Conception and Implementation of Rich Pedagogical Scenarios
through Collaborative Portal Sites

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Author: Sebastian CEPTUREANU

Published in: Vol:9 No.2 / 2008

      Recent interest for rich activity-based pedagogies that originate from various socio-constructivist schools of thought is tied up to the goal of creating deeper, better integrated and applicable knowledge. Students are expected to become better general problem solvers and group workers while their teachers are under pressure to make learning more interesting and even more fun. However, experiments made with learner-centered « new pedagogies » have shown that good results are not necessarily a guarantee that is why a good pedagogical design is crucial to succeed. We postulate that effective « new pedagogies » require the use of structured scenarios where the teacher has to fulfill a triple role as facilitator, manager and « orchestrator ». Moreover, learning should happen within a social space that provides intellectual and emotional support. Therefore, supporting technology, i.e. virtual learning environments, should be designed both as « scenario engines » and as « true virtual spaces » where the participants feel « present ». Our study aims to implement such systems with Community, Content and Collaboration Management Systems (C3MS) that have been developed for collaborative portal sites. Initial results from an exploratory educational engineering project suggest that C3MS-based learning environments provide the necessary « clear focus » (learning activity support, management and scenario orchestration) and « fuzzy edges » (community support). We suggest that this approach, despite some difficulties, should be further investigated.

Pages: 118-140