Taus kunnskap i virtuelle rom : Mediert praksis i lærarutdanninga

Abstract: Human expression is an important cue for our daily communication and naturally it is also important for remote communications. This research project is focused on computer mediated communication. Of particular interest is the way audio/video-based synchronous communication helps people interpret the many subtle visual cues that accompany interactions. The projects objective is to compare tutoring through an already established and widely used, written channel such as the online discussion-forum, with the use of VideoMediated Communication-based tutoring in order to find out what new dimensions of communication, if any, are available and/or improved by VMC. The theoretical focus is on tacit knowledge, differences between written and oral communication, context-awareness, background knowledge, tutoring, teleprescense, communication bandwidth and the role of the visual information in communication. We also try to establish if the pupils and the students participating in the project finds communicating through the respective mediums useful and pleasant. Two tutored writing-projects in two different schools are studied and documented. In School A all the writing, responsing and tutoring of students as well as pupils are done in online forums in the learning management system PedIT. In School B this is mostly done by the use of web-cam through instant messaging software, but also through ordinary classroom supervision. The students were tutoring the pupils in their writing assignments and they were at the same time tutored as teachers-in-training by the teachers of the classes involved. Interviews, logs and transcripts are divided into four categories with the student as the pivoting point: School A(Forum)-Student/Pupil, School A-Student/Tutor, School B(VMC)- Student/Pupil and School B-Student/Tutor. The findings show that the written tutoring goes well with such a written assignment, and the discussion forums generally function as expected. All the participants found the medium useful and reasonably pleasant. The VMC based tutoring, though hampered by somewhat slow connections, was found to offer several new dimensions. Adding sound and vision improved the awareness between participants, enhanced the feeling of co-presence and thereby facilitated greater individual involvement in the communication, it also enlarged the communication-bandwidth available and clearly facilitated net-based oral dialogue. Even though the pupils in School B said that they found the medium useful and pleasant, it is clear that they were affected by it in ways that inhibited them from utilizing the full potential of the sessions. The students seemed to handle the medium well and expressed that especially the group-discussion sessions with their tutor worked well. Using simple VMC technology cannot replace the need for meeting face-to-face, but can significantly enhance communication between such meetings in net-based courses. The report is written in Norwegia