieve a higher quality and greater equity in our education. More resources, textbooks, infrastructure and better teacher salaries are all part of this comprehensive effort. Education has been consistently promoted as the nation's first priority during this decade in order to overcome poverty and to place Chile as a stable and modern country in the next millenium.
The Information Technology initiative of the reform is better known as Enlaces. Its goal is to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) as learning and teaching resources for all students and teachers in Chilean public schools. And its aim is to determine the benefits, contents, costs and replicability of initiatives involving educational computing and networking in Chilean public schools. Moreover it is especially concerned for the role of computer technology in those schools with the fewest resources (see http://www.enlaces.cl). Enlaces has been gradually nurturing an educational community: presently, a network of 25 universities collaborate in training teachers in 1500 schools; recently, all 50 regional branches of the Ministry of Education became active members of Enlaces.
The project started officially in 1992 with 12 pilot primary schools. By the end of June 1997, more than 500 schools, both primary and secondary were participating; by the end of 1997 it comprised 1500 schools and by the end of 1998, 3000 schools will be part of Enlaces. Looking forward to 2000, all secondary schools (~1500) and half of all primary schools (~5000) will be part of this initiative (Hepp et al., 1996; Potashnik, 1996).
At the beginning of the project the Internet was already considered to be a relevant technology, so access to email and discussion lists was part of the initial design. Access was through software called La Plaza which uses a metaphor of the 'city square' to provide access to different 'buildings', for example, a Mail Office, a News Stand, a Community Centre and a Museum (Hinostroza et al., 1995). This software enabled schools to communicate using text only email, which was considered state-of-the-art for schools in the early 90's. As the technology evolved, Internet offered new possibilities for schools and the WWW appeared to be another essential technology. So, the Enlaces project started in 1995 and in 1998, about 1000 schools have access to Web.
Network technologies in general and educationally oriented Web sites in particular, have great potential for developing countries such as Chile. They promise equable access to information resources and services. Enlaces promotes similar access for all students to the emerging information society - not only for those students who live in the main cities or those few who have computers at home. In this respect, the principal effort is to provide meaningful, Spanish-based content for both teachers and students.
The following is a description of how the Web is used in this project:
Teaching resources for teachers. As a joint initiative of Enlaces and the World Bank, an Internet Resource Center (http://sun-serv.iie.ufro.cl:88/Recursos/) was implemented. The Centre is a data base containing structured descriptions (aims, goals, contents and curriculum linkage) of Web sites that could be used by Chilean teachers. The Centre provides searching alternatives for the teachers to have direct access to relevant material, without needing to browse through the world wide sources of 'potentially useful' contents of the Web. The resources described in this Centre, could be roughly classified as belong-ing to one of two groups: sites containing curriculum related information (http://www.edyd.com/Fabulas/autores.htm, http://www.conicyt.cl/explora/) and sites with the curriculum guides (http://www.iie.ufro.cl/material/PRINCIPAL.html).
Initial evaluation of this Resource Centre was satisfactory in terms of its usability. In terms of the contents, it was surprising. It showed that teachers were willing to change their well established teaching practices - following curriculum related guidelines because they appear 'on the Web'. In this sense, the power of the Web as a catalyst for change invokes the idea of computer as Trojan horse (Olson, 1988).
Teaching tool. During the evaluation of the resource centre, many teachers commented that they encouraged students by saying that 'the best projects would be published in the Web', so 'the rest of the world' would have a look at them This use of the Web, as a motivation, invokes the idea of strong intrinsic motivation (Lepper & Malone, 1987) and it seems that teachers are also starting to use it as a 'control tool' (Olson, 1988; Sandholtz et al., 1997) in so far as it enters the reward system of the classroom.
Marketing tool for the school. Many schools are using the Web as an institutional 'show room'; they publish the school's logo, the building, their history and main advantages as schools (http://www.colegioantof.cl, http://adventista.tco.plaza.cl - a complete list can be found at: http://www.brujula.cl/educacion/colegios). It seems that schools conceive the Web as a means to promote their image. Grunberg & Summers, (1992) rephrasing Fullan, (1982) say: "schools tend voluntarily to adopt innovations which promote their image as up-to-date and efficient", and certainly the Web does promote such an image.
¨ Institutional communication tool. The Chilean Ministry of Education is using the Web to inform schools about the ongoing reform process, for example, the new curriculum for primary and secondary education is Web published (http://www.iie.ufro.cl/ofcm/ofcmBasica/PRINCIPAL.html, http://www.iie.ufro.cl/ofcm/ofcmMedia/PRINCIPAL.html). Further on, during the development stage of the design of the new curriculum the Ministry of Education published a draft version of the new curriculum and encouraged teachers to write back their opinions and ideas. In this sense, the Web was used as a two-way communication media.
¨ Co-ordination and collaborative tool. The Ministry of Education is also using the Web as a tool for co-ordination and collaborative work among the supervisors of the schools (http://www.lazos.cl/sstp, {login/password: sstp/sstp}). This site is actually under construction and its 'real' use will be soon evaluated. n the project World Links of the World Bank (http://www.enlaces.cl/~wlink/) the Web is also used as a collaborative tool for Latin American schools, but in this case the idea is to present results of collaborative projects among the schools.
The versatility of the Web links it with the tradition of other computer driven innovations, for example, those described by Sandholtz and colleagues (1997). Moreover, the research community is just starting to discover its potentials. Schools are considering the Web as a new and quite distinct technology - in that it has created a virtual world for the users (a Web page is in fact an independent place, so far it is 'visited' by other people) and therefore it expands the actual boundaries of the schools in a quite different dimension.
From a different perspective, Enlaces is helping to promote rural schools as attractive community centres, where the students' families may have access to relevant information related to their community through the Enlaces technological infrastructure. Presently, a few communities are experimenting with the Web containing local information such as food prices, governmental resources, agricultural data. These Web pages are also available for the students in order to provide them with a broader view of the technology as a tool for their personal and community interests.
References
Hepp, P., Laval, E., Mo'ne, G. & Ripoll, M. (1996) Monitoring the Enlaces educational computer network. Education and Information Technologies, 1, 1, 5-20.
Hinostroza, E., Laval, E., Hepp, P., Iost, H. & Rivera, R. (1995) Human Computer Interface for Educational Software: An Electronic Communications Software Implementation. In World Conference on Computers in Education VI: WCCE'95 Liberating the Learner (eds. J.D. Tinsley & T.J. van Weert) pp. 1011-1020. Chapman Hall, London.
Lepper, M.R. & Malone, T.W. (1987) Intrinsic motivation and instructional effectiveness in computer-based education. In Aptitude, learning and instruction. Volume 3: Cognitive and affective process analyses (eds. R.E. Snow & M.J. Farr) pp. 255-296. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NY.
Olson, J. (1988) Schoolworlds/microworlds: computers and the culture of the classroom. Pergamon Press, Oxford.
Potashnik, M. (1996) Chile's learning network. Education and Technology Series Vol. 1 No. 2). The World Bank, Washington, DC.
Sandholtz, H.J., Ringstaff, C. & Dwyer, D.C. (1997) Teaching with technology: creating student centered classrooms. Teachers College Press, New York.