Dans les cours à distance autorythmés : la difficulté de communiquer

Abstract

Since isolation is the cause of many cases of dropout in distance training (Bernard et al., 2004; Elliott et al., 2005), we attempted to enhance the perception of transactional presence. This term describes the extent to which a student in distance training perceives teacher, peer and educational institution availabilities, and the extent to which the student feels connected to them (Shin, 2002). In two self-paced distance education courses (n=225), we experimented with the use of Web conferencing and social software. According to design-based research methodology, where researchers work actively with field practitioners to improve approaches for all iterations, we introduce the educational interventions implemented in this second iteration in connection with these collaborative 2.0 tools. The results show that from the start of this research Web conferencing had the greatest impact on the transactional presence, especially in this second iteration by way of recording the meetings in the classes where each student progresses at their own pace. These results lead us to redefine the concept of isolation and to find ways to diminish feelings of isolation in distance training education.

Keywords

• web conferencing
• social network
• distance training
• transactional presence
• isolation
• self-paced courses