DESIGN OF VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE MULTILITERACIES PEDAGOGY, BAKHTINIAN STUDIES AND REMEDIATION Adolfo Tanzi Neto Pontifical

DESIGN OF VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE MULTILITERACIES PEDAGOGY, BAKHTINIAN STUDIES AND REMEDIATION

Adolfo Tanzi NetoPontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (BRAZIL)

INTRODUCTION

We believe that with the democratization of knowledge, distance learning (DL) has gained more and more space in the world. In the contemporary era, time, mobility and autonomy have been key factors for choosing this mode of learning. In this regard, virtual learning environments (VLEs) have been constantly redesigned to provide different ways for information to interact with people, widening students’ participation on the web.

INTRODUCTION

For Brazil, due to its geographical issues and a pressing need for engaging citizens in the school context, distance education has been rapidly growing, providing the approximation of the population to these learning contexts. Thus, to meet the needs arising from different pedagogical practices in this new context, the VLE has undergone great changes, mainly for being one of the most important tools for distance learning.

INTRODUCTION

However, we should consider how this learning environment is; assuming that the VLE in distance education is the classroom:

• how the design of a VLE can offer digital tools and resources that provide (new) multiliteracies needed in contemporary social practices?

• how can they collaborate for the inclusion of young people in the modern society, that engenders new ways of living, working, relating, producing and delivering services?

BAKHTIN’S ARCHITECTURAL FORM

Bakhtin (2003 [1952-53/1979])[1] claims that the use of language is directly linked to the various fields of human activity and that therefore such uses are as diverse as those fields of activity. The language is in the form of statements uttered by members from different fields of activity and each field of language practice draws its relatively stable types of utterances, which we call speech genres. Rojo (2013)[2] suggets the device of a diagram – Fig. 1 below to synthesize the theory of genres presented in Bakhtin (2003 [1952-53/1979])[1]:


Fig. 1 – Speech Genre DiagramAdapted from: ROJO, 2013, p. 27[2].

We can observe that it is by the communication practices/field of human activity that language practices are determined. It also includes the historical time and place and social relations between the participants, that are marked by three characteristics or purposes: thematic content, the style of language and its compositional form. For the thematic content, it holds the meaning of acts in human activity: the objects, meanings and content arising from a discursive sphere that will always be present in a particular genre.


The style of language is shaped by “the selection of lexical, phraseological and grammatical resources of language" (Bakhtin, 2003 [1952-53/1979], p. 261)[1], which means the way the elements of a particular language organize discourse. Despite their individual character, which is directly connected to the individuality of the speaker, Bakhtin (2003 [1952-53/1979], p. 265)[1] argues that not all genres are equally amenable to such reflection, we have to consider the individuality of the speaker in the language statement and the individual style. However, some genres require more standardized forms, so style is still an integral part of the genre.


The language styles are nothing but certain styles of genre from determined spheres of human activity and communication. In every field there are employed genres that correspond to specific conditions of each given field; these genres that match certain styles (Bakhtin, 2003 [1952-53/1979], p. 266)[1].


The compositional form, on the other hand, is the type of construction from a set of different types of relationship that the speaker has with other participants in a discursive communication - the relationship with the listeners, with the readers, with the partners, with the discourse of the other, etc. (Bakhtin , 2003 [1952-53/1979])[1]. In other words, it depends on the configuration or the organization of the utterance so that it meets specificities of a particular discursive sphere or a field of activity.


We understand that the compositional form is defined by the architectural form, according to the architectural form of the communication practices, the compositional form, the styles and themes are organized in a genre. As we can see from Fig. 2, the architectural form is in between the communication practices and the speech genre.



Fig. 2 – Speech Genre Diagram with the arquitectural formAdapted from: ROJO, 2013, p. 27[2].


For a better understanding, let us imagine for example the classroom with its architectural form, which means, with its ergonomics, that it allows for a specific organization of chairs, structure, space, whiteboard, walls, etc., and it provides a unique way to interact one to many, teacher-centered, etc. This ergonomics or architectural form allows certain genres to fit while others not. This is where we believe that the architectural form defines the compositional form, as both are closely linked to the theme and style in every genre (Bakhtin, 2003 [1952-53/1979])[1].


That said, we sharpened our theoretical lenses to understand the architectural whole of two VLEs, in its design (concept, idealization and form), looking at the forms of language in its particular social and historical aspects in what we believe is a new field of human activity, the digital one. To understand all of this, their specific composition or the arquitectural form, we undertook further reflections on the uses of these tools on the digital environment.

MULTILITERACIES, MULTIMODALITY AND REMEDIATION

The New London Group (NEW LONDON GROUP, 1996)[3] discusses the future of literacy pedagogy, bringing to light a pedagogy that should include the multiplicity of texts and discourses, focusing on two main factors: the first is the cultural and linguistic diversity of globalized societies, facing the multifaceted cultures intertwined in the plurality of texts that circulate in them.


The second factor refers to a pedagogy that takes into account the rapid growth and variety of texts related to information technologies as well as multimedia formats such as competence to understand different representational forms of information, the image and its relationship with the text or even the format (colour, sound, shape) of something in a multimedia environment. For that, the authors bring the discussion of an education focused on the imminent needs of the twenty-first century, that is to say, an education for the (multi) literacies.


Kalantzis and Cope (2006)[4] based on the assumption that as every day human identities become more divergent, the central fact of language becomes the multiplicity of its meanings. Just as there are many facets in our identities, there are multiple discourses of identity and multiple discourses of recognition to be negotiated. We have to be proficient to negotiate the identities that exist in each of us and so many other identities that we face in in our day-by-day lives (KALANTZIS, COPE, 2006)[4].


The group has also discussed the urgency of addressing the issues related to contemporary or multimodal texts, which we are faced constantly with, meaning, to look at the regularities of structures to a type of "visual grammar" for multimodal use, starting from the assumption that all texts, even the printed ones, are multimodal (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996)[5], writing is multisemiotic, the alphabetic language is just one of the ways to construct meaning in writing.


For that, the Multimodality theory proposed by Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996)[5] among others, takes the written language as just one of the modes of meaning in communicative spheres and inquires to understand just the written mode would not suffice students aprehension of the role power of discursive manifestations of the modern world.


Additionally, Bolter and Grusin (2000)[6] discuss that technological means reuse means from their predecessors, as in the examples of painting in relation to photography, from the novel to a film, the phone call to a conference call, the press to an electronic hypertext. This reuse brings new definitions of the medium, but not that there is necessarily a connection between them, this connection can happen if the reader or viewer knows the two versions.


For example, a book that you read and then you watch the movie (based on this book). In such situation, the viewer can compare the two versions of the same story. Another example is the analysis of the characteristics of a painting presented in a picture: color, depth, brightness that can be compared. Thus, the representation of the other is what the authors call remediation.


The media is always a remediation of a previous media and the same occurs in digital media. Hence, we must look at the acts of remediation of the presence-based school to the digital school, in which new multisemiotic/multimodal arrangements must be addressed to fullfil the contemporary needs. We can observe an intense interactivity in digital media, we have great websites where millions of citizens discuss an issue, change the policy of a country, transform the culture of people, etc.


If we look at education in the technological means in their acts of remediation, we realize that, so far, what has happened is a tendency to transpose the presence-based classroom to the virtual environment with an strong presence of only alphabetic texts. We must rethink the educational remediation acts to the technology-mediated virtual learning environments, which must in their design, provide different transformations in the mode of interaction with learning to establish a renewed sense of the past creating future directions for mediated-technology education, which should approximate the reality experienced by the contemporary citizens and their new modes of meaning-making.


Therefore, in our analysis of the virtual learning environments, we observed the acts of remediation from the classroom environment to the digital one and if the design tools provided can propitiate or not multisemiotic uses for communication.

CONCLUSION

As we mentioned in our theoretical section, the realization of an architectural form occurs in the communication situation, which organizes the compositional forms that take place in a genre. In our analyzes, we looked at the architectural form of TelEduc and Edmodo, we observed their concept, idealization and form in the digital environment, that can collaborate or not for certain genres be constituted.

EdModo

TelEduc

CONCLUSION

We were able to infer that in the architectural form of TelEduc, the environment offers little flexibility for the user, since the tools are based on compartiments and also on non-visual icons, only alphabetic thumbnails, which hinder colaborativity among its participants. Moreover, the environment does not propitiate an interaction between the studied object and the user.

EdModoTelEduc

CONCLUSION

The tool-tasks follows a chronological order of presentation with no room for the user’s intervention. The multidirectional communication tools, due to its design, does not allow interaction between different users, once it’s necessary to click to get in diferrent boxes of interaction: fields of discussions are in isolated boxes of interaction.

EdModo

TelEduc

CONCLUSION

The tools proposed follow a predetermined direction of participation, teacher-student and student-content; even in discussion forums, where you could have a student-student interaction, due to its compartmentalized design, the participation becomes artificial with the simple goal of accomplishing a task. Thus, the environment has the characteristic of a repository of digital data: it is static, with pre-defined paths and roles for its members, where only one mode of language is established, the alphabetic writing.

EdModoTelEduc

CONCLUSION

That said, we observed that the compositional forms that constitute this VLE (tools and genres allowed/supported) was originated from the school context of the twentieth century, since its architectural form has little flexibility for the demands of the contemporary world, its form, design and idealization are based on an alphabetic mode of learning with only text interaction controlled by the teacher.

EdModo

TelEduc

CONCLUSION

The materials available/allowed for this design environment follow the characteristics of the behaviorist model (Barbera; Rochera, 2010)[7] with practical exercises, automated tutorials with passive reproduction of material that requires only exercises and memorization, with the automation of basic skills and content in textual format, fragmented into small units and unique itineraries in their boxes of interaction. Furthermore, the material and the learning tutor serve as controllers.

EdModo

CONCLUSION

We concluded, by observing the architectural form of TelEduc environment, its tools and flexibility for different modes of language, that the VLE represents the 1.0 school, it means, the mentality 1, proposed by Lankshear and Knobel (2006, p. 38)[8], in which the world is centered and hierarchical and production is based on infrastructure and centers or units (compartments). The expertise and authority are "located" in individuals and institutions.

TelEduc

CONCLUSION

We concluded that the little interaction between the environment and other web-tools provide for the users a closed learning space for only specific purposes. Unlike EdModo, which offers the possibility to participate in different learning communities for the exchange of content, ideas, activities and multimedia materials enabling the construction of collaborative and distributed intelligence.

EdModo

CONCLUSION

In TelEduc the social relations of the book era prevails, or a hierarchical writing and stable textual order closed at the VLE. In terms of multiliteracies, the design did not provide the use of different formats of texts associated with information and multimedia technologies, uses of different representational forms of information such as images, representational icons, sounds and videos, which are part of a modern digital environment.

TelEduc

CONCLUSION

In the immersion of students in meaningful practices EdModo foster participation in multiple and different situations based on their knowledge and experience in TelEduc, the big challenge is to literate the student for the environment in particular, due to its design distance from the technological tools students are using now, even the digitally literated ones when using the tool can have difficulties.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, to understand the architectural whole as proposed by Bakhtin (2010 [1924])[9] in TelEduc, we observed a gap between its architectural form and the contemporary reality of users immersed in new technologies. By understanding its unique reality (cognitive) in the VLE, we understand that its structure is based on the hierarchical school from the fordism era; on the external characteristics, from the extra-aesthetic we could see from the limitations of bandwidth, storage and design flexibility of the environment itself, unless the teachers/tutors start using, for example, links and hyperlinks so that the user could access the multitude of possibilities from the Web, but then outside the VLE.

CONCLUSION

The internal dimension of the whole architecture, we analyzed the possibilities for different texts arrangement, images, activities, units and tasks, which prevails the static form, with little or no user interaction, content, starting from a model of lecture and teacher/tutor as the owners of knowledge and power of seriation, classification, evaluation and promotion.

CONCLUSION

We believe that educational spaces supported by new technologies should generate and establish new forms of communication and learning. We understand that the remediation of our lives, culture and society by new technologies have provided new signifiers and materials of expression for students in the contemporary world.

CONCLUSION

On that account, the acts of remediation from presence-based school to distance education context must take into account the changes of the modern world. However, the acts of remediation, when considering the design of TelEduc, was based on the presence-based classroom, or in the relations of time and space (and power) school 1.0, generating an architectural form characterized by the traditional school literacies of the twenth century.

CONCLUSION

Meanwhile, when we analyzed the architectural form of EdModo in its architectural whole, we observed a constructivist design model (Barbera; Rochera, 2010)[7], which proposes different formats of information - textual, graphic, audio, images with dynamic and easy communication/interaction with other technological means; which, due to TelEduc limitations for storage and structure, it becomes much more complicated. For EdModo, there is still flexible adaptation of content presentation and navigation, interaction as well as connection to the study objectives.

CONCLUSION

The conception of language is seen as a complex process of reconstruction of content with the mental activity that the student gets involved in different cognitive abilities, prior to knowledge, strategies and learning styles, motivations, goals and interests. Thus, we believe that the compositional forms presented in this environment due to its architectural embodiment may be genres that address the situational communication of the contemporary era.

CONCLUSION

We can say, then, that Edmodo is based on a 2.0 school, which means, the mindset 2, proposed by Lankshear and Knobel (2006, p. 38)[8], which the logic of the world is centered, focused on continued participation and authorities are distributed and collaborative in a more open, fluid space. EdModo offers different possibilities and uses of technology, in which students and teachers/tutors can support many aspects of learning, research, content management and production of all participants with a broad community and research partners to whom they can share their resources and achievements.

CONCLUSION

In terms of multiliteracies of its users with the immersion of students in meaningful practices within the digital community, in the environmet they can participate in multiple and different situations based on their knowledge and experience of the contemporary world, it is in this sense that the VLE can provide a contextualized practice, critical and experimental teaching - essential attributes for the (new) multiliteracies.

CONCLUSION

Given the original reality (cognitive) based on the reflections of Bakhtin (2010 [1924])[9] on architectural form, its structure is based on the model of social networks, proposing a more interactive learning process, dialogic, which builds collaborative and distributed intelligence to different communities across the world. The external dimension of this VLE, we observed that its flexibility talks/interacs with other tools available in the cyberspace. These tools are part of the day-by-day contemporary student, which now can be multiliterated in the field of collaborative learning.

CONCLUSION

We concluded that EdModo in its architectural form and educational remediation, takes into consideration the temporality and space or cyberspace in which we are living in. This VLE provides a renewal of the senses of the past school and creates new meanings for the school of the future, which is now up for new open contemporary transformations arising from the space and time on the Web.

CONCLUSION

It is, no doubt, already a first step for the future modern VLE, using three-dimensional technology, visual representations of knowledge of cognitive multiagent distributed collaboration, semantic networks and immersive systems - features already present in social practices emerging from the modern man.

REFERENCES

BAKHTIN, M. [1952-53/1979] Os Gêneros do Discurso. In: Estética da criação verbal. Trad. Paulo Bezerra. 4. ed. São Paulo: MARTINS FONTES, 2003, p. 261-306.ROJO, R. H. Gêneros Discursivos do Círculo de Bakhtin e Multiletramentos. In: Escola Conectada: os multiletramentos e as TICs. São Paulo: PARÁBOLA EDITORIAL, 2013, p. 13-36.NEW LONDON GROUP. A pedagogy of multiliteracies: designing social futures. Londres: HARVARD EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, 1996, p. 60-92.Kalantzis, M.; Cope, B. (2006 [2000]). Multiliteracies – A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures – The New London Group. New York: Routhledge, 2006.Kress, G. R.; Leeuwen, T. V. (1996). Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London, New York: Routledge.Bolter, J. D.; Grusin R. (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press.BARBERÀ, E.; ROCHERA, M. J. Os Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem baseados no Projeto de Materiais Autossuficientes e na Aprendizagem Autodirigida. In: COLL, C.; MONEREO, C. (Orgs) Psicologia da Educação Virtual: aprender e ensinar com as tecnologias da informação e da comunicação. Porto Alegre, RS: Artmed, 2010. pp. 157-170.LANKSHEAR, C.; KNOBEL M. New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning. England: OPEN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2006, p. 29-62.BAKHTIN, M. [1924] Crítica da Arte e Estética Geral. In: BAKHTIN, M. Questões de Literatura e de Estética: a teoria do romance. 6. Ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2010.

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DESIGN OF VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE MULTILITERACIES PEDAGOGY, BAKHTINIAN STUDIES AND REMEDIATION Adolfo Tanzi Neto Pontifical