Abstract
This chapter is based on a research that has been focusing on social sharing device effects and on students' practices of collaboration, communication, and mediation. The author has analyzed the recurring temporal split between academic environment and students' sphere in a context of distance learning. The goal is to understand the origin of the collaborative process of collective apprentice which is illustrated in the communities of apprenticeship outside the academic institution. A netnographic observation was conducted with Bachelor and Master's degrees in a private training center. The author assumes the information and communication socio-technical devices participate in the horizontalization of student practices. The author has highlighted the paradox of these learning communities, which are, unwittingly, in a process of social domination by having choosing a priori a decentralized structure. In light of the social criticism of the time, the observation reveals that digital technologies cause a temporal acceleration.
TopThe Epistemic Framework Of The Research
This study on collaborative distance learning was made among Bachelors of a private second-degree school. The socio-technical devices we studied were the institutional platform on the one hand (discussion forums) and students’ social networks on the other hand (Google+ and Facebook). This research is focused on distance learning communities. Our empirical field is based on non-participant observations among students in Bachelor and Master using socio technical devices. They attend lessons in a private school with a strong anchoring in industrializing distance training, in other words its management and organization are directly inherited from industrial model (Depover, Deschryver, & Monasta, 1999). Through a socio technical approach our goal is to analyze students’ practices of collaboration, mediation and communication which value peer to peer learning rather than academics.
This study highlights a recurrent phenomenon in distance learning: students prefer dealing with their peers to asking for their tutors’ help online. Not only do they favor their constant availability but mostly their reactivity which becomes community ritual. It came out that the gap opposing the academic sphere and the students’ sphere is partly due to distinct timeframes: a vertical one, called ENT, present in the school and a horizontal one, characterized by exchanges between students through the EPA. As a result, we can notice a temporal asynchrony triggering itself a misappropriation or poaching (Ricœur, 2006). Indeed, they transfer academic resources towards the EPA. Furthermore, our observation reveals that digital technologies cause a temporal acceleration of interactions. As described in literature reviews (Josèphe, 2008a; Rosa, 2010; Virilio, 2010a; Vitalis, 1994) mobile phones are responsible for it. Yet, these learning communities, which establish resolutely horizontal structures, do not seem aware of the long-term consequences of this bolting.
Key Terms in this Chapter
ENT: The acronym of environnement numérique de travail and represents the academic platform such as Moodle. Tutors drop off training resources for students or post topics about courses or exercises on discussion groups. In the ENT, time is much slower than in the EPA.
Peer-to-Peer University (P2PU): Brings some of the characteristics of MOOCs, but is focused on people sharing their knowledge on a learning topic or shared by other users with a wiki-type mentality. Unlike typical massive open online courses, anyone can create a course as well as take one. P2PU is organized into schools that include especially social innovation, school of webcraft (backed by Mozilla), school of open (coordinated by Creative Commons), and a school of education (focused on pedagogy).
MOOC: The acronym of massive open online course. With the arrival of broadband internet, online courses put up with an unlimited number of enrolled students all over the world. Based on the theory of connectivism, MOOCs allow wide interactions between professors, teaching assistants, and students’ communities in addition to traditional course materials. MOOCs are wide research domain in distance learning and emerged as popular means of education in 2012.
Tutor Assistant: Called “Tutor T2” for second tutor in this study because of the intermediation phenomenon observed. Basically, some students play the role of tutors among the peers’ community. More and more LMS are offering three different status that of student, tutor, and tutor assistant. This in-between status may be a fruitful heuristic for the massification of training.
SNA: The acronym of social networks analysis. Row data collected online can be used for internauts’ activity visualization. This sociometric approach provides more information about cohesion, centrality, proximity, and intermediation of the social networks observed.
Confcall: Short for “conference call,” which means that students are gathered in a virtual classroom in the context of distance learning. The technology we used in this research is based on voice over IP to join a group of learners for an online course.
ATAWAD: The acronym of anytime, anywhere, any device. Since pervasive and ubiquitous computing, students use mobile devices whatever they are and whatever they do on the principle of informal learning.
Netnography: A portmanteau word made of network and ethnography . Netnography is especially useful to observe online communities using both modern social networks tools and traditional ethnologic methods.
Temporality: A central notion in this research because the asynchrony of practices is the origin of the cleavage between the institution and students. During the frenziest interactions of learning communities, we counted up to seven consecutive answers in a minute. Such a use requires mobile terminals.
LMS: The acronym of learning management system. These kinds of platforms have emerged with industrializing distance training using SCORM standards. Management and organization in LMS are directly inherited from industrial model.
CMC: The acronym of computer mediated communication. Contrary to face to face communication, distance learning involves mediatized devices to allow interactions between students and tutors on the principle of ubiquitous computing.
Open Universities (OU): A public academic institution in distance learning created in 1969 in the United Kingdom. Most of the students study off-campus all over the world but there is also a number of full-time post-graduate research based on 48-hectare university campus, as well as 1000 members of academics and research staff and over 2500 administrative, operational, and support staff.
EPA: The acronym of environnement personnel d’apprentissage and represents students’ networks such as Facebook or Google+ environments to work together and keep in touch with each other. Because of their mobile practices, EPA is characterized by swifted temporalities and peer-to-peer interactions.
ICs: The acronym of information and communication sciences.
ICT: The acronym of information and communication technologies.