The potential of community building through computer-mediated communication (CMC) in virtual learning environments has received increasing attention in recent years, yet little empirical research has been conducted in this field in Middle Eastern countries particularly based on a social constructivist approach as in this case. This research is concerned with the processes of community building as experienced by university students in computer-mediated distance education classes in Iran. Its overarching concern was to see if convergence happens in an on-line university discussion forum in a Middle Eastern cultural context, and if so, to explore how it happens and with what strategies it can be supported in such environment. The research addressed the role of collaborative interaction as the process of co-construction of knowledge and identities, by looking at: (i) the students’ beliefs as reflected in a survey; (ii) patterns and outcomes of interaction derived from an analysis of on-line transactions; (iii) students’ perspectives based on interviews and their responses to a survey. The participants came from four different Middle Eastern cultural and linguistic backgrounds and were all students studying at Masters Level. The academic context was an Iranian university that has a large face-to-face student population as well as a large number of distance students. The participants’ common meeting ground was primarily a virtual environment created for the students to share their learning experience and to communicate with each other and the tutors. The participants’ beliefs and ideas in terms of choice, opportunity, culture and expectations were examined through a survey in the first phase of the study. Then, to investigate their roles in shaping the on-line community, an additional university e-forum was designed and implemented by the researcher in the second phase of the study. In this forum the participants were free to contact each other without pre-planned tasks or interventions by the class tutors. Social constructivist approaches were used to analyse interactions between students and the outcomes of these interactions. The findings suggest that participants moved their communicative competence from tangible topics towards shaping new beliefs and ideas; creating the VSD-Virtual Social Development- model. These developments are regarded as something unique for an area such as the Middle East where gaining confidence is hard especially when there is no face-to-face contact with other participants, and individuals often have concerns about revealing their real personalities in untried situations. The findings of the interviews support the findings of the second phase of the study and show what strategies the participants used in community building. The research also highlighted many issues for further study, one of which is the various interpretations of the concept of community building in on-line contexts.

The rapid growth in online learning opportunities and online courses in K-12 education is well documented in the literature. Studies conducted by various researchers that have focused on the K-12 population of online learners demonstrate that certain online learner characteristics and online learning environment characteristics may impact the likelihood of students passing or failing online courses. Research has produced models that predict online course success with measurable degrees of accuracy. This descriptive study examines characteristics of students enrolled in online high school courses provided by a virtual learning program administered by a single Virginia public school district. The study determined that students’ prior academic success; confidence in their technology skills and access to technology; confidence in their ability to achieve; and strong beliefs in their organizational skills proved to have a significant statistical relationship with online course success. The study developed a model with these factors that predicted success in online courses with a high degree of accuracy and predicted failure with a moderate degree of accuracy.The study has policy implications for public school leaders in Virginia as they implement recent state legislation requiring students to successfully complete a virtual course to graduate from public high school. The study indicates that additional research is warranted to further delineate learner and learning environment characteristics producing a model that more accurately predicts failure in online courses. Additional research is warranted with larger samples from single district virtual programs.

In this licentiate thesis, I present detailed case studies of students as they make use of simulated digital learning environments to engage with physics phenomena. In doing so, I reveal the moment-to-moment minutiae of physics students’ open-ended inquiry in the presence of two digital tools, namely the sandbox software Algodoo and the PhET simulation My Solar System (both running on an interactive whiteboard). As this is a topic which has yet to receive significant attention in the physics education research community, I employ an interpretivist, case-oriented methodology to illustrate, build, and refine several theoretical perspectives. Notably, I combine the notion of semi-formalisms with the notion of Newtonian modeling, I illustrate how Algodoo can be seen to function as a Papertian microworld, I meaningfully combine the theoretical perspectives of social semiotics and embodied cognition into a single analytic lens, and I reveal the need for a more nuanced taxonomy of students’ embodiment during physics learning activities. Each of the case studies presented in this thesis makes use of conversation analysis in a fine-grained examination of video-recorded, small-group student interactions. Of particular importance to this process is my attention to students’ non-verbal communication via gestures, gaze, body position, haptic-touch, and interactions with the environment. In this way, I bring into focus the multimodally-rich, often informal interactions of students as they deal with physics content. I make visible the ways in which the students (1) make the conceptual connection between the physical world and the formal/mathematical domain of disciplinary physics, (2) make informal and creative use of mathematical representations, and (3) incorporate their bodies to mechanistically reason about physical phenomena. Across each of the cases presented in this thesis, I show how, while using open-ended software on an interactive whiteboard, students can communicate and reason about physics phenomena in unexpectedly fruitful ways.

[pt] O crescente interesse em ambientes de aprendizado na Web incentiva pesquisas e torna evidente a importância do desenvolvimento de tecnologias e padrões que permitam ambientes, instrutores e participantes a criar, encontrar, consumir, reusar e compartilhar conteúdos instrucionais, conhecidos como objetos de aprendizagem ou learning objects. Padrões para metadados, objetos de aprendizagem e arquiteturas para prover suporte a estas tecnologias em sistema de ensino na web (learning management systems - LMS) são a chave para o sucesso do e-Learning. Neste sentido, o conceito de objetos de aprendizagem possui fundamental importância e concentra grande parte das pesquisas realizadas nesta área. Em paralelo, a observação de que o aprendizado na web ocorre através do auxílio de ferramentas e serviços que fazem parte dos LMS gera a reflexão sobre a atual modelagem e entendimento destes serviços. Com isso, este trabalho defende a modificação do conceito de learning objects, estendendo o atual, incorporando serviços à sua abrangência, sendo estes modelados com base na tecnologia de serviços web (web services). No final, é apresentado um framework para facilitar a adaptação de Learning Management Systems a este novo conceito de learning objects e o estudo de caso no Ambiente AulaNet. / [en] The increasing interest in web-based learning environments stimulates researches and evidences the importance of developing technologies and standards that allow environments, instructors and participants to create, find, consume, reuse, and to share instructional contents, known as learning objects. Metadata standards, learning objects and architectures to support these technologies in Learning Management Systems (LMS) are the key for the success of e-learning. In this context, the learning object concept has essential importance and concentrates the majority of the researches accomplished in this field. At the same time, observing that the learning in the web happens through the aid of tools and learning services which are part of LMS, leads to the reflection about the current modeling and understanding of these services. This work defends the modification of the learning objects concept, extending the current one by incorporating services to its extent, being these modeled as Web Services. Finally, a framework is presented in order to facilitate the adapting of the Learning Management Systems to the new concept of learning objects, as well as a case study in the AulaNet Environment.

Com a popularização dos Sistemas de Gerenciamento de Cursos (CMS do inglês Course Management System) torna-se necessária a criação de critérios técnicos que permitam avaliá-los e compará-los. Neste trabalho é feita uma análise da interface com o aluno de um sistema de gerenciamento de cursos de software livre, gratuito e bastante popular, denominado Moodle. A análise é feita, estabelecendo-se critérios e diretrizes desenvolvidos a partir de uma ampla revisão dos princípios da psicologia cognitiva que são aplicados à essa interface. Os resultados são apresentados de forma qualitativa, discutindo-se os aspectos positivos e negativos da interface. Procura-se com isso apresentar um modelo de uso da psicologia cognitiva na análise de interfaces com o usuário em sistemas de e-Laerning, a partir do exemplo prático que poderá ser aproveitado para analisar outros sistemas para uma posterior comparação. / Given the growing popularity of CMS, Course Management Systems, it becomes necessary to develop some criteria to assess them so that they can be compared. The present paper presents an analysis of the student interface of a popular, free open source course management system, the Moodle. This analysis is done establishing a few rules, obtained from a comprehensive revision of cognition psychology, and which are than applied to this interface. It is an attempt to create a model, from a practical example, that can in turn be applied to other systems, followed by a comparison among them.

Esta dissertação se dedica ao estudo dos processos comunicacionais mediados pelo tutor a distância junto a cursos oferecidos na modalidade de EAD, por meio de ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem, que fazem uso de várias ferramentas digitais de comunicação, tendo como principal objetivo verificar se esse agente educacional pode ser chamado de educomunicador. Partimos da revisão de duas teorias emergentes da EAD surgidas em países como Canadá, Estados Unidos e Reino Unido que fundamentam e consolidam as práticas voltadas ao estabelecimento da comunicação dialógica dentro desses espaços virtuais, práticas essas edificadas na adoção de processos ligados à gestão da comunicação e que são desenvolvidas por esse tutor a distância, para que pudéssemos mapear indicadores que fossem comuns também às práticas educomunicativas. Valemo-nos também da análise de estudos sobre programas de EAD já implementados na França e na Austrália, que têm esse tutor a distância como um dos pilares dessa modalidade de ensino. A possibilidade de aproximação da EAD com a Educomunicação nas práticas desse agente educacional foi verificada a partir da realização de um estudo de caso como pesquisa de campo junto ao programa FGV Online. Uma das conclusões foi que esse tutor a distância ou professor tutor, como denominado pela referida instituição, pode ser chamado de educomunicador, posto que houve a identificação de atividades voltadas à comunicação dialógica e ao estímulo do protagonismo dos alunos conjuntamente com esses educadores virtuais, enfatizando que se observou a ocorrência desse contexto por conta da opção de abordagem metodológica focada em tais práticas pelo programa de EAD da instituição e quando há uma formação prévia desse agente educacional sobre as práticas educomunicativas voltadas à gestão da comunicação e à formação de ecossistemas comunicativos. / This dissertation is dedicated to the study of communication processes mediated by the e-moderator at distance education courses, through virtual learning environments that use various digital communication tools, to verify if this agent might be called educommunicator (educomunicador). We developed a review of some key recent theories of Distance Education emerged in countries like Canada, USA and UK, along these last 20-30 years, which underpin and consolidate practices of dialogical communication in these virtual spaces, built in processes linked to communication management, which are developed by the e-mentoring, so we could map indicators which were also common to the new educommunication practices. We have also analysed studies on distance education programs already implemented in France and Australia, that have this e-mentoring as one of the pillars of this context. In order to verify the possibility of rapprochement between Distance Education and Educommunication based on the practices of that education agent, we adopted the method of case study in conducting our field research near FGV Online Program. One of the conclusions reached was that the e-moderator may be called educomunicador according to dialogic communication and leadership traits of the students along with this virtual environments, since the program of distance education institution adopts the use of such practices and this agent attends a previous course on specific communicative practices focused on communication management and training of communication ecosystems.

O desenvolvimento comercial da internet possibilitou o surgimento de sistemas de informação que se apoiam no uso da world wide web como plataforma. Esses sistemas baseados na web (web-based systems) têm aplicações em diversas áreas e setores econômicos. No ramo educacional, eles têm sido aplicados como base para os processos de ensino e aprendizagem via computador (e-learning) e são, comumente, denominados de Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVA). Os AVAs podem ser utilizados tanto para o ensino exclusivamente a distância quanto como apoio ao ensino presencial. O presente trabalho tem como objeto de investigação justamente o emprego de ambientes virtuais como tecnologia de apoio ao ensino presencial tradicional dado em sala de aula em cursos de graduação do ensino superior. O crescente uso de AVAs para tal finalidade leva ao questionamento de quais são as dimensões e características de qualidade destes ambientes e como estas dimensões estão associadas com os seus efeitos, quais sejam, a satisfação, o uso e os benefícios percebidos pelos usuários de tais sistemas? Desta forma, o trabalho tem como objetivo identificar as dimensões de qualidade em AVAs, por meio do estabelecimento de um modelo teórico que evidencie quais são os atributos determinantes em relação à qualidade em ambientes virtuais de ensino e quais são os efeitos e os impactos individuais em torno dos usuários discentes. Para tanto, são realizadas duas pesquisas de campo. A primeira é descritiva-explicativa, de abordagem quantitativa, com o emprego de Modelagem de Equações Estruturais, como método de análise e delineamento da pesquisa. Esta pesquisa foi feita com discentes usuários de um ambiente virtual disponibilizado por uma IES e teve como objetivo a elaboração de um modelo de relações de qualidade em AVAs. A segunda pesquisa consiste em um estudo com abordagem essencialmente descritiva, que tem como objetivo classificar quais são as características de relevância nos AVAs, de acordo com o Modelo Kano de classificação de requisitos. Os principais resultados apontam que a qualidade da informação e a qualidade do sistema influenciam na satisfação e nos benefícios percebidos pelos usuários dos AVAs e que as características destas dimensões são consideradas mais significativas do que as funcionalidades disponíveis nos referidos sistemas. / The commercial development of the internet enabled the birth of information systems that rely on the use of the world wide web as a platform. These web-based systems have applications in various fields and economic sectors. In the education sector, they have been used as basis for computer teaching and learning processes (e-learning) and are commonly called Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). These VLEs can be used both for distance teaching exclusively and as support for students in traditional presential classes. This work investigates the virtual environments use as support technology for students in traditional classroom undergraduate courses in higher education. The growing use of VLEs for this purpose raises the following questions: what are the dimensions and quality characteristics of these environments and how are these dimensions associated with their effects, satisfaction, use, and net benefits perceived by users of such systems? Thus, the study aims to identify the VLEs quality dimensions, through the establishment of a theoretical model showing what the relevant VLE dimensions relating to education quality are and what the effects and individuals impacts are for user-learners. To this end, two researches were conducted. The first one was descriptive-explanatory, with a quantitative approach, using Structural Equation Modeling as analysis method and research design. This research was made with students that use a VLE and had the purpose to elaborate a VLE quality relationship model. The second study is essentially descriptive, and aims to classify which features are most relevant in VLEs, according to the Kano´s Model requirements classification. The main findings indicate that the information quality and system quality influence the satisfaction and net benefits perceived by VLEs users and characteristics of these dimensions are considered more important than the functionality features available in such systems.

Com a popularização dos Sistemas de Gerenciamento de Cursos (CMS do inglês Course Management System) torna-se necessária a criação de critérios técnicos que permitam avaliá-los e compará-los. Neste trabalho é feita uma análise da interface com o aluno de um sistema de gerenciamento de cursos de software livre, gratuito e bastante popular, denominado Moodle. A análise é feita, estabelecendo-se critérios e diretrizes desenvolvidos a partir de uma ampla revisão dos princípios da psicologia cognitiva que são aplicados à essa interface. Os resultados são apresentados de forma qualitativa, discutindo-se os aspectos positivos e negativos da interface. Procura-se com isso apresentar um modelo de uso da psicologia cognitiva na análise de interfaces com o usuário em sistemas de e-Laerning, a partir do exemplo prático que poderá ser aproveitado para analisar outros sistemas para uma posterior comparação. / Given the growing popularity of CMS, Course Management Systems, it becomes necessary to develop some criteria to assess them so that they can be compared. The present paper presents an analysis of the student interface of a popular, free open source course management system, the Moodle. This analysis is done establishing a few rules, obtained from a comprehensive revision of cognition psychology, and which are than applied to this interface. It is an attempt to create a model, from a practical example, that can in turn be applied to other systems, followed by a comparison among them.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_darwinmota_14012013.pdf: 8326873 bytes, checksum: 065c913e80a2f12aceeb364da1552196 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-11-30 / This thesis aims to examine the structural concepts used to develop virtual learning environments, and link them to the Design field specifically concerning Usability and User Experience Design, in order to provide relevant information referring to the improvement of distance learning/education. The analysis of structural concepts comprehended in this thesis leads to questions previously tackled by theoreticians, especially Maria Elizabeth Bianconcini de Almeida and Andréa Filatro - whose works analyze the development of virtual learning environments -, and Jennifer Preece's et al, Jesse James Garret's, Jakob Nielsen's e Walter Cybis' works about the designing process, in other words, the project of interfaces that may allow providing effective information in the context of virtual learning environments. Product's quality and satisfactory yield are aspects co-related to the ease in using an equipment or program, and to the possibility of doing whatever the user's know how to do. Taking into account the expected results, the research was divided into three parts: a) graphic interfaces in which the historical context of user's graphic interface evolution is described -; b) usability and user experience design which will provide us with the methods and concepts used to analyze the interaction between user and informational system; c) and virtual learning environment which deals with the use of the mentioned tool for distance learning, and points out the interferences the instructional design and the interface design may cause during the conception process / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo examinar os conceitos projetuais utilizados no desenvolvimento de ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem e relacionálos com o campo de estudo do Design, no que se refere a Usabilidade e Design da Experiência do Usuário, com o intuito de fornecer informações relevantes para o aprimoramento do processo ensino/aprendizagem por meio da modalidade de educação a distância. O exame dos conceitos projetuais relacionados no trabalho permite o levantamento de questões já discutidas por estudiosos, especialmente Maria Elizabeth Bianconcini de Almeida e Andréa Filatro, cuja a atenção está voltada para a produção de ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem, e os estudos de Jennifer Preece, Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, Jesse James Garret, Jakob Nielsen e Walter Cybis, nas referências ao processo de design, ou seja, no projeto de interfaces que possibilite informação efetiva no contexto dos ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem. A qualidade daquilo que é produzido e o rendimento satisfatório são aspectos correlacionados à facilidade com a qual um equipamento ou programa pode ser usado e ao poder de fazer o que a própria experiência do usuário torna possível. Para alcançar os resultados esperados, a pesquisa se dividiu em três vertentes: a) interfaces gráficas, onde aponta-se o contexto histórico da evolução da interface gráfica do usuário; b) usabilidade e design da experiência do usuário, por meio do qual compreendemos os métodos e conceitos utilizados para analisar a interação entre usuário-sistema de informação; c) ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem, os quais trazem não só um enfoque acerca da utilização de tal recurso para a modalidade de educação a distância, mas também apontam as interferências do design instrucional e design de interface em seu processo de concepção

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T14:30:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Beatriz Villas Boas de Moraes.pdf: 2343388 bytes, checksum: d92426c6dc086ed2aa563f47b59eb592 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-16 / This research aimed at understanding beauty as a category of pedagogic mediation carried out by teachers using virtual learning environments as a tool for teaching. In order to accomplish objective, we sought to understand the sense of beauty in a virtual learning environment; the investigation of the potential that technology advancements offer to promote their presence; and the understanding of what features are highlighted in the subject, in the activities proposed, as well as in the interventions of the teacher that strengthen the idea of mediation involving the beauty in the course. The study was characterized as being qualitative, guided by a socio-historical approach and having, as methodological procedure, the analysis of documents comprised of the records generated in the virtual learning environment, as well as of interviews with instructors of the continuing education course, object of this investigation. The analysis of the data was carried out by general categories and subcategories that emerged from the theoretical framework underpinning the research and data. As a result, it was concluded that harmony was the sense of the beauty identified in the characteristics of the pedagogical intervention, more specifically in the role of the trainers, being also related to the consistency between the design and the teaching practice of the course, the day to day interactions, the presence of flexibility, the autonomy and authorship in the profile of the trainer and the possibilities that technological resources offered. Such evidences also allowed the development of the idea that beauty can be considered as a category of pedagogical mediation in virtual learning environments due to the fact that it favours the organization and how to understand it / Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo compreender o belo como uma categoria da mediação pedagógica realizada pelo professor em ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem. Para tanto, buscou-se o entendimento do sentido do belo no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem, a investigação do potencial que a tecnologia oferece para favorecer sua presença e da compreensão de que características se destacam nos conteúdos trabalhados, nas atividades propostas e nas intervenções do professor que fortalecem a idéia de mediação envolvendo o belo no curso. A pesquisa se caracterizou como qualitativa, orientada pela abordagem sócio-histórica, tendo como procedimentos metodológicos a análise documental, constituída pelos registros gerados no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem, e entrevistas com formadores do curso de aperfeiçoamento, objeto desta investigação. A análise dos dados foi realizada por meio de categorias gerais e subcategorias que emergiram do referencial teórico que fundamenta a pesquisa e dos dados. Concluiu-se que a harmonia foi o sentido do belo percebido nas características da mediação pedagógica, mais especificamente na atuação dos formadores e se relacionou também à coerência entre a concepção e a prática pedagógica do curso, ao cotidiano das interações, à presença da flexibilidade, da autonomia e da autoria no perfil do formador e às possibilidades que os recursos tecnológicos ofereceram. Estes indícios também permitiram desenvolver a idéia de que o belo pode ser considerado uma categoria da mediação pedagógica em ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem porque favorece a organização e a forma de compreendê-la