Distance Education in Transition - Master of Distance Education ...

Visions of Autonomous Learning
These concepts have been used to enhance the quality of traditional learning. They are
still valid and will remain so in the future. An analysis of them will even show that they
have a close affinity to independent learning. Digitised learning environments provide
for convincing opportunities for their application. So far most of the new chances and
possibilities for innovating education have not yet been seen, let alone discovered,
communicated and applied.
7. Specific Pedagogical Models
In order to demonstrate that autonomous learning in digitised environments can and
must be implemented in ways that differ considerably from learning in real spaces, I
should like to mention seven models:
� Working with ten virtual learning spaces
� The self-regulated learning process
� Learning by knowledge management
� Knowledge building communities
� Distributed knowledge based learning
� Distributed learning by design
� Learning in virtual seminars.
I chose them in order to show configurations of pedagogical activities which are possible
in online learning only, and which are of special interest for implementing pedagogical
innovation.
7.1. Working With »Ten Virtual Learning Spaces«
Traditional methods of learning and teaching do not reflect the actual potential of teaching
and learning that is enabled by electronic systems, and in fact hardly touch on them. For
this reason, I propose a different approach, one which is based essentially on the
opportunities provided by information and communication technologies. What are the
technological functions of the digitised learning environment that deserve the special
attention of instructional designers? I can see and distinguish ten of them. It is important
to recognise their affinity to certain pedagogical functions as can be shown in this table:
Technical functions Pedagogical functions
Presentation of information Presentation of instructional content
Storing Documentation, compiling files, portfolios
Retrieval “Remembering”
Communication Discussion with students, tutors etc.
Collaboration Cooperation with classmates etc.
Browsing Searching for relevant information
Multimedia Presenting and representing
Hypertext and hypermedia Independent learning
Simulation Working with dynamic models of reality
Virtual reality Three-dimensional spaces and landscapes
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