The introduction of technology and the widespread use of ICT in the wealthier nations have led teacher-educators to integrate technological applications in their teaching environment. The research investigated the new teaching modes created by teacher-educators in teacher-training colleges in Israel, due to their transition from traditional teaching to distance-teaching through the Internet. This was a qualitative research using case study within an interpretative paradigm that enabled the researcher to consider the viewpoints of the informants together with her own viewpoint. The research tools included: 14 open interviews, a non-participatory observation, documentation reading and the writing of a personal log. The rich variety of research tools enabled triangulation of data. The conceptual framework of the research was based on theories of teacher-training, distance-teaching, academic disciplines, and several teaching dimensions: organisation and representation of data, organisation and management of teaching and different types of interaction. The research findings indicated intrinsic and extrinsic motives for the teacher-educators transition to distance-teaching. The transition created a pedagogy characterised by four teaching modes that corresponded to different academic disciplines. Each discipline harnessed the technology for intensive use in one or more of the teaching dimensions. The Representation mode used by teacher-educators in the natural sciences and statistics used a large variety of data representations and Internet writing characterised by multiple links. The Interactive mode employed by teacher-educators in the field of literacy principally dealt with formative assessment of the students' writing and used virtual communication tools to tighten the teacher-learner inter-personal interaction. The Organisational mode used in education disciplines focused on organisation and management of teaching and learning through the use of computer applications. The Holistic mode employed by teacher-educators in the fields of education and literature, in substance constituted a combination of all the characteristics of the above-mentioned modes with an emphasis given to social presence of both learners and the teacher. Analysis of the teaching modes led to the creation of a typology of four modes positioned at different points along the following scales: organisation of teaching, flexible – fixed, types of interaction few – multiple; data representation, creative – conservative; computer literate – computer users. There was a clear contrast between teacher-educators teaching education disciplines as a continuation of traditional frontal teaching and those who had previously taught in workshops. At the crossroads of pedagogy with technology, the changes in location, time and lesson character have meant that the implementation of the teaching paradigm of Zeichner and the teaching orientations of Feiman-Nemser have taken on fresh dimensions. The new teaching modes necessitate appropriate training for all teacher-educators working in distance-teaching in accordance with their academic disciplines. The research findings contribute to the reduction of a gap in knowledge concerning the new teaching modes of teacher-educators teaching distance-learning in a teacher-training college in Israel.

Work-Based Learning (WBL) has increasingly become an area of interest for the higher education sector. It can be defined as an approach to education where learning towards accredited qualifications is relevant to and draws on the student’s workplace role and situation. This education can take place via a range of delivery methods. For this study, this definition has been further narrowed down to concentrate on WBL that is delivered by the university to those in the workplace and results in accredited higher education qualifications, where the learning contract is rooted in the discipline and draws on the student’s workplace role and situation. Northumbria University is considered one of the leaders in WBL delivery in the UK. All the faculties in the university deliver WBL programmes across a number of different disciplines. These programmes encompass a wide range of delivery formats including face-to-face, correspondence distance and online delivery. The aim of this research study is to contribute to the research in this area by conducting an in depth study of the effectiveness of the delivery of WBL from the perspective of a range of stakeholders including students, programme leaders, tutors, university support services, employers and representatives of professional bodies. There is a wealth of literature that concentrates on the learner and education provider and occasionally the employer but little that has attempted to directly investigate the wider stakeholder environment in which WBL takes place and how this contributes to the effectiveness of the WBL experience. To gain the deep insights needed for such a study, the research approach adopted a case study methodology which included mixed method research techniques for data capture and analysis combining both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study examined the perspective of stakeholders drawn from five WBL programmes across the disciplines of Engineering, Computing, and Information Sciences delivered by the Faculty of Engineering and Environment at Northumbria University. These programmes primarily use online learning delivery format with some blended learning components and comprise four postgraduate programmes and one undergraduate programme. An online survey was administered among all the students whilst in depth interviews were conducted among all the stakeholders including students. The case study explored the students’ demographic characteristics, experience of WBL and characteristics of their learning experience. Data from the other stakeholders was analysed to both cross validate the students’ feedback and to learn about their own contribution to the effectiveness of the WBL process. The analysis was performed in relation to the three main factors identified to be most influential: quality, access and support. The original contribution to knowledge and the significance of this study can be seen in three different areas. Firstly, eight main themes and three subthemes have emerged from the data analysis of this case study. These themes and sub themes were consolidated through triangulation of the qualitative and quantitative outcomes. They illustrate the key drivers and factors underpinning the effectiveness of WBL in the selected case study and have been used to classify the main strengths and issues of WBL that have emerged from the data and develop a set of recommendations to address the main key issues. For example, ‘Accreditation of Prior Learning’ and ‘Tailoring of Learning Contracts’ emerged as key attractions for students to embark on WBL programmes. The need for the use of technology in learning was highlighted by students to support the distance delivery of content, communications and assessments, whilst academics came out with the issues and challenges which prevented them from being able to use technology effectively. Thus one of the key recommendations arising from this study is the need to provide assistance and support to academics to engage with technology in learning to support WBL. ‘Student isolation’ was found to be an issue in some disciplines where mentor and peer support cannot be facilitated and thus developing approaches that reduce student isolation is another key recommendation. One final example is that a majority of students prefer ‘blended learning’ where distance online learning is combined with some face to face components compared to purely distance online learning. This is a challenge particularly where students are dispersed over a large geographical area. Secondly this research study has considered the range of key stakeholder groups: student, employer, academic and professional body, and their contribution to the effectiveness of WBL programmes. This consideration has highlighted the specific impact they have on the effectiveness of WBL. For example employers’ support was found to be particularly useful for the development of learning contracts and for onsite mentoring support during the lifetime of the students’ studies. Professional bodies contribute through the process of accreditation of WBL programmes/qualifications for students’ professional registration. In this study this proved to be a key motivational factor for the students to embark on WBL. A four pillar model has been constructed to illustrate consideration of the range of stakeholders and this has been applied to two existing WBL frameworks to show how such consideration might be applied in practice. In the first example, the researcher has taken an existing approach to online WBL course design, development and delivery practice and adapted it to include consideration of the range of stakeholders at appropriate times in the process to strengthen the WBL experience. In a second example, the researcher has taken an existing WBL maturity toolkit and shown how it could be adapted to include consideration and input from the full range of stakeholders on the readiness to engage in WBL. The study provides key recommendations to each of the stakeholders separately which should enhance the effectiveness of the WBL provision. The final contribution to knowledge that emerges from this work is focused on each of the embedded units within the case study. Each of these embedded units represents a separate WBL programme and an analysis was performed to highlight the key strengths of each of these programmes and their main deficiencies. For example, the MSc Professional Engineering programme uses 100% tailoring of workplace projects in student learning contracts which benefit the employers. The academics’ role is primarily centered on guiding those students to document the learning outcomes from those workplace projects against their individualised programme learning outcomes. In order to support them better, students felt that academics should upload online content for the more generic topics such as research methodologies which could be new to them and quite challenging to understand. In contrast, the MSc Information and Library Management programme takes a more generic approach to its learning content and has minimal tailoring. The students and employers benefit from application of this learning content to their own environment through assignments and the final MSc project. One approach to further tailor the programme to the needs of the organisation and employee would be to offer more focused module options. This analysis of the individual programmes has helped pinpoint areas for further development. This study has conducted an in depth case study of the effectiveness of the delivery of WBL across three discipline areas at one university. This has not only provided a number of key findings from the case itself but it has also demonstrated the benefits of considering the wider stakeholder contexts in such a study. It also provides exemplars of how others can build on this work to embed these wider stakeholder contexts in WBL toolkits and associated practices to provide enhanced provision.

China's 'Modern Distance Education' is a government-led initiative prompted by the need to widen access to higher education and by the opportunities offered by the development of a widespread infrastructure of information and communications technologies. Distance education using television, radio and other technologies has a long history in China, but the advent of computer communications opened new possibilities for promoting educational development and the policy goal of modernisation. Distance education in China now involves online learning, to various degrees. However, the effectiveness of online courses depends on learners accessing them and using the resources provided. Does this happen? How well do learners manage their online learning? What barriers do they encounter? This thesis examines these questions through a study of adult distance learners based on analysis of a survey of 2931 learners and in-depth interviews with 21 learners and distance education experts in several locations. I find that: (1) The barriers to online learning faced by the sample learners are of seven types: communication and interaction; teaching and courses; learning resources; learning support services; external support and economic burdens; computer and network operation skills; and conditions for accessing the Internet. (2) Among the seven types of barrier, the 'communication and interaction' barrier is not only acting as the most important one faced by these learners, but also exists as a markedly independent one. (3) Improvements in 'communication and interaction' are the most effective in overcoming the other barriers and also contribute to increasing the learners' learning efficiency. This leads to the perception that working on 'communication and interaction' is very likely to be the best starting point for tackling barriers to online learning. According to these findings, I believe that if the situation of 'communication and interaction' in online learning can be improved for online learners to meet their desire for 'sociability', and once they can thus establish their own 'learning communities' and form relatively stable 'student-to-student' relationships, and 'student-to-teacher' relationships, other learning barriers will be reduced as well. Hence, I argue that we should always pay attention to making 'communication and interaction' occur effectively for online learners in the learning process. We should consider the matter of 'interaction' not only in the delivery process of teaching and tutoring as well as in learning activities, but also in the production of teaching materials and in the provision of learning materials, as well as in the building of learning environments. In a word, it is necessary to put the whole matter of 'interaction' at the core of the instructional system design for online learning.

This research project is interested in the area of personalised and adaptable learning and in particular within an e-learning context. Brusilovsky (1996) and Santally (2005) stress the importance of adaptive systems within e-learning. Karagiannikis and Sampson et al. (2004) argue that personalised learning systems can be defined by their capability to adapt automatically to the changing attitudes of the “learning experience” which can, in turn, be defined by the individual learner characteristics, for example the type of learning material. The project evolved to cover areas including personalised learning, e-learning environments, authoring tools, tagging, learning objects, learning theories and learning styles. The main focus at the start of the project was to provide a personalised and adaptable learning environment for students based on their learning style. During the research, this led to a specific interest about how an academic can create, tag and author learning objects to provide the capability of personalised adaptable e-learning for a learner. Research undertaken was designed to gain an understanding of personalised and adaptive learning techniques, e-learning tools and learning styles. Important findings of this research showed that e-learning platforms do not offer much in the way of a personalised learning experience for a learner. Additionally, the research showed that general adaptive systems and adaptive systems incorporating learning styles are not commonly used or available due to issues with flexibility, reuse and integration. The concept of tagging was investigated during the research and it was found that tagging is underused within e-learning, although the research shows that it could be a good ‘fit’ within e-learning. This therefore led to the decision to create a general purpose discriminatory tagging methodology to allow authors to tag learning objects for personalisation and reuse. The main focus for the evaluation of this tagging methodology was the authoring side of the tagging. It was found that other research projects have evaluated the personalisation of learning content based on a learner’s learning style (see Graf and Kinshuk (2007)). It was therefore felt that there was a sufficient body of existing evidence in this area whereas there was limited research available on the authoring side. The evaluation of the discriminatory tagging methodology demonstrated that the methodology could allow for any discrimination between learners to be used. The example demonstrated within this thesis includes discriminating according to a learner’s learning style and accessibility type. This type of platform independent flexible discriminatory methodology does not exist within current e-learning platforms or other e-learning systems. Therefore, the main contribution of this thesis is therefore a platform independent general-purpose discriminatory tagging methodology.

Ce travail de thèse s’intéresse au sujet de la normalisation dans le champ de la formation à distance. Parmi les multiples propositions de normalisation, notre intérêt porte plus particulièrement sur l’enrichissement du dernier standard de fait IMS-LD. Nous souhaitons de ce fait introduire la notion de pertinence de la normalisation qui signifie la capacité d’IMS-LD de prescrire des scénarios pédagogiques qui répondent réellement à certains principes pédagogiques. Pour notre recherche, nous nous sommes intéressés à une des composantes essentielles de l’apprentissage (Leontiev, 1981), il s’agit de la motivation à apprendre. Ce travail nous a permis d’obtenir trois principaux résultats qui ont été validés en effectuant des études de cas: il s’agit d’abord d’une démarche de scénarisation à posteriori fondée sur les théories de l’activité ; Elle décrit, à partir des traces, le déroulement effectif d’une activité d’apprentissage. Le deuxième résultat est une taxonomie fondée sur la théorie des actes de langage ; Elle permet de traduire quelques composantes de la motivation en un ensemble d’actes de langage observables dans une trace de discussion par « Chat ». Quant au troisième résultat, il s’agit d’un modèle descriptif de la motivation qui rend compte, à partir des traces, des perceptions et ses origines. Ce modèle se sert de notre taxonomie et repose sur le concept des paires adjacentes issu de l’analyse conversationnelle. Enfin, nos conclusions exposent de plus des résultats secondaires et ouvrent des perspectives pour la poursuite de notre question sur la pertinence des normes. / This thesis focuses on standardization in the field of distance learning. Among the many proposed standards, our interest focuses on the enrichment of latest standard proposal, which is the IMS-LD standard. We would therefore introduce the standardization relevance notion which means the ability of IMS-LD prescribes learning scenarios that actually meet certain educational principles. For our research, we focused on an essential component of learning (Leontiev, 1981), it is the motivation to learn. From this thesis, we obtained three main results validated by conducting case studies: first, is an activity theories’ posteriori design based approach; It describes, from traces, the actual learning activity scenario taking into account its human factors. The second result is a taxonomy based on the speech acts theory; it allowed us to translate some motivation components as a set of speech acts observed in « Chat » discussion. The third result is a motivation descriptive model that reflects, from the traces, the perceptions and their origins. This model uses our taxonomy and is based on the adjacency pairs concept derived from conversational analysis. Finally, our conclusions explain further, our secondary results and provide opportunities for continuing our question about standards relevance.

Le développement des technologies d’information et de communication et leur introduction dans le système d’enseignement supérieur en Russie et en France vise à contribuer à l’amélioration de la qualité de la formation universitaire. Les établissements supérieurs français et russes mènent des recherches dans le domaine de l’enseignement en ligne dans toutes les filières. Dans ce contexte, la formation des compétences socioculturelles des étudiants-linguistes dans un environnement francophone d’apprentissage Moodle conduit à la confrontation à des problématiques actuelles et importantes pour les sciences de l’éducation. L’objectif de notre recherche est de faire ressortir et expliquer la spécificité de la formation des compétences socioculturelles dans un environnement Moodle. Cet objectif nous a amené à préciser les composantes des compétences socioculturelles à partir de l’analyse des modèles de ces compétences représentées dans des ouvrages russes et francophones. La nécessité de développer toutes les composantes en même temps et utiliser pleinement le potentiel de l’environnement virtuel ont justifié l’élaboration de l’approche intégrative incluant les idées des chercheurs français dans ce domaine. Pour appliquer l’approche intégrative, nous avons procédé à l’analyse des caractéristiques de l’environnement Moodle en utilisant les paramètres psychodiagnostics élaborés par les pédagogues russes et en liant ces caractéristiques aux composantes des compétences socioculturelles. Après avoir construit le cadre théorique de la recherche, nous avons appliqué la méthodologie de l’expérience pédagogique pour argumenter l’efficacité de la formation des compétences socioculturelles dans un environnement francophone d’apprentissage Moodle. Pour cet objectif, un cours virtuel Portrait socioculturel de la France a été créé, mis en place et introduit dans le parcours de formation des étudiants-linguistes à l’Université d’Etat de Tomsk. Ces résultats obtenus sont importants pour la formation des étudiants surtout dans les conditions de l’éloignement géographique. Outre le cours virtuel dans Moodle, nous avons explicité des conseils pour les étudiants et des recommandations pour les enseignants-tuteurs concernant le travail dans un environnement francophone d’apprentissage. / The development of information and communication technologies and introduction in the system of Higher Education in Russia and in France contribute to the improvement of the quality of university education. Universities in France and Russia conduct researches in the field of online education in all disciplines. In this context, the formation of the sociocultural competency of students-linguists in a French-speaking learning environment Moodle becomes important problematic for education sciences. The objectif of our research is to highlight and explain the specificity of the formation of sociocultural competency in the virtual environment Moodle. This objective has led us to specify the components of the sociocultural competency by analyzing the models of this competency represented in Russian and French research. The necessity to develop all the components at the same time and make full use of the potential of the virtual environment led us to develop the integrative approach based on the ideas of the french researchers in this area. To apply the integrative approach, we did the analysis of the characteristics of the environment Moodle by using psychodiagnostics criteria developed by Russian scientists and by linking these characteristics to the components of the sociocultural competency. We constructed the theoretical framework of research and next we applied it to argue the effectiveness of formation of sociocultural competency in a French-speaking learning environment Moodle. For this aim, a virtual course Portrait socio-cultural of the France was created, developed and introduced in the process of the formation of the students-linguists at the Tomsk State University. In addition to the virtual course in Moodle, we have developed student tips and recommendations for tutors working in a French-speaking learning environment Moodle

Cette recherche porte sur l’activité de travail des tuteurs à distance et ses opportunités de développement. S’inscrivant dans le champ de l’analyse de l’activité, elle combine uneapproche clinique (Clot, 1999) et une approche holistique (Engeström, 2000), au croisement de la psychologie du travail, de l’ergonomie et de la théorie de l’activité de troisième génération. L’analyse se centre sur l’activité de six tutrices à distance d’une entreprise privée de formation à distance. Après une enquête exploratoire, le recueil de données est composé d’entretiens d’instruction au sosie et d’autoconfrontation simple et croisée, complétés par des données ethnographiques, des données relatives à l’appareil prescriptif (guide du tuteur et entretien de formation), des traces de l’activité des tutrices à distance et des apprenants. Les résultats, qui mettent en évidence des écarts entre le prescrit et le réel de l’activité, révèlent plusieurs difficultés que les tutrices à distance rencontrent dans le cadre de leur travail. Celles-ci se manifestent par un certain nombre de contradictions notamment autour des règles qui régissent le système, entre prescription « infinie » et « sous-prescription ». Les outils associés à l’activité, tantôt source d’empêchement, tantôt à l’origine de processus développementaux, se révèlent aussi être au cœur de multiples contradictions. De la même manière, les résultats mettent en exergue le caractère nodal de l’activité alors même que les conditions organisationnelles semblent répondre à une logique industrielle. A ce niveau, l’absence d’échanges entre pairs notamment, interroge les opportunités de développement de l’activité de travail des tutrices à distance qui, à certains égards, semble participer au travail de « recréation » du genre professionnel « formateur » / This research focuses on the work of distance learning tutors and its development opportunities. The analysis of activity combines a clinical approach (Clot, 1999) and a holistic approach (Engeström, 2000) at the crossing of work psychology, ergonomics and third-generation Cultural Historical Activity Theory. It focuses on the activity of six distance learning tutors from a distance learning company. After an exploratory investigation, the data collection is composed of interviews “to a double”, simple self-confrontation and crossed self-confrontation interviews. At the same time, other data enrich the analysis: ethnographic data, prescriptive data, and traces data about distance learning tutors and e-learners. The results show differences between prescribed work and real work. They also reveal several contradictions and obstacles to the development mainly related to the rigidity of the prescriptive framework. Likewise, the major role of tools in developmental processes is highlighted. Then, the results underline the nodal nature of the activity even though organizational conditions seem to respond to an industrial logic. In this regard, the absence of peer-to-peer exchanges, in particular, questions the work development opportunities. This is all the more important given that distance learning tutors activity appears to contribute to the "recreation" of a specific professional genre:"trainer".

Cette thèse propose de cartographier le parcours de navigation des usagers des EIAH pour le visualiser, visualiser pour interpréter et interpréter pour anticiper. Les profils d'apprentissage ont une influence sur les modes de navigation dans un environnement d'apprentissage en ligne. S’appuyant sur une méthodologie capable de modéliser le parcours de navigation d’un usager et d’anticiper son prochain clic sur une plateforme, notre étude cherche à élargir le champ des connaissances de l'efficacité/performance des styles d'apprentissage. La méthodologie utilisée repose sur l’analyse des traces d'utilisation élaborée à partir de 63 archives logs Web, incluant 4637 lignes de registre et 13 206 possibilités de choix de module. Le travail de recherche s’inscrit dans le cadre d’approches associant sémiologie, des sciences de l’information, psychologie cognitive et sciences de l’éducation. Trois observations ont été menées, générant des informations sur le profil de l’usager, la représentation des parcours et l’impact du style d’apprentissage dans le choix des fonctionnalités de travail offertes disponibles sur la plateforme. Les principaux résultats sont de deux types : d’une part, l’élaboration d’un outil convertissant les traces des fichiers log en parcours de navigation, et d’autre part, la confirmation d’un lien entre style d’apprentissage et mode de navigation. Ce deuxième résultat permet d’élaborer une méthode d’anticipation du nouveau choix de module sur une plateforme numérique de travail. Les applications pratiques visant à rendre exploitables ces traces dans les formations universitaires sont l’élaboration de bilans de qualité (ressources préférées, fonctionnalités moins utilisées) et l’identification des besoins de médiation pédagogique pour la compréhension de la tâche ou du processus (identifié par exemple dans l’insistance sur le module de consignes, le temps investi par un groupe ou par des trajets répétés). Cette thèse s’adresse principalement aux responsables pédagogiques universitaires décideurs de l’intégration des TIC, et par extension, aux étudiants universitaires et aux concepteurs d’outils d’apprentissage. / This thesis presents a methodology capable of modelling the course of educational browsing of an EIAH user to visualise it in order to interpret it and to anticipate. The learning profiles influence browsing styles in e-learning environment. Based on a methodology able to create models of the browsing behaviour of a user and to anticipate the following step on a platform, our study tries to widen the knowledge of the efficiency of different learning styles. The applied methodology is the analysis of the marks left by the user taken from 63 archives of Web logs including 4637 lines of register and 13 206 possible choices of modules. This research study combines theoretical approaches mixing semiology, sciences of information, cognitive psychology and sciences of education. Three observations have been led, giving information on users’ profile, representations of courses and impacts of the mode of learning in the choice of working features offered on the platform.The main contributions are two types: On one hand, the elaboration of a tool converting tracks of files log in signs possible to be visualized as courses of educational browsing. On the other hand, the confirmation of the relationship between ways of learning and styles of browsing giving rise to a method of anticipation of a new choice of module on the digital working platform. The practical applications aim at making exploitable these tracks in university education which can be of use to the elaboration of quality assessments (resources preferred, less used features) and the identification of the needs of educational mediation for clarification of the task or of the process (identified by the emphasis on the module of instructions, on time invested by a group or repeated routes).This thesis addresses mainly persons in charge of integrating ICTS at university level and further, university students and designers of learning tools.

Au croisement des études sur la réussite à l’université, la culture informationnelle et plus largement la culture numérique, l’étude de cas proposée interroge les liens entre les apprentissages en ligne et les pratiques et compétences informationnelles des étudiants. Une première enquête a permis d’identifier les profils académiques et sociologiques des étudiants inscrits dans un dispositif de remise à niveau et d’aide à l’orientation proposé par l’université de Strasbourg. D’autres enquêtes et tests ont été menés pour connaître les pratiques informationnelles de ces étudiants dans les contextes de formation en ligne et évaluer leurs compétences à l’entrée et à la sortie du dispositif. Les résultats montrent que notre population ne correspond pas au profil type de l’étudiant en échec. Par ailleurs, nos conclusions rejoignent en partie nos hypothèses sur la pauvreté des pratiques informationnelles en e-learning et le manque de compétences expertes dans ce domaine malgré les modules de formation suivis par ces étudiants. / Crossing studies on college academic achievement, information literacy and digital culture, the proposed case study questions the relationship between distance learning and students information practices and information literacy. An initial survey has identified academic and sociological profiles of students who are enrolled in a program offered by the University of Strasbourg to help them succeed in their curricula. Other surveys and tests were conducted to know the information practices of these students in online learning contexts and evaluate their skills entering and exiting the program. The results show that our population does not fit the profile of student failure. Moreover, our conclusions support our hypothesis about poverty information practices in e-learning and lack of expert skills in this area despite several courses followed by these students.