REFLECTIONS ON THE EXPERIENCE
Antonio Calvani - Florence group resident teacher
This exploratory project stems from the need of designing a new instructional approace for the University, according to constructivistic models (like cognitive apprenticeship) and using distance learning technologies.
Since the first experience has been active only two months and has involved two little groups of students, it is not possible a complete evaluation.
The Florence group has been selected ensuring a variety of technological, linguistical and cultural competences on the inside. The students spent about forty hours of collective and thirty individual work. My involvement can be estimated fifteen hours; ten for preparing materials, two for introducting the project, three for episodic discussion with the local group during the process.
The problems the students had to face were manifold: they had to organize a working group, to establish rules of cooperation with a remote group, to examine, to discuss, to review texts, to compile abstracts, to contact experts, to insert abstracts into Internet, to reflect about their collaborative experience.
I observed a positive climate which motivated students to work beyond the limits of time originally suggested (thirty hours). However the plurality of tasks, the constraints of time, the difficulty of establishing rules via e-mail, burdened the work, limiting the actual time dedicated to analysis of contents and meaninful conversation with experts.
The two groups worked well like local entities but not like a global community. Sometimes competition overcame cooperation. Not sufficient attention has been dedicated to how e-mail had to be used. Many messages appear redundant and not well focused on specific concepts (for example, the e-mail function “reply” for a point-to-point discussion).
Personally I understimated the training for compiling and reviewing abstracts. Next time it will be necessary to better organize the process of distance cooperation and to provide cooperation and guidelines for electronic communication.