The Temporal Dimensions of E-learning

E–Learning and Digital Media Volume 11, Number 2, 2014 www.wwwords.co.uk/ELEA EDITORIAL

The Temporal Dimensions of E-learning ELENA BARBERÀ & MARC CLARÀ eLearn Center, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

Time has been included as a crucial explicative factor in many of the most influential learning theories which have emerged since the last century. Although the idea of time has not always been considered in the same way, almost all the approaches that have dealt with educational phenomena have incorporated time as a key issue. This is true in approaches as different as the behaviourism of Skinner (1968), the genetic epistemology of Piaget (1980), the cultural psychology of Vygotsky (1978), or the didactics of Carroll (1984), just to enumerate some of them. With the emergence and distribution of digital media, and with the introduction of these media in educational contexts, educational scientists face some interesting challenges related to the role of time in educational processes. Thus, the mediation of digital media has transformed the very nature of educational processes (Harasim, 2000) and time is one of the most deeply transformed aspects in learning processes. This important incidence of digital media on time poses several challenges to be addressed by social scientists and educational researchers. In this special issue we focus mainly on two of these important challenges: 1. How digital media challenge the notion of time itself and how time can be understood in this digital era. 2. How the digital affordances of time influence educational dialogue. We are pleased to present in this issue nine articles: four mainly addressing the first challenge, and five mainly addressing the second. The first four articles discuss the meaning and the nature of the notion of time. Thus, the article by Terras and Ramsay, entitled ‘A Psychological Perspective on the Temporal Dimensions of E-learning’, distinguishes between physical time and psychological time. The authors then discuss psychological time in greater depth and, from this discussion, the authors identify several challenges which e-learning poses for learners’ psychological time, as well as a set of skills necessary to address these challenges. The article by Shaw, entitled ‘Heidegger and E-learning: overthrowing the traditions of pedagogy’, examines this same distinction between physical and psychological time through the lens of Heidegger, and proposes the concept of ‘care’ as overcoming this ontological dichotomy. The article by Mathew, ‘E-learning, Time and Unconscious Thinking’, focuses again on psychological time and tries to examine and explain its nature by using some of Freud’s explanatory concepts. The article by Gourlay, entitled ‘Creating Time: students, technologies and temporal practices in higher education’, takes a more empirical approach to the notion of time and tries to describe, based on focus groups and longitudinal multimodal journaling, how e-learners understand and experience time in their digitally mediated practices. The other five articles in the issue address the second challenge mentioned earlier: they examine how time intervenes in online dialogue and interaction. Thus, the article by Oztok, Wilton, Lee, Zingaro, MacKinnon, Makos, Phirangee, Harwood, Brett and Hewitt, named ‘Polysynchronous: dialogic construction of time in online learning’, challenges the traditional timebased distinction in online dialogue between synchrony and asynchrony, and proposes viewing online interaction through the concept of polysynchrony, which overcomes that traditional 105

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Elena Barberà & Marc Clarà dichotomy. The article by Kabat, ‘Time, Space, and Dialogue in a Distance-learning Class Discussion Board’, complements this idea of polysynchrony by offering an empirical approach which analyzes the temporal and spatial characteristics of different threads of students’ dialogue in a discussion board, with help of an analysis of chronotope and rhythmanalysis. Khoo and Cowie, in their article ‘But the Learning Has Already Passed: rethinking the role of time in e-mediated learning settings’, also study dialogue in discussion boards, but from a broader view: they introduce three different timescales analyses (macro, meso, micro) in order to understand how dialogue-intime is related to the construction of learning communities and identities. While this article by Khoo and Cowie tries, so to speak, to get a broad picture of e-learning dialogue in time, the next article, named ‘Feedback as Real-time Constructions’, written by Keiding and Qvortrup, offers a complementary – and in some sense opposite – picture by focusing on a specific type of action which takes place within this dialogue in time: feedback. This article proposes a conceptualization of feedback based on Luhmann’s System Theory (Luhmann, 1995) which, according to the authors, enables the explanatory limitations of the classical distinction between immediate versus delayed feedback to be overcome. We close the special issue with an article by Paulsen and Andrews entitled ‘The Effectiveness of Placing Temporal Constraints on a Transmedia STEM Learning Experience for Young Children’. In this article, the authors empirically explore whether the introduction of some temporal constraints into an e-learning endeavour influences the learners’ participation. The specific data investigated by Paulsen and Andrews add new interest on the discussion: the article studies an ecology of e-learning material addressed to children, and it is suggested that children may benefit from temporal appointment of this material and activities because the temporal appointment may increase children’s excitement and motivation – in a similar way as they (children) become excited when waiting for the time that their favourite cartoons on television start. In summary, we feel that this issue brings together a thought-provoking, thoughtful, and exciting set of articles on how time can be understood and how time transforms, and is transformed by, learning and digital media. Our hope is that the thoughts written here accomplish the function of eliciting further reflection, work and discussion, as it is the main goal of this special issue. References Carroll, J.B. (1984) The Model of School Learning: progress of an Idea, in L.W. Anderson (Ed.) Time and School Learning, pp. 15-45. Beckenham: Croom Helm. Harasim, L. (2000) Shift Happens: online education as a new paradigm in learning, The Internet and Higher Education, 3, 41-61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1096-7516(00)00032-4 Luhmann, N. (1995) Social Systems. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Piaget, J. (1980) Six Psychological Studies. Brighton: Harvester Press. Skinner, B.F. (1968) The Technology of Teaching. New York: Meredith. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Interaction between Learning and Development, in M. Cole, V.J. Steiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman (Eds) Mind in Society, pp. 79-91. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

ELENA BARBERÀ has a PhD in Educational Psychology and is a senior researcher at the eLearn Center (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona). She is currently Director of Research for the eLearn Center. She is also director of the doctorate programme in Education and ICT at UOC and adjunct professor for the international doctorate in Nova Southeastern University in Florida, USA. Her research activity is specialised in the area of educational psychology, relating in particular to web-based knowledge-construction processes, interaction in e-learning environments, assessment and quality and time factor in distance learning using ICT. As head of the EDUS research group she currently participates in national and international projects. She is external evaluator of national and European research projects (elearning and Lifelong Learning) and impact journals (Computers and Education, Educational Technology & Society). She trains university teachers around the world 106

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Introduction and has more than a hundred papers and fifteen books in the field of education with ICT. Correspondence: [email protected] MARC CLARÀ has a PhD in Educational Psychology and is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Barcelona. His research revolves around three axes: first, he works on the relations between representation, emotion and action. Second, he discursively studies the nature of joint activity and its relation to processes of learning, both in dyadic and multivocal interactions. Third, he conducts research on the mediation of digital media in processes of learning (e-learning, CSCL), with special interest in the role of time. He is currently developing these three research lines focusing especially on the field of teaching and teacher education. Correspondence: [email protected]

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