COLLABORATIVE E-LEARNING

Abstract: The paper presents research carried out within WebLabs, a European project, where researchers, teachers and young students learn collaboratively in a technology enhanced environment. Experiences gained by the Bulgarian participants are discussed from an e-learning perspective. Key words: visual programming, web-reports, collaborative e-learning, multiple representations 1. THE WEBLABS PROJECT Recent educational research emphasizes on “knowledge put into functional use in a multitude of different situations and contexts ” [1]. Many educators are working in the filed of “new cultures of assignments”, “project-oriented work ” and are very interested in constructing environments in which the learners can actively work on a conceptual level [2]. This is especially true in the case of mathematics taught at junior high school level where the mathematical concepts are often “shadowed ” by the necessities of calculating, symbol manipulating by hand, drawing, etc. Restricting the math education to these technical skills creates a very twisted image of mathematics and the young learners can hardly experience the real spirit of mathematics as a research field. 2 Eugenia Sendova, Iliana Nikolova, George Gachev, Liliana Moneva To cultivate abilities of young learners to generate, test, play with ideas and to build a culture of communicating them to their peers from different countries is one of the fundamental goals of the WebLabs project [3]. The project aims at creating a virtual laboratory and a community of young learners, teachers and researchers exploring collaboratively mathematical and science phenomena. 1.1 The focus of WebLabs This is a 3 year EU-funded educational research project carried out b