Abstract:

The distance learning is a form of education that satisfies social and personal needs strongly presented in the last decades. Our communication represents a pedagogic experience of a seminar on the platform Claroline. It is a learning online activity in the context of an education preparing the teachers.
The objective is to describe the interactive phenomena in the virtual classroom. Our study is based on an analysis of the written traces left in the classroom after a learning activity such as a seminar. Three groups of students are included in the study for a total of 48. The analyzed interventions include 456 distributed in 67 sequences.
First, we present the pedagogic device. It allows the students and the teacher to overcome the limits of space and time and to ensure the transfer of reality into the virtual world in the context of co-construction of knowledge. The possibilities of the platform and the pedagogic intentions are a subject of an original pedagogic model allowing the transfer of the “real” into the “virtual”. This transfer modifies the nature of the “cognitive conflict” accompanying the entire learning process. The latter one is not associated with any of the distractions of the exterior environment and exists in a “purified” form, i.e., uniquely intellectual.
Secondly, we observe the contents of the exchanges in the virtual classroom. These exchanges are mostly liberated from the affection factors dominating the real classroom, such as sympathy-antipathy, interpersonal compatibility, humor, etc. Thus, they are mainly focused on the construction of knowledge. We have analyzed the contents of the written traces according to three criteria: goal of the exchange (why the student approaches another student or group of students), the cognitive content of the initial message and of the response (is there any shared knowledge in the sequence of the exchange) and the judgment on the intervention of others and oneself. This is how three groups of exchanges have been identified and described: the mutual aid, the exchange of knowledge, the evaluation and the self-evaluation.
In the end, we describe the interactive phenomena observed in the virtual classroom. These phenomena are similar to the ones in the real classroom but have their specific dynamics and expression. We describe the leadership, the motivation – demotivation, and the regulation and self-regulation of the students and the teacher.
To conclude, we emphasize that the interactive opportunities of the virtual classroom define this form of learning as democratic: the ability to overcome the limits of the distance and time gives participants equal chance, as tolerant: it creates conditions for respect of the differences, and as liberal: the participants work according to their own rhythm. Furthermore, it is a live interactive form that doesn’t just transform the interactive phenomena of the real classroom but creates specific new ones, liberated of the negative effects of the direct contact.

References:
Mandersheid, J.-C. & Jeunesse, C. (2007). L’enseignement en ligne. A l’université et dans les formations professionnelles. Bruxelles : De Boeck.
Paloff, R.M. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom: The realities of online teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Collin, S. & Karsenti, T. (2011). Construction de la pratique réflexive dans l’interaction en ligne des enseignants-stagiaires. Revue canadienne de l’éducation, 24(4), 34-58.

Keywords:

Distance learning, interaction, interactional phenomens.