Abstract:

The global use of technology in the education field has, in the last few years, been developed around the concept of platform. Lebrun (2005:12) presents this concept by describing it broadly as a “coherent set consisting of resources, strategies, methods and actors interacting in a given context to achieve a goal'' (free translation). The author describes a process of putting in place a pedagogical mechanism, emphasizing on the technological aspects during the set-up stages. However he remains rather vague concerning the tools allowing the integration or mobilisation of the technological aspects, referring to platforms such as Claroline or Moodle. Rather than seeing the platform as the unique element contributing to the evaluation process, it might be more interesting to regard it as a tool supporting the overall process of evaluation, which leads to redefining the notion of platform used in the context of this experiment.
The current craze for online courses has lead to the proliferation of certain terms used to define or describe different platforms which allow managing, organizing and deploying resources for learning. While the term ‘platform’ had not, until recently, belonged to the education lexicon, the emergence of complex online training systems has undoubtedly contributed to the use of this term. However, as pointed out by Demaizière (2008), a question may arise concerning the difference between the platform and the training system in the absence of a precise definition of the term used in the context of learning and evaluation. In addition, Develotte and Pothier (2004) note that an educational software is sometimes called a ‘platform’, the term even competing with ‘resource’.
In light of these terminological clarifications, the definition used in context of this research is the following: an online educational platform or online training platform allows hosting, consulting and downloading content aimed towards supporting learners in a process of structured learning and assessment.
This paper aims to report the testing of an online training platform conducted in autumn 2010 and autumn 2011 with groups of graduate students of the Faculty of Sciences of Education at the University of Montreal. Asynchronous training modules were proposed within a hybrid course. These modules, constructed from video sequences made in the classroom, took the form of a competency-based situation integrating learning and evaluation. The progress of the training module, the students’ self-assessment tools and their perceptions regarding online training was subject to a content analysis. Graduate students have shown their appreciation of the online training platform and the opportunity to view video footages of the good classroom practices.However, they also reported that the lack of interaction among students and with teacher was a limit to the online training platform.This experiment has demonstrated the technological issues linked to the implementation of an online training platform and the educational challenges in combining face-to-face and online teaching techniques.