LEARNING THROUGH THE INTERNET: A REVIEW OF

NETWORKED LEARNING

Presented to

European Commission

DGXXII

NetD@ys Evaluation Group

Lipponen, L, Lakkala, M., Hakkarainen, K., Syri, J., Lallimo, J.,

Ilomäki, L., Muukkonen, H. & Rahikainen, M.

University of Helsinki

November 1999

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CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION 4

1.1 What is the Internet? 5

1.2 What is networked learning? 6

1.3 Tools for networked learning 8

1.4 Can the use of the Internet restructure educational practices? 11

2. SOCIO-ECONOMICAL ASPECTS OF THE INTERNET IN EDUCATION 11

2.1 Under what conditions does the Internet make learning more accessible? 13

2.2 Can the Internet facilitate equality in education? 17

2.3 Can the Internet help contain costs of education? 21

2.4 Can the Internet facilitate information literacy?

3. THE POTENTIAL OF THE INTERNET IN PROMOTING IMPROVED LEARNING 24

3.1 Can the Internet promote students' motivation for learning? 24

3.2 Can the Internet facilitate authentic problem solving 25

3.3 Can the Internet support genuine collaboration? 26

3.4 Can the Internet facilitate publishing students' works? 30

3.5 What is teacher's role in networked learning 31

4. EXAMPLES OF GOOD NETWORKED LEARNING PROJECTS 35

4.1 Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) 37

4.2 Kids as Global Scientist (KGS) 38

4.3 Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) 39

5. CONCLUSIONS 41

REFERENCES 44

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ABSTRACT

Technology, in this century, develops very quickly. It affords entirely new

tools and possibilities for advancing teaching and learning practices. From the

educators' point of view, the greatest expectations concerning educational technology

are focused on the Internet. The Internet and its' resources can be used to support a

large scale of learning activities such as accessing and sharing information, local and

global collaboration among students and experts, and facilitation of inquiry learning.

The Internet can free teaching from the physical boundaries of schools and the time

constrains of class schedules.

Despite positive results and visions of networked learning we should also take

into consideration the challenges of Internet and its' resources. The flood of randomly

accessed information does not necessarily aid the construction of knowledge and the

processes of creating values, or achieving mutual understanding appear to be very

hard in the network environments.

The aim of the present report is to critically examine the potentials and pitfalls of the

Internet in education by reviewing international publications and research articles on

current conceptions and issues of networked learning. Based on the review guide-lines

for an advanced networked learning in education for the K-12 sector is recommended.

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INTRODUCTION

Technology, in this century, develops very quickly. It affords entirely new

tools and possibilities for advancing teaching and learning practices. But, as Salomon

(1997, p, 17-18) aptly points out, "perhaps for the first time in human history,

education has its disposal novel and very tempting tools and engines without, in many

cases, having instructional rationales and psychological underpinnings to justify their

employment" (p. 17-18).

From the educators' point of view, not entirely shared among researchers, the

greatest expectations concerning educational technology are focused on the Internet

and especially on the World Wide Web (WWW). In many cases the Internet is

causing educators from all levels to think about the nature of teaching, learning, and

in a broader sense the whole of education. It may be that in the long run the use of

new technology will lead to a profound change in the students' and teachers'

conceptions of what teaching, learning and knowledge are all about.

There is evidence that the mere introduction of information and

communication technology (ICT) in education often leads to improved learning

results changes in practices. According to a recent meta-analysis of the educational

impact of ICT based on hundreds of international studies, the use of ICT enhances

learning outcomes (see Lehtinen, 1999). These studies indicate that the use of ICT as

such, or the accompanying changes in practices of learning and instruction, has a

positive effect on learning, although the results are not unambiguous. Introduction of

ICT is likely to develop skills of using information technology and of basic

knowledge acquisition, to change structures of classroom activities, to increase

students' control over their own learning, and to enhance motivation.

According to Windschitl (1998), much of the published work concerning the

use of the Internet (especially WWW) has been anecdotal descriptions of the activities

done. Few data are available concerning critical questions such as, Are these

practices helping students and teachers, and if so, how? or, Is the introduction of this

technology changing pedagogical and cognitive ractices? Many capabilities of the

Web are simply extensions of existing software capabilities. Windschitl (1998)

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claims that to investigate the Web's true instructional potential, we must sort out the

Web's unique characteristics regarding its use in the learning environment.

The present report is part of Netd@ys Europe 99 project. Netd@ys Europe 99

is a European Commission initiative. The aim of Netd@ys is to raise awareness of

the educational use of Information Communications Technology (ICT) and the

Internet through partnerships between public and private organisations throughout

Europe. In 1998 more than 35,000 educational organisations participated in over

5,000 projects and events. Partners now include organisations from the USA, Canada,

Japan, Australia, Africa, Eastern and Central Europe.

The NetD@ys 1998 experience was evaluated from a pedagogical viewpoint

by analysing the nature of its events and projects (Hakkarainen, Laine, Syri, Keltanen,

Muukkonen, Lipponen, Rahikainen, Ilomki, Lakkala, Vosniadou, Kollias & Mol,

1999). The aim of the present report is to critically examine the potentials and pitfalls

of the Internet in education by reviewing international publications and research

articles on current conceptions and issues of networked learning.

1.1 What is the Internet?

The Internet originated in the late 1960s as a U. S. Department of Defense

project conducted in a handful of universities to provide secure, attack-proof

communication. Actually, it is a by-product of the Cold War and was not designed

for the masses. However, it slowly grew to link many universities and a few

corporations worldwide, incorporating the basic features of electronic mail and file

transfer protocol (Descy, 1997; Galbreath, 1997; Starr, 1997; Tapscott, 1996).

At the physical level the Internet is a combination of computers, a collection

of networks, cables, telephone lines, satellite links; simplistically, the Internet can be

defined as a network of networks with a universal addressing scheme allowing real-

time, computer-to-computer, location-independent communication and information

exchange (Galbreath, 1997; Starr & Milheim, 1996; Trentin, 1999).

For users, the more important aspect is the kinds of services the Internet

offers; basic services of the Internet for communication: for example, e-mail and

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computer conferencing, newsgroups, and facilities for accessing and sharing

information such as World Wide Web (WWW). To use these services, a person

requires a client program (browser, e-mail,) operating in a computer to access a server

on the Internet service provider's computer. Two major uses of the Internet are as

communication and a means to mine the vast number of databases. To most users the

Internet appears as email and World Wide Web (Descy, 1997; Galbreath, 1997; Starr,

1997; Tapscott, 1996).

1.2 What is Networked Learning?

New phenomena require new concepts. Concepts such as Networked

Learning, Web-based-instruction, and online resources and tools have emerged in

educational discussions recently. In this chapter we give definitions for some of these

new concepts.

According to Haughey and Andersson (1998) "Networked Learning happens

when learners and instructors use computers to exchange information and access

resources as part of a learning endeavor" (p. 3). They state that the three most popular

ways in which Networked Learning is being used are; for e-mail private conversations

and educational exchanges; for e-mail and computer conferencing among a group of

people; for access to the Web as a a learning resource.

Haughey and Andersson (1998) give also some suggestions concerning how

and when networked learning is appropriate: "Networked learning is appropriate for

school-based learners who are gathered in one place but who are working on

individual projects best suited to their learning needs. Networked Learning can also

support a classroom-based learning group as the learners gather data or engage in

discussions or other learning activities with other groups located in the same building

or around the globe. It is appropriate for learning situations where the participants

cannot gather in a classroom because they are dispersed geographically or have tight

schedules, but would benefit from learning together. Networked Learning can also be

used to allow learners to enter and exit courses at varied times or to complete a course

in a long or short period of time. Alternatively, Networked learning activities can be

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designed to accent immediacy or support learner pacing by occurring at specific times

of the day." (p. 8)

Khan (1997) uses the term Web-Based Instruction (WBI) and defines it as "an

innovative approach for delivering instruction to a remoteaudience, using the Web as

a medium" (p. 5). His definition concentrates mainly on the ideas of using the Web as

a tool for Distance Learning. Khan divides features of Web-Based Instruction into two

categories: key features and additional features. Key features are inherent to the Web

(e.g., interactive, multimedial, globally accessible). Additional features are dependent

on the quality and sophistication of additional WBI design (e.g., ease of use,

collaborative learning, virtual cultures).

By Online resources and tools are meant the information and communication

technologies applied to teaching and learning. These tools and resources are intended

to provide flexible delivery of educational material (technology for the instructor); to

furnish guidance and facilitation of the student's experiences (technology for the

learner); and to support communities of learners (collaborative learning). "These

technologies make it possible to provide access to world-wide resources; facilitate the

accumulation and presentation of data; and enable communication, interaction, and

collaboration among students and instructors to improve the practice of teaching and

the experience of learning." (National Science Foundation (NSF), 1998, p. V).

Effective use of online resources and tools is understood to encompass those

pedagogies that take advantage of "applications that engage students with the

material, illustrate complex systems or relationships, and encourage interaction with

other individuals or teams. Ultimately, the technology tools should become

transparent as they integrate the user in the process, enabling immersion in the

learning level, and that, on an individual or community basis." (NSF, 1998, p. V)"

The concept Telelearning refers to the use of networked multimedia computers

that are networked for learning purposes, at school or at home. Learners using

networked computers may for example communicate from one site to the other, using

a variety of information sources (Bracewell, Breuleux, Laferrière, Benoit & Abdous,

1998). Further, Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been defined by Kaye

(1991) as: "The use of computers and computer networks as communication tools by

people who are collaborating with each other to achieve a shared goal, which do not

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require the physical presence or co-location of participants, and which can provide a

forum for continuous communication free of time constraints" (p. 5).

Following Khan (1997), we can divide the network-based learning into two

categories according to the tools used; using basic Internet tools and applications as

such in teaching and learning; designing special applications for learning which are

based on the Internet technology but have additional content, programmed features

and tools. Typical school projects participating in Netd@ys Europe, utilized the basic

Internet services (WWW, e-mail) in a classroom context or between different schools

and organizations to support ICT skills or subject-matter learning (Hakkarainen,

Laine, Syri, Keltanen, Muukkonen, Lipponen, Rahikainen, Ilomki, Lakkala,

Vosniadou, Kollias & Mol, 1999).

Web-Based Instruction (WBI) or networked learning, is to some degree,

structured. For example, Sherry and Wilson (1997) define levels of structure in Web-

Based Instruction: unstructured, very loosely structured, mostly structured and

structured based on the activities students conduct. An example of less structured

WBI is building home pages, and participating e-mail conferences. As an example of

more structured WBI they offer case- based instruction in teams and combining fixed

tasks of students. According to their experiences, in unstructured learning there were

erratic differences in learning outcomes; in loosely structured situations expertise was

still irregularly distributed but groups had common knowledge base. In more

structured learning situations there emerged shared expertise of the entire group and

each individual member attained much of it. In the most structured activities, the

Web became a new medium, but the activity was not radically new or interactive.

1.3 Tools for networked learning

Roschelle and Pea (1999) point out that most of the Internet tools available are

not robust and simple enough for use in average classrooms, or translatable to the

classroom setting (e.g., video conferencing tools not practical for 20-30, sometimes

40 pupil-classes). Further, they propose that typical Internet chat or bulletin board

systems or e-mail do not organize conversations well for learning.

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E-mail has been a communication tool in universities and also in many schools

for several years. In teaching, a common form of utilizing e-mail is for exchange of

messages between distant schools, cross-school research projects, and 'ask the expert'

arrangements with adult volunteers. E-mail has also been a practical medium for

teacher to deliver information to students or to give personal supervision. Basically e-

mail was designed for dyadic communication, but with the help of mailing lists, a

larger group of users can exploit e-mail in sharing joint documents and in

commenting on each other's work (Haughey & Andersson, 1998; Lehtinen,

Hakkarainen, Lipponen, Rahikainen & Muukkonen, 1999). Despite of these

"collaborative" features, e-mail does not organize discussion well and does not

scaffold learning in any pedagogically meaningful way.

Many interactive Internet and www-based conferencing applications can be

used for communication. In his Web pages (updated May 5, 1998), Woolley listed

about 150 conferencing systems available in the Internet. Only a few of them like

Virtual-U (Harasim, 1994; Harasim, Hiltz, Teles & Turoff, 1995), WebCT (Goldberg,

& Salari, 1997) and Interactive Learning Network (http://courses.lightlink.

com/web/index.htm) have originally been created for educational purposes. However,

many systems developed for computer conferencing in general, such as COW

(http://thecity.sfsu.edu/COW2/), have been successfully applied in education

(Lehtinen et al., 1999).

There exist also several www-based systems especially developed for

educational purposes; Web-SMILE (Puntambekar et al. 1997), Future Learning

Environment (Muukkonen, Hakkarainen & Lakkala, in press; Muukkonen,

Hakkarainen, Lipponen & Leinonen, 1999), Knowledge Forum (Scardamalia &

Bereiter, http://csile.oise.on.ca/intro.html). A common feature of advanced network

applications designed for educational purposes is that they support users' cognitive

activities by providing advanced socio-cognitive scaffolding and by offering many

different ways to structure discussion. "These tools all scaffold learning by

prestructuring the kinds of contributions learners can make, supporting meaningful

relationships among those contributions, and guiding students' browsing on the basis

of socio-cognitive principle (Pea, Tinker, Linn, Means, Brandsford, Roschelle, Hsi,

Brophy & Songer 1999, p. 33).

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In the following paragraphs two pedagogically advanced, networked learning

applications are presented: Future Learning Environment (FLE) and Knowledge

Forum (KF). The applications described were originally developed for pedagogical

purposes and are based on careful theoretical analyses and empirical research.

The Future Learning Environment is a groupware system developed by the

Media Laboratory, University of Art and Design, Helsinki, and the Department of

Psychology, University of Helsinki. It is designed to support collaborative knowledge

building and progressive inquiry. The users are able to access it from any Internet-

linked computer and can make postings of knowledge productions to FLE-Tools

database using their standard office applications and productivity tools producing

documents in various formats, such as text, graphics or video (Muukkonen, et al., in

press; http://www.mlab.uiah.fi/fle/index.html).

The FLE environment consists of several modules that are designed to

facilitate collaborative knowledge building in university education. The environment

provides each user a "Virtual Working Space" for building his or her knowledge

objects. The working space has direct links to those of the other members of the

study group, enabling all to share their process of inquiry. The "Knowledge Building

Module" facilitates between-user interaction and provides tools for navigating through

topics. The "Jam Session" module encourages free flow of ideas and experimentation

with different ways of representing knowledge and provides graphic representations

of the dynamic development of a project. The "Library" allows the user to share

documents in various formats: text, graphics, audio, video, multimedia or WWW

links. An important aspect of the Library is "Deep Principles"; an environment for

representing the conceptual foundations of each domain of knowledge.

In the design of FLE, special emphasis has been given to developing

metacognitive tools for structuring users' activity in knowledge building interaction.

Participation in progressive inquiry is facilitated by asking a user who is preparing a

discussion message to categorize the message by choosing a "category of inquiry

scaffold" (e.g., Problem, Working theory, Summary). These scaffolds are designed to

encourage students to engage in expert-like processing of knowledge; they help to

move beyond simple question-answer discussion and elicit practices of progressive

inquiry (Muukkonen et al., in press; Muukkonen et al., 1999).

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Knowledge Forum, designed by Scardamalia and Bereiter,

http://csile.oise.on.ca/intro.html) is a software package in which students build and

refine a class-owned database of notes. Knowledge Forum can best be described as a

student-generated, knowledge building environment, operated either on a local area

network or over the Internet, whose construction is collaborative and whose content is

continually evolving. A central element of KF is a note. A note is a passage and/or

picture relating to some aspect of the students' own learning. Notes are public within

the school database and can be retrieved from the Knowledge Forum database and

examined by any member of the class.

In Knowledge Forum there are 'Notes' that represent students' ideas and

questions. In this environment, students 'build on' to notes, 'reference' others' work,

make solicited 'contributions', 'rise-above' previous notes to create new syntheses, or

make 'collections' of related notes. 'Scaffolds' are built in and provide support in areas

such as text analysis, theory building, and debating. The notes in Knowledge Forum

are represented in a 'view'. A view is a visual organization of the ideas represented in

the notes. It provides dynamic structuring facilities that extend well beyond typical

list structures.

1.4 Can the use of the Internet restructure educational practices?

As stated in the introduction, the use of the Internet has the potential to change

and restructure educational practices. Several features of the Internet makes it

promising from the educational point of view.

Comparing the Web to earlier educational media, the Web appears distinctive

at least in the following respects: 1) It offers economical access to people and

multiformat information in ways unmatched by any other combinations of media. 2)

Much of the content of the Web cannot be found in any other format. 3) The Web

permits the work of individuals to be shared with the world. 4) It is a powerful,

flexible resource, in some ways unlike any others, that students are likely to encounter

and rely on in the workplace. 5) Students approach the Web with eager anticipation,

knowing that it is at the cutting edge of technology used by their most progressive

peers and by successful adults (Hackbarth, 1997).

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Owston (1997) proposed three advantages offered by the Web to promote improved

learning: First, the Web appears {to} students as a learning mode. At the present time

the computer is an integral part of childrens' world. As stated by Tapscott (1996, p.

17), "...technology is technology only for those who are born before it was invented."

Tapscott (1998) argued that armed with the most powerful tools in history, the

children representing the network generation are learning to communicate play, learn,

work, and think with the new media. He argued that the time spent in the Internet

teaches children most of all to learn and regulate their own cognitive activity. The

time spent on the Internet is not “passive time, it is active time. It’s reading time. It’s

investigation time. It’s skill development and problem-solving time. It’s time

analyzing, evaluating. It’s composing your thoughts time. It’s writing time”

(Tapscott, 1998, 8). He argued, further, that for the first time in history, the children

are taking control of critical elements of the revolution of information and

communication technologies being much more proficient in new media than their

parents.

Second, the Web provides flexible learning. It breaks down the time and place

barriers of education. It helps students gain an education without being on campus.

Web-based study projects have a possibility to be self-paced, time/place independent

environments for learning. Students are able to reflect on their responses to questions

and discussion topics before "publishing" them. In K-12 education many teachers

report that they have shifted their style of teaching from "a didactic to a more

problem-based approach" offering students greater autonomy in their learning. Third,

the Web enables new kinds of learning. In the hands of an innovative teacher, the

Web can play a prominent role in developing skills such as critical thinking, problem-

solving, written communication, and the ability to work collaboratively.

Haughey and Andersson (1998) classify the advantages of Networked

Learning as follows:

- Communication and interaction: Networked Learning is based on an interactive

learning model between teacher and learner, learner and learner, among groups of

learners, or from learners to the outside experts.

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- Immediacy: In Networked Learning "just-in-time" -learning is possible, where

learning is applied at the correct time to real and authentic problems. Collaborative

tools support social learning yet allow individuals to learn when and where they want.

- Permanence: Networked Learning activities and experiences are easily captured to

be studied, evaluated or re-used as needed. Such learning does not reduce the value of

face-to-face interaction, but can enhance the teaching and learning process in

remarkable way.

- Diffusion: Networked Learning diffuses learning so that access to libraries,

laboratories and expertise in available from nearly anywhere.

- Excitement: Interest in using computer networks is increasing all the time. The

Internet has created a huge potential market to provide education and training.

However, all the enumerated advantages of the Web and networked learning

(Hackbarth, 1997; Owston, 1997; Haughey and Andersson, 1998) should perhaps be

taken as possibilities. The Internet, or any other media, does not, of itself, cause

profound changes in educational practices.

2 SOCIO-ECONOMICAL ASPECTS OF THE INTERNET IN EDUCATION

In this section we shall focus on some socio-economic aspects of the Internet,

such as access to learning, access to information, equality, costs of education, and

information literacy. Let us consider the question, Under what conditions does the

Internet make learning more accessible?

2.1 Under what conditions does the Internet make learning more accessible?

It seems clear that, for many people, the Internet has, in fact, made learning

more accessible, or is beginning to do so. As Khan (1997) states, through the Internet

students and teachers can explore places or things to which they would otherwise not

have access. The two main dimensions of access offered by the Internet are new

possibilities to participate in educational activities, and access to a variety of

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information resources. Through the Internet it is possible to make education more

attainable for more people, i.e., provide educational opportunities for those unable to

attend school or college because of cultural, economic or social barriers; in effect, to

further democratize the educational system.

According to Owston (1997) access to higher education via the Web is

growing in the form of the virtual university, which provides universal access to on-

line courses and degrees. A virtual university has no physical campus, all interaction

occurs on-line; in most cases using the Web, e-mail and computer conferencing. At

the public school level (K-12 education), the increased access facilitated by the Web

can be seen in areas such as home schooling (e.g., parents educating children at home

because of geographic isolation, or political views), alternative schooling (where

students often lack access to quality learning materials), and extension courses for

students in high-school and adults seeking to complete their schooling through home

study (Owston, 1997). In connected classrooms (whether this connection is local or

remote), new interaction patterns are born. Resources for learning expand beyond the

teacher and textbook. Learners acquire broader audiences for their constructions and

outputs. The capability of presenting and manipulating outputs facilitates

collaboration with other learners.

The Internet, insofar as it is well and skillfully accessed, breaks down the

physical and temporal barriers of schooling. It offers a valuable resource for locating

up-to-date, authentic, primary information, and educational material whose potential

for supporting students' research extends far beyond the capabilities of a typical

school library. The learning resources of school can be augmented, through the

Internet, by resources of the world (Owston, 1997; Starr & Milheim, 1996; Trentin,

1999; Ward & Tiessen, 1997a; Ward & Tiessen, 1997b).

Yet despite the positive visions of access offered by the Internet it is a

different matter how these possibilities are actualized. One must also take into

consideration the challenges of increased access. Simultaneously with possibilities,

the Internet creates new barriers for students and teachers. Roschelle and Pea (1999)

have pointed out several limitations to increased accessibility to K-12 education.

According to them, distance and time are not the primary impediments to access to

appropriate learning resources in K-12 education; even if bare access to university

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courses is provided, young students, for example the sixth-graders, can hardly

understand the information when it is offered for university students. On-line access

is not enough: the information must be suitably presented for different audiences.

A related problem is that interactive communication on today's Internet is

overly based on text. Students of lower grade levels are not necessarily fluent readers

and are unlikely to be able to learn by participating in forums that require them to

express their thoughts as text (Roschelle & Pea, 1999; Lipponen, in press; Lipponen,

Hakkarainen & Järvelä, 1999).

According to Roschelle and Pea (1999), the problems of too much access exist

in three dimensions: 1) access that is dangerous; that does not take into account

students' need for a secure, private and safe place to learn, with filtered resources; 2)

heavy exposure to advertising; 3) access to too much information; information

overload without a good match to the students' learning tasks and inquiry projects.

Managing of information resources and finding useful information on the

Internet is a genuine problem. For example, Salomon (1997) has commented on the

opportunities afforded by the Internet: "At first glance it appears to afford everything

a constructivist approach would wish to have: Multiple sources of information to draw

from, a whole information world to explore, and an invitation to become an active,

fully participating member of the larger, virtual, and diverse information society. The

problem, though, is that it is too much of a good thing. Too many sources, too much

information, too many communication links, and too much excitement relative to the

meager pedagogical rationale to justify the process of surfing this abundance for the

purposes of learning." (pp. 17-18)

The following example, which has been transcribed in one of our Finnish

research schools as a part of their ordinary school curriculum (lhde pitisi keksi), sheds

light on some of the problems involved in this type of educational use of the Internet.

In the course of a research project on Finnish forest as a living environment for wild

animals, a three-girl group, through the Internet, is collecting information about bears.

The teacher is attempting to help the students. The following interaction has been

translated from Finnish (Jennifer and Linda are the children):

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Teacher: OK. This is a Finnish search engine [for the Internet], [the one] I always use it at home. I learn by doing this kind of search. But I just got a connection at home, and haven't had time to do this [particular] search. So now I'll learn many new sites. {originally, hard to follow}

Jennifer: Fine! Let's start playing!

Teacher: Here is where the information should be. I've written the instructions over there.

Jennifer: We are not looking for rabbits (yawning).

Teacher: No, and here [it is], the Inet search, the Inet search.

Jennifer: And if you find the animal, then take it.

Teacher: OK. Let's see. I haven't got any idea what could be

coming.

Jennifer: Blaah blaah blaah society, spare time, sports, again the

Inet search? I'll see what comes up.

Teacher: It went back in the Inet. Why didn't we get there?

Linda [reading] : 'Spare[time] sports.'

Teacher: Now there is the Inet search.

Jennifer: Is it there? Hi!

Teacher: Wait a minute. [Click click.] We should get a text saying

"Inet point fi{ve}". I don't think it [the engine] was going there

until now. Now.

Jennifer: (laughing) Show [me] the result of the search. What is

the date of the search [material]?

Teacher: OK, what area should the information be about? Finland I

guess?

Jennifer: In Finland, here. Teacher: And there you put the animal

you want to search.

Jennifer: The bear.

Teacher: It is coming. See the engine is only sleeping. [We should

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have taken] Some short cuts. Or you didn't put it right.

Jennifer: No.

Teacher: Now you have to do it, the cursor's blinking. Go on.

Jennifer: How on earth?

Teacher: Oh boy, you got 9000 pages. 9000, 9000 stories on bears.

Jennifer: Oh God.

Bare ("raw") accessibility of knowledge is much improved in K-12 education,

through the Internet. Yet, with respect to educational goals, the situation can be

problematic, as the example indicates. Much is required from the teacher: he or she

must, for example, ensure that the students access a manageable number of resources,

and that these are understandable to the them. The task of the learners is not any

easier. They also have to keep in mind the kind of knowledge they are seeking; learn

and put to use new skills.

2.2 Can the Internet facilitate equality in education?

The recent review by Woodward and Rieth (1997) of the use of technological

support for special education students made no mention of online technologies.

However, current work with these technologies includes support for deaf students

(Johnson, 1997; Luft, 1997; Weber, 1997), for blind students (Kapperman, 1997), for

students with learning disabilities (Delzell and Hamill, 1996; Fargen, 1996), for

intellectually gifted students (Bulls and Riley, 1997), and for students experiencing

social difficulties at school (Diggs, 1997; Kinney, 1997). The Netdays Europe project

(see Hakkarainen et.al., 1999) demonstrated that it is possible to use the Internet to

facilitate equality in education through

- Supporting equal participation of female and male students in ICT related activities

by designing special projects (e.g., GirlsNet) than encourage female students’

participation.

- Helping students from socio-economically-disadvantaged homes to get access to

ICT by providing economically and socially excluded young people an opportunity to

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learn to use the Internet.

- Facilitating learning of disabled or hospitalized students by providing ICT training

and helping them to network with each other and delivering text and audio-visual

information.

The development of the Internet promise to break many traditional boundaries

between socially, culturally or physically disadvantaged persons and the rest of the

population, provide new perspectives for economically disadvantaged areas, and truly

democratise access to resources for intellectual growth. NetD@ys activities appeared

to foster equality in education through offering young students from all of Europe an

access to the new information and communication technology as well as engaging

them in many kinds of activities that fostered not only development of ICT skills but

also their own understanding of subject-matter knowledge.

There is a large scale of work on the issue of gender and computer use. The

focus of these studies has been on topics like computer anxiety, attitudes toward

computer use, working in single gender and gender-mixed pairs. A large part of the

discussion has focused on girls participation and access in computer work. But as

Hoyles and Forman (1995) pointed out maybe too little attention is still paid to topics

like friendship, class, culture, and gender in computer supported learning.

Many studies show that boys find computers more attractive and they also feel

more positively towards computer use than girls. Girls seemed to have less motivation

to work with computers. This may due to gender differences in computer experiences

girls having them less both at home and in school. In addition, boys tended to see

computers more usefull (Durndell, 1991; Hoyles 1988). Crook (1994) points out the

danger of this development concluding that girls attitude towards information

technology may become increasingly negative proceed through school.

Communication, collaboration, use of language and interactivity are

traditionally said to be female domains of expertise. Indeed, some research indicated

that females are more familiar wtih communication-related technologies while males

focused on control devices and entertainment technologies. Boys also seemed to

dominate the input device when the computer work was organized in mixed gender

pairs (Littleton, Light, Joiner & Barnes, 1992).

19

It seems, that the functions computers serve and organization of learning

setting and tasks may play important role in girls participation on computer work.

Girls attitude to computer use may increase if the environment and work with

computers is organized collaboratively and if they have equal access to the

technology.

An excellent example of facilitaing female students’ participation in the use of

the Internet as well as networking between schools and research communities is

NetScience 98 project initiated by Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of

Vienna. Through NetD@ys activities the project aimed to bridge the traditional gap

which separates girls from physics and technology. Online chats, video-conferencing

and distance learning were used to bring together female scientists and students,

discussing themes in physics and technology. Activities undertaken included

- A chat-line for discussing the role of female scientists;

- Videoconferencing that allowed a virtual visit to a research laboratory;

- A pilot project on distance learning that connects schools and universities;

- A presentation of students' achievements through a competition organised by the

Austrian Physical Society.

- A one-day workshop to explore the possibilities of using the Internet in science

teaching.

The NetScience 98 project appears to improve the quality of science teaching;

it addressed equality in education through encouraging female students' to participate

in studying science and to engage in ICT-related activities; it helped to build a basis

for genuine student-scientist partnership. In order to facilitate female students’

participation in the use of the Internet, we have to initiate new Internet projects that

are subsumed under pedagogical goals, address female students’ special needs, and

rely on collaborative learning.

Despite of the large scale of work with gender and computers, only a few

cognitively oriented studies focused on gender differences in computer supported

collaborative learning are carried out. Healey, Pozzi & Hoyles (1995) examined

20

factors assosiated with learning mathematics in mixed gender groups (3 girls and 3

boys in each, aged 9-12 years) with computers. They found no differences in positive

learning outcomes across gender. In a study carried out by Littleton and others (1992)

was examined a computer based problem solving (the task to be solved was in

adventure game format) in pairs of same-sexpairs and mixed-sex. The results suggest

that girls might benefit relatively more from collaborative modes of working than

boys but no significant differences was found. Other studies revealed that mixed

groups are ineffective (Underwood, McCaffrey & Underwood, 1990) and that girls

actually do better in mixed groups and constitution of pairs makes very little in

learning outcomes on idividual level (Barbierri and Light 1992). So these empirical

studies offer quite contradictory conclusions about the impact of gender in computer

supported learning.

Palonen and Hakkarainen (1999) conducted an intensive case study of

computer-supported collaborative learning by applying qualitative analysis of content

and social network analysis. The participants were grade 5-6 students from a

Canadian inner-city public school. The study indicated that female students

participated much more intensively in a collaborative process of inquiry than male

students although these were considerable within-group differences in participation.

Further, the analysis revealed that average- and high-achieving female students

dominated discourse interaction within the class, and carried the main responsibility

for all students’ collaborative building of knowledge. An important characteristic of

the students' culture of interaction was that female and male students interacted

mainly within their respective gender groups. However, within the groups a

significant amount of communication took place between students representing

different achievement levels. Further, the male students did not appear to be willing to

share their intuitive conceptions and ideas-under-development as readily as did the

female students. Because males generally preferred to post authoritative statements of

scientific knowledge to the database, their postings did not appear to provide as

fruitful a starting point for lively discussion as female students' postings that often

represented their own intuitive theories and conceptions. Thus the females'

engagement in this kind of intensive interaction appeared to help them make

considerable conceptual advancement in their inquiry (Hakkarainen, 1998a).

21

2.3 Can the Internet help contain costs of education?

According to Owston (1997) three main areas of technology costs in higher

education are the following: 1) Hardware and software. For example campus

networks may have to be significantly upgraded, high-capacity servers purchased, and

modems installed. 2) Course development. Much more time is spent in developing

the courses; not only the academic content but also the web resources associated. 3)

Ongoing maintenance of courses (e.g., posting materials, verifying links).

In the area of national educational policy, the most immediately effective

strategy for minimizing the costs is to concentrate efforts on the courses that generate

the greatest enrolment. In K-12 education, with a relatively small investment, a

significant value can be added to a school's resources: opportunities to consult people

(e.g., scientists, access to specialized high-school courses, classroom materials (e.g.,

maps, magazines) and teacher materials. All these documents are generally available

at no charge (Owston, 1997).

To develop and support critical-thinking skills is a more complex undertaking;

small-group learning methodologies have traditionally been favoured; however, they

have always been relatively expensive (Romiszowski, 1997). According to

Romiszowski (1997), "the paradoxical situation, therefore, is that in the changing

technological and economical climates as we move into the 21st century, we may get

less and less of what we need more and more" (p. xx). He suggests that we educators

should solve the problem with the same technology that has caused the problem:

computer mediated conversations may be as effective as small-group discussions.

Yet there exist several challenges in reducing technology costs in all levels of

education. Many technology businesses serve the educational (especially K-12)

market are failing. Time and effort are needed in order to identify relevant resources

on the Web. Identifying relevant resources is too demanding for already over

burdened teachers to undertake. Data about valuable and useful sites and material is

required (Roschelle & Pea, 1999).

22

Efforts to reduce software production costs and new channels for delivering

products are needed. A good example is the Educational Object Economy (EOE, see

http://www.eoe.org), a complementary online community of developers based around

the creation, sharing, distributing, and use of teaching and learning resources that

incorporate Java 'applets' for web-based learning. Java applets are small, easy-to-use

programs written in Sun Microsystem's Java programming language. An Educational

Object is an information package related to a certain issue, and it usually consists of a

software component and background information. With any computer equipped with

a standard web browser which is able to handle Java, hundreds of teaching and

curriculum development tools can be accessed for use in the classroom, for research,

or other educational endeavors. In the United States public funds are currently being

used to support the project. The project fosters participation in a learning community

which promotes education in settings and situations beyond the walls of the traditional

classroom. It also encourages educators to share and reuse objects and to build

communities that collaborate and cooperate in the development and distribution of

teaching and learning tools.

2.4 Can the Internet facilitate information literacy?

One of the basic requirements for education in the future is to prepare learners

for participation in a networked, information society in which knowledge will be the

most critical resource for social and economic development. The revolution of new

information and communication technology is dramatically changing our ways of

working, studying, and collaborating. Work in organizations is increasingly

becoming centered on collaboration in groups. Successful collaborative processes are

linked with high motivation to face new challenges, personal cognitive competencies

including regulation one's own cognitive activity, and skills of searching, managing,

and producing knowledge. Educational institutions are forced to find better

pedagogical methods and practices to cope with these new challenges. In this

development the Internet and its resources can be expected to play an important role.

23

In one respect, the path to development of the use of the Internet in education

is clear. Most parents and educators are convinced that working with information and

communication technology will prepare learners with skills needed in information

society. However, very often the Internet skills are understood perhaps too narrowly,

as only involving learning skills of using information technology (computer literacy

skills) and skills of basic knowledge acquisition. This issue is addressed nicely by

Bereiter (1999); he argues that the new technology is not yet widely used for

meaningful educational purposes; in many cases, it mainly reproduces the activities

that, in an earlier day, were carried out using scissors, old magazines, and library

paste. Computerized cut-and-paste work does not teach students skills that will

ensure their futures in the 21st century:

"Adults are predictably overimpressed when children can do something they cannot.

For instance, the things that can be done with photo image processing software these

days look like magic, and when adults who have never encountered it before walk into

a classroom and find 11-year-olds morphing images, changing coloration, and taking

a figure from one image and planting it in another, they are likely to echo the words of

a superintendent who exclaimed, 'I think I have just seen the 21st century!'. What

they have seen, impressive as it may be, is however something that can be learned in

two or three hours. More sophisticated educators recognize that there is a conflict and

try to resolve it" (Bereiter, 1999).

According to Bereiter (1999) the new technology is often merely used to

produce visually impressive presentations; he refers to the use, in schools of the

resources available on the Internet and on CD-ROMs, the scanners and multimedia

presentation software that permit the incorporation of video, sound, and graphics.

However the focus of the projects supported by new technology should not, he argues,

merely be on making an impressive presentation, but on creating new knowledge. It

is not enough that a student's project looks nice. What students actually learn from

producing a multimedia document depends on how information they process in

assembling the document. Students should not be passive consumers of technology

and information but active producers of knowledge. They should be aware that they

have possibility and capacity of adding intellectual value to information (knowledge)

through the Internet.

24

3 THE POTENTIAL OF THE INTERNET IN PROMOTING IMPROVED

LEARNING

As reviewed in introduction, many expectations of the Internet's possibilities

in restructuring educational practices exist. The Internet and its' resources can be used

to support a large scale of learning activities such as local and global collaboration

among students and experts, facilitation of problem-based and inquiry learning and in-

depth learning in science by modelling and visualization. The Internet and it resources

provides a means for student to publish their work. Students can reach audience that is

intrested in their efforts, and can provide feedback and value students' productions.

The Internet can free teaching form the physical boundaries of schools and the time

constrains of class schedules.

3.1 Can the Internet promote students' motivation for learning?

In general, students are very motivated to work with the new information and

communication technology. One of the most consistent results of placing information

technologies in classrooms and ensuring that students have access to them has been

that students' interest in, and satisfaction with, schooling increases. Technology

apparently makes the classroom a more interesting environment that appeals to a

wider range of students (Bulls and Riley, 1997; McDonald and Ingvarson, 1997;

Murphy, 1997; US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1995, pp. 65-66).

For example, as reported by Schofield et al. (1997), almost all of the 28 elementary

and secondary teachers participating in the Common Knowledge Internet project

reported greater student interest and participation in classroom activities. A recent

large survey study (Hakkarainen, Ilomäki, Lipponen, Muukkonen, Rahikainen,

Tuominen, Lehtinen, 1999), in Finnish high schools analyzed what students actually

know about ICT, how they use ICT, and what they think about it. The investigators

found that Finnish students have positive attitudes towards ICT and using ICT tools.

Several aspects of new technology seem to increase motivation. According to

Duncastel (1997), the World Wide Web is thought of, by students, as inherently

25

interesting and very motivational for learning. Positive attitudes and interest

concerning ICT may be related to the novelty of it, the sense of control, the richness

of information, the interaction possibilities, multimedia attractiveness and so on.

Further, Duchastel (1997) writes: " As we consider the technology of the Web and

what it makes possible, we see two strong motivational aspects: The first is a factor

that deals with the effort-to-interest relationship evident in our dealing with

information search activities. The other is the communicative aspect of the Web,

whereby interchange is enhanced in support ofcollaborative learning" (p. 182).

High motivation, however, does not automatically produce improvements in

learning outcomes. The other potential problem is that the Internet and its resources

are often used in education solely as motivational tools for students. Students might

only use the technology for the passive downloading of information or for "bouncing"

from one link to another without any specific learning goal.

3.2 Can the Internet support authentic problem solving?

Managing complex and ill-defined problems and dealing with rapid change are

becoming more and more important in "survival" strategies for the future. Citizens, at

present, are exposed to a vastly increasing amount of information. Thus the traditional

practices of learning and instruction, based on routines and absorption of transmitted

information, have become more and more problematic. Traditional schools that focus

on well-defined and partitioned problems do not appear to be able to provide students

the higher-level cognitive skills needed. Optimally, the Internet will help students

participate in solving authentic, complex "real-life" problems. Students find such

problems and activities both intriguing and meaningful.

Solving "real-world" problems with the help of teacher or adult experts,

students can develop flexible mental processes, improve their ability to deal with

uncertainty, and learn to adopt practices of expert-like working with knowledge (see,

for example, Vosniadou, 1997; Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Lamon, 1994). Through the

Internet, the problems addressed at school may be better "anchored" to the

meaningful, complex problems outside school (Cognition and Technology Group at

Vanderbilt, 1997), including those certainly to be encountered in a future workplace.

26

From cognitive research on educational practices have arisen various forms of

student-expert partnership for building connections between schools and varied kinds

of expert cultures and communities. This kind of partnership is critical because

higher-level cognitive competencies are developing in a close interaction with expert

cultures and through participating in "communities of practice" (Lave & Wanger,

1991). A connection with an expert culture may help to understand the experts' ways

of solving problems and to approach tasks in their domain, adopt their tacit

knowledge, and, generally, learn to understand how experts think. Information

networks and networked learning environments allow one to bring various kinds of

authentic expert knowledge to schools as well as mediate direct student-expert

communication. For example, such networks open classrooms to many kinds of

extended sources of information in databases. Creating virtual communities of

distributed expertise (students-experts, teachers-experts, students-teachers-parents)

enables multiple forms of engagement within projects. A promising approach is to

facilitate local community building, i.e., break the common place boundaries of

school through involving parents, local organisations, and associations into an

extended learning community.

Examples of authentic problem solving and the Internet, are given in chapter

"Good Examples of Networked Learning".

3.3 Can the Internet Support Genuine Collaboration?

The Internet promises to facilitate meaningful interaction between students

and teachers within and across school. Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

(CSCL) is one of the most promising innovations to improve teaching and learning

with the help of modern information and communication technology (Lehtinen et al.,

1999). The idea of collaborative learning has become so popular that, as Roschelle &

Pea (1998) pointed out, almost any web facilities are labeled as collaborative tools.

However, peer interaction or cooperation through the Internet does not always

facilitate in-depth learning. In this regard, it is important to make a distinction

between cooperation and collaboration (Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O'Malley,

1996). The distinction is based on different ideas of the role and participation of

27

individual members in the activity. Cooperative learning is accomplished by the

division of labor among the participants. It is an activity where each person is

responsible for a portion of the problem solving, whereas collaboration involves “the

mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve the problem

together" (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995). In order to facilitate in-depth learning, it is

important to go beyond a simple division of labor towards using the Internet as a tools

of shared problem solving and inquiry learning.

According to Romiszowski (1997), the computer-mediated communication is

an area that mostly needs research and development in educational contexts. He

writes: "computer networks is merely a technological device to link together human

beings into collaborative conversational networks, where they can exchange ideas and

share materials, often stored and presented as hypertexts or hypermedia information

networks. But the object of the whole exercise is ultimately to help individuals to

build their own (and to enable them to help others build their own) conceptual

netwroks of interrelated ideas, strategies and theories" (p. 34).

There is a wealth of descriptive evidence on the beneficial effects of online

collaboration with other students and with experts and other resources beyond the

classroom, evidence which began to be collected in the 1980's when students started

to gain access to wide area computer networks. Recent additions to that evidence

include Cohen (1997) and Bruce, Carragher, Damon, Dawson, Eurell, JGregory,

Lauterbur, Marjanovic, Mason-Fossum, Morris, Potter and Thakkar (1997) on science

education, Schofield, Davidson, Stocks and Futoran (1997) on second language

learning and Keisler (1997) on a range of educational uses of the Internet.

From a series of studies, Bonk and King (1995) concluded that networks can

1) change the way students and instructors interact; 2) enhance collaborative learning

opportunities; 3) facilitate class discussion, and 4) move writing from solitary to more

active, social learning. They also presented a taxonomy of different networks tools for

learning environments from simple e-mail systems to rich collaborative hypermedia

networks. Also Coleman (1999) examined evolution of collaborative technology

during the last ten years, and describe revolutionary technological advancement from

electronic messaging, electronic meeting systems and computer conferences, desktop

videoconferencing, group document handling to real groupware environments that

28

allow the users to solve problems and produce knowledge together. The latest trend is

collaborative internet-based applications and products that are platform independent,

able to handle dynamic and interactive representations as well as provide

sophisticated support for interaction and collaboration. The latest technology-based

environments designed to support collaborative learning, such as the Future Learning

Environment, are utilizing this advanced Internet technology, and promise to facilitate

genuine and in-depth collaboration between students and teachers in the Internet.

Follansbee, Hughes, Pisha & Stahl (1997) examined how online

communications improves student performance. Their controlled study demonstrated

that students perform better on measurements of information management,

communication, and presentation of ideas, comparing 500 students in fourth-grade

and sixth grade classes in 7 urban school districts in the U.S (see

http://www.cast.org/publications/stsstudy/).

By summarizing results of research on educational potential of the Internet

(Owston, 1997; Starr & Milheim, 1996; Trentin, 1999; Ward & Tiessen, 1997a; Ward

& Tiessen, 1997b), we may distinguish several levels or forms of collaborating

through the Internet.

- At the first level the Internet is used only for purposes of social correspondence

and exchange. Characteristic of this kind of correspondence is that interaction

through the Internet is not intentionally focused on learning. This kind of interaction

(for example, students sent emails to each other) may, of course, be educationally

valuable and help students to network and learn to know each others.

- The second possibility is to share knowledge by using the Internet. The Internet is

a shared information space that contains an incredible amount of information in the

form of books, articles, journals, news and so on. This shared space supports the

creation and sharing of students’ own knowledge in various formats. Pedagogically it

is very valuable that the Internet provides a possibility for students to see others’

work, and, thereby, make their thinking and problem-solving processes visible.

- A the third level the Internet provides a medium in which collaborative projects

can be conducted jointly within or between groups of students who share the same

learning goals, regardless of their physical locations. This kind of advanced level of

29

collaboration is supported through various computer-supported collaborative

learning environments, as mentioned before.

While interaction takes place through computer networks it opens new

possibilities to facilitate communication and collaboration. However, simultaneously

it also causes some problems that do not exist in face-to-face communication.

Distance and asynchronous communications trough networks are new features of

interaction, which challenge our pedagogical thinking (Lehtinen & al., 1999).

Interactive communication on today´s Internet is overly based on text.

However, student of lower grade levels are not necessarily fluent readers and are

unlikely to be able to learn by participating in forums that require expressing their

thoughts as text (Roschelle & Pea, 1999; Lipponen, in press; Lipponen, Hakkarainen

& Järvelä, 1999). Young children may not be very capable of expressing their ideas or

making their thinking visible by writing and are not necessarily fluent readers. Studies

of communications in e-mail and in CSCL environments, for instance, suggest

interesting differences in comparison with printed forms of communication: these

communications are less structured, less constrained by social conventions, and more

spontaneous (Lipponen, in press; Lipponen, et al., 1999; Windschitl, 1998).

The nature of network mediated discourse differs also from the face-to-face

communication. In written communication, which is the main medium of

communication in the Internet, the referential relations of text should be explicated

and the context created. In face-to-face communication, in contrast, these are usually

known by participants or are easily checked. However, in many cases students do not

explicate such referential relations in network discussions. In this respect, their written

activity resembles oral discourse (Lipponen & Hakkarainen, 1997; Lipponen, in

press).

Roschelle and Pea (1999) argued that several factors constrain the Internet’s

ability to promote improved learning. Today's Internet is not sufficiently integrated

with the structure of K-12 education. Very few web resources support, for example,

the curriculum of elementary and secondary education or represent European or

American national educational standards. Further, the processes of creating values,

30

forming shared beliefs or achieving mutual understanding appear to be very hard to

replicate in the network environments.

However, revolutionary technological advancement promises to create

radically new tools for collaborative learning (Eisenstadt & Vincent, 1999; Baek, et.

al., 1999). Collaborative agents and other entities based on artificial intelligence are

emerging and going to provide significant support for collaborative use of the

Internet. The intelligent agents collaborate with other agent and humans (exchanging

information and services) in order to complete tasks assigned to then – thereby,

helping to solve problems that cannot be solved alone. These intelligent agents may,

for instance, use information of user profiles to help students working on same kind of

projects to network with each other and search for and screen information that other

students with the same background have found interesting and useful. Educational use

of this kind of intelligent tools are probably going to help to go beyond many current

limitations of the Internet, such as management of huge amount of available

heterogeneous information.

3.4 Can the Internet facilitate publishing sudents' works?

The Internet and especially World Wide Web, as a shared information space,

provides a medium for students to publish and share they work and documents with

their fellow students and diffrent communities all over the world. As students become

publishers, their own contribution to the Internet, to the shared knowldge capital, can

become useful resources for the work of their own and others. Producing of

knowledge for a real audience is often also a very motivating and rewarding

experience. Publishing of one's production on the Internet may push a student to carry

out deeper investigations and achieve better results through forcing one to consider

his or her productions from the viewpoint of the possible audience. Further, while

producing knowledge for publishing students learn to view knowledge as socially

constructed (Hakkarainen, et al., 1999; Owston, 1997; Starr & Milheim, 1996;

Trentin, 1999; Ward & Tiessen, 1997a; Ward & Tiessen, 1997).

Publishing in the Internet means sharing knowledge among students but also a

possibility for students to see others work. A good example of a project that has

31

published in Internet is the ELETA (European Legends and Tales) project of the

Laukaa Comprehensive School, Finland. Pupils wrote articles about the tales and

traditions in Finland aiming to exchange collected and translated tales with other

countries so that pupils could consider the differences and similarities in the folklore.

Studenst productions were published in their web magazine ELETA. Other examples

of publishing in the Web are the projects CyberFair and Community Share. In these

projects schools share resources, establish partnerships, and students work together to

publish information about their communities (Solomon & Andres, 1998).

For most of the projects conducted in schools publishing means preparing web

pages describing, for instance, school projects. However, there exist also projects that

provide technical education for assisting students and teachers in publishing of their

work, such as learning to make a web page. Some other projects are focused more on

creating tools that would make it easier to publish one's productions on the Internet

(Hakkarainen et al., 1999).

While encouraging studenst to publish in the Internet, educators should make

them aware of the critical difference between the content and the form of the

publications. Bereiter (1999) argued that pedagogy should deal with knowledge rather

than with the containers of knowledge. He stated that typical school "projects" involve

producing a visible object, such as an illustrated report or a web page. However, the

focus of the projects supported by new technology should not be on publishing

visually impressive presentations but creating new knowledge.

3.5 What is teacher's role in networked learning

The revolution of information and communication technology is a major

challenge to teachers' professional development. Teachers have to learn technical

skills to use ICT productively, and to instruct and guide the students to use ICT in a

meaningful way. Teachers need to become familiar with ICT and also to acquire

pedagogical expertise needed to work productively with new information and

communication technology. New pedagogical practices have to be explored and

developed in order to facilitate higher-level knowledge-acquisition skills that learners

need to constructively adapt to the knowledge society.

32

Currently, teachers' lack of technical expertise in ICT appears significantly to

constrain possibilities of developing new and innovative ICT-supported pedagogical

practices. For example, a large survey made in Finland (Hakkarainen et al., 1998)

revealed that only a small percentage of teachers had adequate skills of information

technology although a majority of them had access to computers either in their homes

or at school. Further, the study found that only 9 % of these teachers, in their actual

teaching, used computers daily; only 27 % used computers weekly. A big challenge

for teachers is to develop new pedagogical practices and put them to use.

As Vosniadou (1997) argues, teachers have to change their instructional

practices significantly and become facilitators and co-learners of students' learning

activities rather than dispensers of information. This means facilitating collaboration

between students, encouraging them to monitor their understanding (without directly

giving them information), communicating with them and carefully examining the

discourse of the students. Students generally should not be left to conduct unguided

discovery learning with the Internet. Without actively participating in students'

inquiry, the teacher can neither help the students to advance their learning process, nor

recognize significant contributions, nor generalize emerging progressive practices of

using the Internet and its resources.

In order to utilise the new possibilities of ICT pedagogically, the teachers need

to know how to guide students' active learning and how to take advantage of new

technology and the Internet. Yet it is unlikely that an individual teacher can make

much progress in pedagogical practice without the support of the whole

pedagogicalcommunity of school as well as national and European authorities

(Lipponen & Hakkarainen, 1997).

Shotsberger (1997) discussed teacher's role in WBI and proposed three key

issues: First, to what extent must instructors formalize and/or tailor the use of WBI

interactive tools and methods in order to ensure learner involvement? Research

findings indicate, that if the use of options for investigation and experimentation

depends on user initiative, it is likely that tools will not be employed. Second, what is

the appropriate blend of synchronous and asynchronous contact required for

supporting WBI learners? Third, what is the role of the instructor in fostering a sense

33

of community among learners in a virtual WBI classroom? Shotsberger (1997) offers

some recommendations for teachers in Web-Based Instruction: Publish preliminary

materials that stress the frequency of learner's involvement, to heighten interactivity;

post asynchronous messages specifically intended to promote conversation;

communicate one-on-one with learners to encourage interaction or ask about

difficulties; assign varying soles to learners, such as presenter, discussant or

discussion moderator; use smaller work groups to accomplish tasks, avoiding sole

reliance on large group format for meetings and discussion.

Collins (1996) proposes that the same enthusiasm and the same expectations

that were aroused by computers in schools in late 70s are now, in many ways, focused

on the Internet and its resources. Keeping this in mind, we should take our earlier

experiences with information and communication technology very seriously.

According to Collins (1996) the major lessons to be learned are as follows: Begin

with educational needs for technology--do not begin with thetechnology; start with

issues that are important for teachers and students; do not put computers in only one

room; support the enthusiasts.

Lamon et al. (1996) wrote about difficulties in implementing three learning

models with technology to schools: The CSILE Project, Jasper{'}s Woodbury

Problem Solving Series, and the Fostering a Community of Learners program.

According to their evidence and experience, a great deal of structure is necessary in

order to make the environments work optimally in student learning. Teachers had

problems with combining theoretical innovations and usage of the applications in

classrooms; the researchers started, much more, to appreciate the challenges faced by

teachers who were trying to implement the programs to classroom learning. Teachers

in the project had extra resources, such as computer technology and content experts,

who could help teachers and students acquire complex subject-matter knowledge.

This is not possible in every school and every classroom. The issue of "scaling up

while ensuring quality" is an issue for any attempt to restructure education (Lamon et

al., 1996). What seems to be needed is good models for helping teachers to

collaborate with each other and with experts in order to get assistance and support in

pedagogical questions. The model should be cost-effective, so that it is possible to

distribute the ideas and practices to large numbers of teachers and schools.

34

Implementation of new pedagogical innovations in schools often fails even if

the ideas are theoretically well-grounded and accepted. According to Windschilt

(1998) educators, in their pedagogy, do not differentiate among kinds of research

information: (in the case of WWW) reports in scientific journals are not differentiated

from those in non-professional publications, such as newspapers and magazines.

Lamon, Reeve and Caswell (1999) point out that many educational reformers

think that the most important component in effective reform is highly skilled teachers.

Several development projects have shown, however, that it is difficult for even very

experienced teachers to adopt and apply new advanced pedagogical methods (e.g.

Rich, 1993; Lamon et al. 1996). Teachers need guiding models and support to help

them to integrate theoretical knowledge about learning and their practical professional

knowledge (Leinhardt, Young & Merriman, 1995).These difficulties might also be

related to the novelty of the ideas of networked learning in schools, but they also

indicate that the theoretical and practical principles of networked learning are still too

recently articulated to be widely recognized and readily applied in practical

educational reforms.

Soloway (1996) further stated, "The technology is the proximal cause; but

quite frankly, the real issue is the teacher permitting and then encouraging students to

work, to talk, to produce genuine artifacts, and to feel good about themselves and

what they are doing in school." (p. 14) Proper support including peer coaching, visits

to classrooms using ICT, walk-in clinics, and reflective activities must be provided in

the school environment for teachers to integrate ICTs into their classroom activities.

To summarize: In order to fully utilise new pedagogical possibilities offered

by ICT, profound changes in teachers' conceptions of learning and knowledge are

required. Technical expertise alone is not sufficient to exploit new pedagogical

possibilities provided by ICT; insofar as ICT is used in the educational system as a

purely technical innovation, significant pedagogical progress will not likely be

achieved.

Thus a very critical aspect of facilitating pedagogically meaningful use of

Internet applications and progress is the training of teachers. In order to implement

new technology and pedagogical practices the teachers need a great deal of

35

pedagogical and epistemological support from researchers, in the form of project

designs and good examples. Besides theoretical knowledge about new technology,

they need practical knowledge of good approaches.

4 EXAMPLES OF GOOD NETWORKED LEARNING PROJECTS

Many researchers have concluded that no medium — be it television or

Internet or any other — by itself improves teaching and learning (e.g., Owston, 1997;

Roschelle and Pea, 1999; Salomon, 1997). As stated by Owston (1997), after more

than 50 years of research on instructional media, no consistent significant effects from

any medium on learning have been demonstrated.

The rationale of 'because it is there' is not adequate in the long run. Simply

because students are able to access the Internet and use high-tech equipment is

insufficient reason to justify the involvement in such activities, from an educator's

standpoint. By itself, neither the Internet nor any other educational technology

necessarily does much to facilitate learning and higher-order thinking (Salomon &

Perkins, 1996; Salomon, 1997). Educators and researchers should ask what kinds of

help can be reasonably expected from information processing technology and the

Internet in education, for, as Sarason (1984) has pointed out, not everything

technologically possible, wondrous as it might be, needs to automatically also become

instructionally desirable. It is crucial to determine how effectively such a medium is

exploited in the teaching and learning situation. For the researcher, one advantageous

feature of the Web is that it allows every thought to be captured for future

examination, elaboration and extension.

Learning depends critically on the exact character of the activities the learners

engage in with the Internet, the kind of tasks and problem solving situations they

address. It also deepens the kinds of intellectual and social activity students become

involved in, when they interact through the Internet. The starting point for

investigating the possible benefits of a technology should be an understanding of the

nature of and conditions for effective learning and higher order thinking, not merely

an idea of what the technology can do. The technology itself does not do the work of

teaching--or learning.

36

In advanced pedagogical practices, the use of the Internet becomes an

integrated part of the whole learning environment and the culture of learning. Hence,

it is used for building up social structures that encourage learning, for supporting

reflective discourse and for helping students and teachers build knowledge and deepen

their understanding of subject domains (Lipponen, in press). In a large review report,

Lehtinen and others (1999) concluded that computer supported collaborative learning

(CSCL) combined with problem-based inquiry appears to be a promising way to

improve the quality of learning with information and communication technology.

Roschelle and Pea (1999) have set out three aims for networked learning;

specifically, the development of

1) collaborative representations (advanced visualization, simulation and modeling

tools; "messages that participants can construct need to be richer, with easy capacity

for creating, editing, linking and displaying graphs" (p. 24); richer interchange of

graphical and verbal representations (as in face-to-face communication);

2) advanced socio-cognitive scaffolding (typical Internet chat or BB-systems do not

organize conversations well for learning; tools like CSILE or CoVis that promote

learning could be related into more widely available products); and

3) tools that foster self-improving communities (e.g., tools that facilitate rapid

accumulation of a community's capabilities such as recommender systems).

In the following section, three innovative projects that utilize the Internet and

its resources in multiple ways are introduced; Global Learning and Observations to

Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), Kids as Global Scientists (KGS), and The

Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis).

37

4.1 The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment project

(GLOBE)

The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment project

(GLOBE; http://www.globe.gov/) aims at involving K-12 students in significant data

collection and analysis, the results of which are entered into a widely accessible

World Wide Web site for use by other students, teachers, and researchers. "The

students participating in GLOBE make measurements of selected atmospheric,

hydrologic, and biologic parameters, following protocols developed by the research

community, which, in turn, uses these student collected data sets in their own

research" (Rock, Blacwell, Miller & Hardison, 1997, p 17). See also descriptions of

the project in Finarelli (1998), Means (1998) and Murphy & Coppola (1997).

The project provides an invaluable base for developing a better understanding

of the global environment. The goals of the program are to enhance the environmental

awareness of individuals around the world; to contribute to the scientific

understanding of the earth; and to help all students reach higher levels of achievement

in science and mathematics, and to increase the environmental awareness of all

individuals while increasing the scientific understanding of the earth.

GLOBE is worldwide network of students, teachers, and scientists working

together to study and understand the global environment. Students and teachers from

over 7,000 schools in more than 80 countries are working with research scientists to

learn more about our planet. It engages students and scientists in collecting and

analyzing data and represents a true partnership between the science and education

communities. The nature of this partnership is reflected in the various research

protocols and learning activities used at each grade level. The science processes used

by researchers reflect the inquiry process used at the K-12 or equivalent level.

The GLOBE curriculum is divided into investigation areas on atmosphere,

hydrology, biology/land cover, soil and the global positioning system. GLOBE

students make environmental observations at or near their schools and report their

data through the Internet. Scientists use GLOBE data in their research and provide

feedback to the students to enrich their science education. Global images based on

38

GLOBE student data are displayed on the World Wide Web, enabling students and

other visitors to visualize the students' environmental observations.

4.2 Kids as Global Scientists (KGS)

The Kids as Global Scientists Program (KGS;

http://www.onesky.umich.edu/kgs/htdocs/home1.html) is an Internet enhanced

curriculum designed to encourage middle school student inquiry and research (see

Songer, 1996). Students use visualization and telecommunication technologies to

learn about science both locally and through interactions with peers and resources

worldwide. One of the main goals of the project is to create 'learning potentials' (the

expression refers to students' knowledge development as it progress from less

articulate and less integrated understanding to increasingly complex and explanatory

forms). In order to create learning potentials, the KGS project seeks to integrate

technical infrastructure, access to telecomunication tools, teacher training, and

curriculum development.

With the Internet and its resources the project aims to introduce more

authentic learning, to increase collaborative activities and to encourage greater

dialogue among students and between students and experts. An example of authentic

learning involves students in observing satellite pictures and current weather maps.

Students work in the project as reporters, participants and providers of

information and data. The central role in students' inquiry is to generate their own

research questions and explanations, to relate the data they collect to that collected by

others, and to encourage to work with multiple perspectives on the entire data set.

The teachers' role is to be a facilitator of students' research. Further, one important

aspect of the project is to create and implement a model of learning community based

on the idea of distributed expertise. The role of the community is to utilize

communication and to conduct data comparisons in order to motivate deeper science

learning. It is also important to analyze what new roles are developed during the

project, and how can these can be understood and built upon.

39

The project includes teacher training and support, classroom support and

mentors. Mentor-student, student-student, teacher-student, teacher-teacher

collaborations and various support materials were created. The investigators of the

project recognize that it is necessary to examine how new technology can be utilized

to foster learning, that the new features of technology must be tested, and research

must be conducted.

4.3 The Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis)

The Learning Through Collaborative Visualization Project (CoVis;

http://www.covis.nwu.edu/) is an example of an advanced project that utilizes the

Internet and its resources for pedagogical purposes. The work of the CoVis Project

was launched in 1992 and completed in 1998. The goal of the project was to promote

an instructional strategy for science education, which makes use of collaborative

inquiry as the main method. Participating students study atmospheric and

environmental sciences through inquiry-based activities. Descriptions and

experiences of the project has been reported in many publications (Edelson, 1997;

Edelson, Pea & Gomez, 1996; Edelson & O'Neill, 1994; Pea, 1994; Pea, Edelson &

Gomez, 1994; Pea, Gomez, Edelson, Fishman, Gordin & O'Neill, 1997). Thousands

of students, over a hundred teachers (about fifty schools participated in the project),

and dozens of researchers and scientists participated in CoVis, working to improve

science education in middle and high schools. Improvements occurred because the

learning of science was approached in a similar manner to the doing of science;

students employed a broad range of communication and collaboration technologies.

The project focused on three areas: (1) promoting project-enhanced science

teaching and learning; (2) developing communities of practice; and (3) providing a

facilitative technological infrastructure as a means for transforming science education.

The notion of inventing CoVis arose from the recognition that the practice of science

takes place mostly in communities, and relies increasingly on collaborations that span

widely distributed institutions through the use of networking technologies to form

"collaboratories".

40

In developing collaborative learning environments, the CoVis project used

technologies developed primarily to support collaboration in industrial and research

settings and adapted them to schools. With these advanced networking technologies

(the first-ever educational use of wideband ISDN networks), students were enable to

join with other students at remote locations in collaborative work groups. Through

these networks, students also communicated with university researchers and other

scientific experts. Through the use of advanced technologies, the CoVis Project

attempted to transform science learning to better resemble the open-ended, inquiry-

based approach of science practice. Traditionally, K-12 science education has

involved teaching well-established facts. That approach, however, bears little

resemblance to the question-centered, collaborative practice of real scientists.

There were two kinds of tools implemented in the CoVis network. Scientific

visualisation tools used graphics, images, colour and motion to present large

quantities of data in a manner that allows the user to observe patterns in a large data

set in the form of visual patterns in an image. The same tools are used by professional

scientists and were implemented in the CoVis environment as learning tools for

students (Gomez, Gordin, Carlson, 1995; McGee & Pea, 1994). The software for

collaboration was designed to support students as they conduct scientific inquiries as

members of a community.

Students working in the CoVis environment used standard Internet tools

(electronic mail, Usenet newsgroups, www, desktop video teleconferencing) for

information seeking and for communication with university researchers and other

scientific experts (Pea, Edelson & Comez, 1994). For mutual communication and for

remote, real-time collaboration, students used a collaborative application called CoVis

Collaboratory Notebook (Edelson & O'Neil, 1994; Edelson, 1997). The

Collaboratory Notebook is a groupware application especially planned for students'

collaboration in science projects. It provides a place for students to record their

activities, observations, and hypotheses as they perform scientific inquiry. By using

the Notebook, teachers and students can plan and track the progress of a project

together. Students working in the environment can share and comment upon each

other's work.

41

Characteristic of the CoVis environment is that the collaboration tool and the

visualisation software were tightly integrated. All the visualisation tools automatically

generate a log of the whole experimenting process. A student can take a copy of the

log and put it into the Collaboratory Notebook. Once the log is there, the student can

annotate the log with comments and thus use it as a tool for reflection and

collaboration. Perhaps the most important outcome of CoVis was the construction of

distributed electronic communities dedicated to science learning.

5. CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this report was to analyze the educational use of Internet. In

conclusion, it may be useful to discuss the educational use of the Internet by

distinguishing between first-order and second- order effects of educational technology.

It seems that the introduction of the Internet applications itself affects the nature of the

educational. These effects, which we call "first-order" effects of educational

technology, refer to learning skills of using information technology, developing skills

of basic knowledge acquisition, generally increased motivation, and accessing

extended sources of information. First-order effects also involve changes in structures

of classroom activities and changed division of cognitive labor between the teacher

and the students. Students are working in a more self-regulated way; they are doing

tasks more on they own and directing their own projects instead of following detailed

assignments of the teachers. It seems that the first-order effects are normal

consequences of engagement with the Internet applications. However, they do not, as

such, facilitate social construction of knowledge and advancement of the students'

deeper, principled and conceptual understanding. The first-order effects, of course,

may be pedagogically very valuable achievements and represent a significant

improvement over traditional practices of learning and instruction.

However, bringing the Internet applications and the Internet resources into the

classroom does not automatically lead to what we call second-order effects of

educational technology. The second-order effects involve engaging students in a

sustained question- and explanation-driven inquiry, knowledge building, and

progressive discourse analogous to scientific practice. The second-order effects may

42

lead to a profound change in the students' conceptions of what learning and knowledge

are all about, and they need strong pedagogical support from the teacher. The second-

order effects appear, further, to require deep change in studens' and teachers'

conceptions of knowledge and in the pedagogical practices of school generally.

To obtain the first and second order effects of ICT certain basis conditions

should be met. It is necessary that teachers and students have access to the new

technology; the schools have an adequate network infrastructure and connections to

the wide-area networks; teachers and students have necessary technical skills to use

ICT; and there is available suitable educational software.

Moreover, technology should be an integrated part of the whole learning

environment. Yet a phenomenon we call "The problem of two curricula" appears to be

very common in classes that are implementing or using new technology. The two

curricula seem to co-exist side by side, often unnoticed. The first curriculum is the

traditional information-transmission curriculum focused on making sure that each

student "carried out the assigned tasks". The teacher assumes responsibility for the

higher-level cognitive activities such as generating questions and explaining and took

charge of metacognitive activities like planning, monitoring and evaluating. In the

second curriculum, which we call "collaborative inquiry with computer networking

and support", students are encouraged to take more responsibility for their own and

their fellow students' learning. If these two curricula are not integrated or supportive of

each other, it is very difficult to achieve the pedagogical goals of either of them or to

bring about the second-order effects of educational technology. In addition, if we

admit that curriculum very strongly guides what teachers and students are doing in the

classrooms, then we might ask, what is the role of technology or collaborative work in

the curriculum? How much space and time is given for students to work with the

Internet applications and and how is it organized? The time that is used to work with

Inernet aplications is closely related at least to the problem of two curricula and on the

other hand to the technical such as location and access of the Internet applications.

The Internet and other online technologies can be used as an agent or driving

force of pedagogical change and educational reform. Based on the review we can

43

recommend the following guide-lines for an advanced networked learning in education

for the K-12 sector:

1. Internet and its resources are utilized for pedagogical and cognitive goals

(ideas are always anchored in a clear theoretical backround).

2. Opportunities for authentic problem-solving situations and real-world

problems are offered and rich real-time resources are utilized.

3. Virtual communities of distributed expertise and community building is

facilitated (for example students-expert-partnership).

4. Students and teacher are engaged in collaborative inquiry.

5. Tools for collaborative representations are available (simulation and

modeling tools).

6. Curriculum develoment is included

7. Support and training for teachers and students are offered

8. Students' motivation for learning is facilitated through using extended

knowledge resources embedded in the Internet.

In order to facilitate pedagogically meaningful use of the Internet applications

in elementary-level education, a substantial change in pedagogical practices and in the

wider culture of schooling is needed in all continuums. Nevertheless, the culture of

school learning cannot be expected to change immediately but presupposes a long

process of exploring and testing different cognitive and pedagogical practices, such

process necessarily involving educational personnel. The change also demands the

educational policy to seek and foster these changes. The challenges arise from the fact

that we are, simultaneously, trying to promote educational use of the new information

and communication technology and implement new pedagogical and cognitive

practices of learning and instruction. Although the new technology and pedagogical

ideas support each other, the change demands the utmost of both teachers and

students.

44

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