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Network Communities and Education
Evgeny Patarakin,
Abstract The modern world is converging before our eyes. Technologies, fields of knowledge, political and national systems, media such as newspapers, radio and TV are merging together (1,2). It seems that in the near future the majority of communications between people will take place with the assistance of computers and computer networks. Thus, the study of network communities is the study of future forms of human communities. All over the world people undertake research programs and take practical steps to construct network communities based not only on the centres of education, science and culture, but also on whole cities (3,4). Future prospects of development of learning communities were discussed in Russia in 2001 within the framework of several network conferences. Most noteworthy were a section of a Teachers’ council, conducted over computer networks in August entitled, "Network communities, and their contribution to Russian education" (5), and a forum devoted to problems with the construction of on-line communities during the project "Training and Internet Access"(6). Need for new forms of education The increasing popularity of computer networks as an educational tool is related to ever-increasing changes within our society, which cause us to rethink basic educational principles. Schools previously functioned in an environment of limited information exchange, where children could access information only through books and teachers. In the middle of the 20th century, sources of information outside of school, such as radio and TV, took on an educational function (7). An information gap occurred between school and society (8). Furthermore, in the beginning of the 1960’s the development of telecommunication networks resulted in a global generation gap (9). Learning is often regarded as an active process of developing and testing personal hypotheses about the world (10). These adaptive strategies allow us to survive and successfully adapt to our rapidly changing world. The development of network technologies was caused in many respects by the perception of a future ecological crisis. In our minds, as in our streets, too much unsorted refuse was accumulating, to the point where many intellectual processes became overwhelming. It is indicative, that the basic work of Vannaver Bush on the principles of construction of hypertext was called "As We May Think" (11). The title references John Dewey’s book, How We Think (12), in which thought was considered to be a linear, consecutive process. Training takes place in a variety of different situations - it is not limited to time spent in classrooms. Jan Visser uses the term "androgogics" to emphasize the necessity of training not only children but also adults. The current sphere of education and training appears to be much broader than the traditional framework of formal educational institutions (13,14). This understanding allows us to see a huge potential for scientific and cultural centres that are not considered to be educational institutions. On the other hand, we recognize the great responsibility for providing an education to all the inhabitants of our planet. Aware of this responsibility, schools and higher educational institutions can and should develop urban and regional centers of learning to support the training not only of young, but also of older learners. It is obvious that access to the available educational resources for everyone, at any stage of life, cannot be provided by formal educational institutions in any country of the world. The solution is the unification of all people interested in development of education. Such a global association could only be carried out by the use of network communications. Jules Rosnay paraphrased a famous quote from Lenin and wrote: "ecological society is conviviality plus telecommunications" (15). The term "conviviality" referring to technical tools was introduced by Ivan Illich (16). Everyone should decide how to use the tool. For instance, the phone is a "friendly" means as everyone can use it to contact other people and communicate with them on any subjects they choose. The TV is an unfriendly means as the only thing that you can do with it is to switch channels that are broadcast. This conception of technical tools is close the approach of S. Frene and Papert’s understanding of the term "bricolage" (17). Telecommunication tools to support learning communities Numerous potentialities and services of the Internet make it much more "convivial," than TV and radio. It allows everyone to express his view on any subject and find partners to discuss any idea or question. This certainly doesn’t mean that telecommunication network is able to solve all the problems by itself. It is always difficult to foresee consequences of choice of that or this community support tool. On their own these tools could be used for good or evil purposes. Illich developed the principles of construction of a learning web, and detailed the resources that are necessary for its functioning. Analyzing the construction of dataways in Mexico, he flayed state investments in public television channels. He reasoned that it would be possible to organize a system of training cassettes recording in regional centers for a much smaller amount of money. Rural population could exchange videocassettes and in that way maintain a local learning network that would be much more efficient than the centralized one. A few years later Jean Baudrillard described a real system of videotape exchange similar to that conceived by Illich as an example of a telecommunication project failure (18). Propagation of knowledge about rational land tenure in arid regions was planned within the framework of this project. Videotapes were used as a basic method. All the participants of the project got video recorders. The local mafia immediately took advantage of the opportunity to open a new market and began to use the network for spreading videotapes with obscene contents. This example confirms the "conviviality" of the means, everyone could use it in the way one liked. The discussion of the pedagogical potential of network communities and their contribution to education began long before the appearance of the Internet. In his book, Democracy and Education, John Dewey showed that dialogue has a determinative value in the formation of community. Any kind of human community is educational. There are several criteria for determining pedagogical value of any kind of socialization or community. Dewey did not limit his analysis to geographically close groups; he also considered the possibilities of virtual communities: "Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common. A community is a set of people communicating with each other. The Internet community is a set of people communicating with each other via the Internet. People can be placed into groups on the basis of any common attribute. For example, groups can be in the same room, of the same age, are all fond of checkers, were born from one ancestor, watch TV, or use the phone. In contrast to a community, a group does not demand communication between its members. People who are watching the same soap opera do not become a community. Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity, any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others. A book or a letter may institute a more intimate association between human beings separated thousands of miles from each other than exists between dwellers under the same roof."(19) The book Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich (20) was of great importance for network education. The author was more interested in contents of educational environment than purposes of education. Illich believed that people naturally and independently choose the best ways of training. To make the process of knowledge acquisition comfortable and effective, it is necessary to define the components of the educational environments. In the sixth chapter of his book, Learning Web, Illich enumerated and detailed the resources and services that are necessary for the successful functioning of a learning network community. Later, a number of authors (21), supplemented these components. By 1972 the main principles of learning network construction were recognized as the following:
Many important educational communities worked quite successfully. They included ThinkQuest (22) and the Virtual Classroom which were constructed according to the foregoing principles and contained all the necessary components. The main components of a leaning web are evident. The portal contains reference books, textbooks, manuals, and evaluation systems. As a rule, an educational portal also supports network conferences and forums. ThinkQuest Communities are online meeting places where members can exchange ideas and collaborate. They are made of members interested in similar projects, and sharing information. In each team there should be at least one participant living in another city. The result is a global network of students, teachers, parents and technologists dedicated to exploring youth-centered learning on the Net. Students are responsible for the results of their projects. Commentaries given to the projects show that most of the participants used their home computers to create web sites and communicate with each other. Virtual Classroom teams similarly encompass students from different countries in different parts of the globe and are fully organized and supported by teachers. Summer schools community The Uchcom laboratory initiated the foundation of a number of network communities. Some of them were directly connected to educational centers such as the International Children’s Computer Center, the University of Pereslavl, the elementary school of the Program systems institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Interschool Educational Center. Others had no formal educational affiliation, such as the Gallery of modern Russian media-art, the Virtual Theatre Workshop, and "RepWeb - a modern environment for the conduction of network research". Most of these projects are described at length (23,24) in the context of the paper. The most important are the ways of foundation and support of learning network communities. The example of advance of summer computer schools from separate individual teachers to Russian network community is very indicative. The internal arrangement of summer computer schools in Pereslavl-Zalessky as applied to teachers, could be likened to a learning web since the beginning of the 1990’s. Before starting his work, a teacher described his potential and suggested his own projects to the school coordinator. According to the list of projects and school’s bent, several educational directions were created. Teachers eager to work with each other merged together. Before the start of the work at summer school, teachers presented their own projects. Students joined groups working on the projects they liked. In the beginning of the 1990’s we have already had an experience in such international telecommunication projects as "Hamburg - Velikhov" and "LogoExpess". In 1992 we founded Uchcom, the first Russian educational BBS (25). In 1993 a session of summer computer school was focused on the foundation and advancement of a Russian community of teachers and researchers working in the Logo environment (26,27). In 1995 we had our first significant experience building on-line communities. All activities of the school were based on interaction of all educational directions through the common web-server (28). The goal of the teachers was not only to present the materials of their course and realize the project but also to think over the possible ways of cooperation with groups working in other directions. Everyday teachers and their students had to give account of the results they had reached and present it on the school server. Daily reports on the results of work of several directions contributed to the search for common ground. A few international projects with Japanese and American students were realized in the course of the summer school, but the intra-school projects led by cooperation of different directions seemed to us to be much more significant. Correlation between intra-school information content and that from the outside world signals whether or not a school has become a network community. Internal informational exchange in our school exceeded external data exchange. Summer school experience showed the growth of a number of interdisciplinary projects and their rise to higher levels. The use of a multimedia format to present transcripts of materials and search for interconnection between educational directions contributed to students’ creativity. The results achieved in 1995 were taken as a basis for the organization of several Internet schools in other regions of Russia. Most of those schools specialized in computer science and ecology. As a rule, computer schools took place in Pereslavl, while ecological schools were organized in Nizhny Novgorod region. The work of every school was built on principles of co-operation of different educational directions with the assistance of computers. Every group presented its projects and achievements as a web site. The work of every school was based on school web-server. Moreover, the Pereslavl and Nizhny Novgorod summer schools exchanged their materials. From 1995 to 1999 there was a powerful dataway that provided exchange of ideas and projects between regions and different fields of knowledge. The exchange took place via the Internet and with the use of compact discs. In 2000 we accomplished the project entitled "The Network and Internet Projects of the Summer School 2000" with the support of the IATP program. The project originally intended network convergence of Pereslavl schools and of people who would be able to participate in school in person or on-line. At the beginning of the summer it turned out that many participants wouldn’t come and wouldn’t have an on-line connection in the course of their school. We tried to establish an exchange of transcripts of materials in multimedia format between the camps. Schools conserved and presented their materials and resources as on- or off-line web sites. At the end of every school, its materials were recorded on compact discs to provide the following school with accumulated resources. It is noteworthy that all the accumulated materials passed on to subsequent schools to serve as a basis for new activity. In that way we provided traffic of educational resources between summer schools without any on-line communications. Regional Communities The network communities founded in 2001 that were not connected with educational centers inlcuded the network community in Nizhny Novgorod for the alumni of the programs of the Department of State of the USA (29), and an ecological community of non-governmental activists (30). These communities developed, in our opinion, according to the Learning Web principles of construction offered by Illich. Educational resources accumulated in electronic libraries and mediatechs. Those resources were not only materials of Internet courses, but also separate texts, photos, video fragments and databases created by members of communities. It is necessary to note that all members can use contents of databases within the framework of ecologists’’ community for creation of both substantial and entertaining documents and lectures. At that, translation of the linear text of the lecture in multimedia form is made automatically. Web sites of communities accumulated materials about lecturers and trainers who can give examples of skills mastering. First of all it concerns skills required for network activity, web design, Internet programming. A similar work is led by organizations working on development of Internet education and supporting classes of open access, such as Open Society Institute, British Council, and Federation of Internet Education. The organization of exchange of teaching materials and trainers would allow them not to waste their resources. Support services of partners search for joint activity developed for representing materials about all members of communities and organizing of joint seminars. As a rule, interdisciplinary seminars caused the greatest interest. Within the framework of those seminars new educational microgroups originated. A successful attempt to automate the process of search for partners by means of a database was made during the seminar on use of RepWeb environment for realization of network researches. All participants of the seminar formulated their interests and inserted them into the base that could be used for association of participants in groups by interests. The results of individual and collective works of members of educational communities were available in the web. They were discussed during the preparation for the accounting IATP conference that will take place in October 2001. Unfortunately, this year we did not manage to organize an on-line expert examination of the activity of communities’’ members though in earlier projects positive results were already received. For instance, the analysis of Sally Norman etudes submitted in the web in 1997 by students of the Theatre institute was the most impressing and detailed. Conclusion Network communities are of great interest for education. It is connected with the role of network communities in modern world. Network services potential is little by little used in the current sphere of training for presentation of educational resources, peer-matching, traffic of ideas, and network evaluation of educational activity. The work is financially supported by RHF, grant #01-06-00166. References:
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