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1.3. E-tivities

E-tivities for familiarization with technology and methodological features
Another core item in the pedagogical framework are the E-tivities for familiarization with technological and methodological features. The idea behind can be explained with five stages facilitating and supporting the learners:

  1. Access and motivation
    At stage 1 individuals’ access is established, and participants are offered an induction to the course.
  2. Online socialization
    Learners set up their online identities (profiles), get to know each other and find people to begin interaction with.
  3. Information exchange
    Students start to exchange information and collaborate (on some short and easy tasks maybe)?
  4. Knowledge construction
    Group discussion and collaboration grow in length, depth and difficulty.
  5. Development
    Learners exercise choice, search for “more benefits from the system to help them achieve personal goals and reflect on the learning process” (Salmon, 2004, p. 11).

The quality of online learning seems to be bound not only to the method of learning but also to the familiarization of the learners with the technical tools, i.e. the internet, the platform, the particular learning objects there are going to use, etc, .as well as the process of collaborating with each other. Collaborating in an online environment is quite different from live collaboration in the physical space (e.g. the class, the conference room, the lab, etc.). The differences are a few including some of the following,

Differences

It is evident that an online learning environment offers a particular experience of interaction to the participants which differs from the live encounter with people. Is everybody familiar with this situation? It has been noted that a lot of online courses might record delays and dropouts due to the difficulties users meet in their effort to adapt to the demands of the learning environment. The time learners need to familiarize themselves and become confident users and participants in a course depends on a variety of factors such as the age, the experience, the technical knowledge and skills, among others. In any case, an induction period seems to be a necessary step and increases the success rates of online learning.