ICT for Educational

UNIT 14 LEARNING SUPPORT SYSTEMS Management

Structure
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Objectives
14.3 Learning Support System
14.3.1 Library
14.3.2 Science Laboratory
14.4 ICT Based Learning Support System
14.4.1 Digital Library
14.4.2 Virtual Laboratories
14.4.3 Virtual World
14.4.4 Simulation
14.5 Use of Ineractive Tools for Learner Support
14.5.1 Electronic Mail
14.5.2 Discussion Forum
14.6 ICT for Sharing Learning Resources
14.6.1 National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER)
14.7 Tools for Collaborations
14.7.1 Blog
14.7.2 Wiki
14.7.3 Example of School Collaboration
14.8 Let Us Sum Up
14.9 Suggested Readings and References
14.10 Answers to Check Your Progress

14.1 INTRODUCTION
In schools, classroom teaching constitutes the primary means of imparting student
learning. While organizing teaching-learning, teacher makes use of a host of
learning support systems available in school. These learning support systems
supplement to what teacher teaches in the classroom. Some of these learning
systems are library, laboratory, etc. Although these learning support systems
have been contributing to student learning in conventional ways, their efficieny
and effectiveness have increased with the use of ICT. In this unit, we will discuss
various learning support systems and ICT based learning support systems.

14.2 OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you will be able to:
• explain the role of learning support systems in school;
• describe various learning support systems in a school;
• describe ICT based learning support systems;
• explain the digital library and searching techniques in digital library;
• discuss the use of interactive tools for learning supprt; 33
Support Systems, Legal and • describe use of virtual lab and simulation in teaching-learning process;
Ethical Issues
• discuss ICT for sharing, learning resources in education; and
• explain Tools for Collaborations in teaching and learning in education.

14.3 LEARNING SUPPORT SYSTEM

Learning support system refers to any system which provide academic resources
to support student learning in educational institutions. In the context of school,
there are a number of learning support systems. Both teachers and students
make use of these learning support systems to optimise their teaching-learning
activities. Let us discuss library and laboratory which constitute two important
learning support systems in a school..

14.3.1 Library
As we all know, library provides an effective learning support and thus plays an
important role which is necessary to achieve the learning objectives of a
curriculum. In fact, school library is the most effective support resource of
providing materials and services for resource-based learning. Library helps the
learners become autonomous by way of independent and self-study.

Importance of Library
Books are friends and treasure houses of wisdom. They give us pleasure and
lead us to great heights.

The need for a good library service in a modern school is known to all of us. All
thinking people, who are informed of the purpose of education, nature of the
learning process, curriculum and the instructional process, and procedures in
today’s schools, agree on the important contribution which library services make
to the character and quality of educational programmes. Schools that have a
good library service usually have better instructional programmes than those
without an effective library service.
With the changed concept of education as a process of self-education, where the
teacher’s role is largely to be of a guide and a facilitator, the role of library has
assumed major importance. The modern trend in education is to encourage
students to collect, on their own, information from various sources. From this
point of view reading in a library itself is a part of school education. A library is
indispensable for such modern methods of teaching as problem-solving method,
project method, assignment methods, supervised study, etc. Thus, a library is
the hub and centre of intellectual activity in a school and plays the same part, for
all subjects, as does a laboratory for science subjects, or a workshop for technical
subjects.
According to the Education Commission (1964-66), a collection of books, even
a collection of good books does not constitute a library. A library should be the
centre of intellectual life of a school, available at all time for reference, for study
and for private reading. It should be a quiet place, provide an environment
which encourages study and reading, and furnished and equipped for comfortable
use.
Yet, not all schools have recognised important part which a library plays if more
34 modern techniques of teaching are utilized to provide education and growth of
children. In some cases, library facilities are generally inadequate or totally Learning Support Systems
lacking, while in other schools, there is constant effort to improve facilities so
that the library becomes the focus of many instructional activities.

In schools, the textbook is an important means of learning for teachers and the
taught. It provides a specific approach to pass on information and knowledge as
briefly as possible. While it has advantages, there is a serious drawback in it.
With total reliance on a textbook, teachers and students can limit their thinking
to whatever material is available in the textbook. With today’s procedures of
teaching-learning, textbook material is not considered sufficient. Supplementary
reading, both on the part of the teachers and pupils, is essential. Besides using
library by themselves teachers must motivate and stimulate pupils to undertake
independent study and learn to use the resources that a library has. In modern
times library is an essential educational aid and proper use of it must be made.
Source: (IGNOU, 2000)

14.3.2 Science Laboratory

Every school should have a well equipped science laboratory to aid instruction
and stimulate greater interest in science courses. It provides an opportunity for
actually applying scientific theories. We are living in a technological age and
the cultural and educational value of science is being recognized increasingly.
No school can ignore efficient science teaching.

Our aim is not to stuff minds of pupils with mere facts of science but to develop
in them the application, ability, skills of experimentation, construction, inculcating
scientific attitudes, interests, appreciation etc. One of the important functions of
a science laboratory is the deepening of students’ understanding of scientific
concepts and then their application.
Let us now discuss the importance of a laboratory.
Importance of a Laboratory
• Things learnt by the students through purposeful activity are permanently
affixed in the minds of the pupils.
• Knowledge imparted without experimental evidence remains superficial.
• It provides opportunity for training in scientific method.
• Pupils learn to observe, collect data, analyse data, handle equipment etc.
• While performing practical work they learn to cooperate, become resourceful,
take initiative, become self reliant.
Students learn to operate instruments and various apparatus. They also learn to
repair them, if and when required. Source: (IGNOU, 2000)

14.4 ICT BASED LEARNING SUPPORT SYSTEM

Learning support systems in school such as library, laboratory, etc. have been
greatly transformed with the use of of ICT. ICT based learning support services
such as digital library, virtual laboratory, e-content repository, e-mail, Internet,
etc. are increasingly being used by schools. Let us discuss ICT based learning
support services in the coming sections.
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Support Systems, Legal and 14.4.1 Digital Library
Ethical Issues
An increasingly large amount of information is available in electronic format
such as e-book, journals, articles and reference materials. Libraries are providing
access to these information in digital form. Digital libraries are emerging in the
world. In this section, we will discuss the digital library and its functions.
A digital library is a collection of digital objects that include text, visual material,
audio material, video material, etc. stored as electronic formats. Digital libraries
can vary immensely in size and scope, and can be maintained by individuals,
organizations, or affiliated with established physical libraries, or institutions, or
with academic institutions. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed
remotely via computer networks.

Digital Library of India

Digital Library of India (DLI) project started in early 2000 with the vision to
archive all the significant literary, artistic and scientific works of mankind and to
preserve digitally and make them available freely for everyone over Internet for
education, study, appreciation and for future generations. DLI is a digital collection
of freely accessible rare books collected from various libraries in India. It is
aimed to provide learners a free-to-read, searchable collection of one million
books, predominantly in Indian languages. The Project was initiated by the Office
of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and subsequently
taken over by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY),
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Govt. of India.
Digital Library of India has currently 550,585 books with 191,657,791 pages
(191.632 Million approx.) in Portable Document Format (PDF). There are
231,379 books comprising 64,208,401 pages of Indian languages available on
DLI website.
One of the goals of the Digital Library of India is to provide support for full text
indexing and searching based on OCR (optical character recognition) technologies
available. The availability of online search allows users to locate relevant
information quickly and reliably thus enhancing student’s success in their research
endeavors. This 24x7 resource would also provide for language processing
research in areas such as machine translation, optical character recognition,
summarization, speech and handwriting recognition, intelligent indexing, and
information retrieval in Indian languages. (http://www.dli.ernet.in/)

36 Fig. 14.1: Digital library of India

You can use these electronic resources for teaching your students. Some of the Learning Support Systems
electronic resources available in digital libraries are e-books, e-journals and
databases.

e-Books
Many books are available these days in electronic format, either accessible on
the net or on a desktop PC or devices like tablets, mobile phone or PDA. Usually
the e-books are available in HTML or PDF format. There are many commercial
e-book providers/vendors. You can get access to many e-books through different
websites such as: websites of Project Gutenberg, Online Book Page, Free Books,
and the Digital Library of India.

e-Journals
The number of electronic journals available in the world today is increasing at a
fast rate. The e-journals come in different editions, such as an electronic version
of print journals, or electronic only journals. Publishers of most journals today
provide online access to their collections either free with print subscription or
for payment of any additional amount. You should check the online access to
different journals subscribed in your library. Though many e-journals are also
available in the commercial domain, a large number of e-journals are also available
as “Open Access’ and free. You can access e-Journals for classroom teaching as
well as for your professional development.Some of the open access online journals
sites are Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open J-Gate, HighWire
Press, etc.

Databases
Libraries subscribe to full-text database and/or databases on indexes/abstracts
either in CD-ROM or online. These provide access to huge amount of
information, and make searching and access to quality information easy. Most
of the time, the databases come in specialized areas, and therefore, you should
check the availability of electronic databases in your subject of interest in your
library. These are highly useful for research. We shall discuss searching and
using the databases in the next sub-section.

Searching Catalogues or Databases

The library catalogue is a list of books and other documents in a library. It provides
multiple search access to the users. Normal access points for a document covered
in library catalogues include the author, title, subject headings, editors, series
information, etc. Sometimes the catalogues are arranged according to three
separate groups, viz. author (including editors), title, and subject headings.
Whatever may be the type of catalogue; the information is arranged in alphabetical
order. So, if you have information on any of the basic access points for a document,
you can directly go to the library catalogue and search the same. The library
catalogue shall show you the location of the book/document through the call
number (classification number + book number) of the book displayed on the
card. These days, the library catalogues are available on computers and the card
catalogues are disappearing. The use of computer for cataloguing has brought
the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) to the users through a desktop
computer and/or available on the Internet. Here the OPAC is also a database/
bibliographic record of documents available in the library. Databases provide us
a range of search options based on ‘string search’. The string search is also 37
Support Systems, Legal and called keyword search, but while searching databases, we can also use a variety
Ethical Issues
of criteria to limit the search and increase the preciseness of the results. Some of
the search criteria used are:
• Author
• Title
• Key Words
• Journal name
• Publisher
• Date
• Publication type (books/journals/CD)
• Type of record (full-text/bibliographic data), etc.
The following are some of the guidelines to search databases:
i) Use a proper name or district phrase. If you know the exact phrase, enclose
it in double quotes, e.g. “eco-feminism”.
ii) Use Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT e.g. Child AND Labour AND India
will cover Child labour in India.
“Distance learning” OR “Distance education” OR “Open learning” will cover
open and distance learning/education.
“Cars NOT Red” will result in “Cars that are not red”.
iii) Use proximity, truncation and wildcards, e.g. Proximity searching with
NEAR: “Journals” NEAR “Open Access” to cover Open access Journals
Truncation searching: Study shall cover students, study, studying, etc.
Wildcards used in variation of spelling cases; Analyse to cover analyse and
analyze.

Check Your Progress

Notes: a) Write your answers in the space provided.
b) Compare your answers with the one given at the end of the unit.
1) Explain learning support system.
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2) List the searching criteria of digital library.
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14.4.2 Virtual Laboratories Learning Support Systems

A virtual laboratory is simply ‘a laboratory experience without the actual

laboratory’. Physical distances, costly equipment and limited expertise often put
constraints on performing experiments. However, it is possible to develop web
enabled experiments for remote operation. The virtual labs generally comprise
a user-friendly, graphical interface, working in synchronization with a back-end,
consisting of a simulation-engine running on a server or actual measurement
data or a remotely triggered experiment. The central activity in any lab is running
experiments and collecting data. For this to succeed, a real virtual lab must
include real experiments from which students can collect data that are not pre-
defined in any way.

A virtual lab could simply be a set of ‘simulations’ put together in the form of
Java applets, flash-based demos or interactive animations where student could
manipulate various parameters of the simulation and observe the results. The
other option could be a virtual lab space where users can create their own
experiments by arranging objects/equipment, or remotely connect them together,
modify their properties and observe and collect data.
1) The iLab project at MIT provides an open portal to selected remote
laboratories at MIT. Through this portal, students, educators, and self learners
are given unrestricted access to some of the MIT iLabs. The vision is to
create a worldwide network of shared laboratory instructions and educational
materials. It is dedicated to the proposition that online laboratories (real
laboratories accessed through the Internet) can enrich science and engineering
education by greatly expanding the range of experiments that students are
exposed to in the course of their education. http://openilabs.mit.edu/
2) The ChemCollective virtual lab. A Java applet based lab that allows students
to design and carry out their own experiments. It is a National Science
Foundation funded project, organized by a group of faculty and staff at
Carnegie Mellon University for college and high school teachers who are
interested in using, assessing, and/or creating engaging online activities for
chemistry education. ChemCollective “Virtual lab,” allows students to
design and carry out their own experiments while experiencing
representations of chemistry that go beyond what is possible in a physical
laboratory. (www.chemcollective.org).
3) Cogs. NASA’s virtual lab, Connecting a Generation to Science (cogs) is a
place for integrating virtual lab to classrooms and provide downloads to
access a variety of advanced microscopes and specimens. The Virtual Lab
is a suite of microscopes and multi-dimensional, high-resolution image
datasets. It is freely available to teachers, and students. The virtual lab
includes:
• The Fluorescence (Light) Microscope (LM)
• Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
• Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)
• Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS)
The virtual lab software allows you to access, select, and download from a
range of specimens requested by science teachers. There are also tools that
39
Support Systems, Legal and allow you and your students to annotate, measure and save images. The
Ethical Issues
virtual lab can be used on computers without the purchase of any additional
equipment or access to the Internet. (http://www.nasa-inspired.org/cogs/
Cogs_learn.htm)

4) Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics is an excellent place to learn statistics that

uses interactive multimedia, simulations and case studies to learn statistics.
See http://onlinestatbook.com/rvls.html

5) The Virtual Lab at Stanford University: Started in 1998, the virtual lab media
library at Stanford University has many programs for students learning in
areas related to Physiology, Biology, Immunology, Brain, Health education,
etc. (See http://virtuallabs.stanford.edu/)

14.4.3 Virtual World

“A virtual world is an internet-based, simulated environment where users interact
via ‘motionable avatars’, graphical images that represent people” (Antonnacci
et al. 2008). Use of a virtual world can foster collaborative learning, and give
opportunity to carry out tasks that could be difficult in the real world. Since the
virtual worlds are 3-D environments, they can be used in a variety of ways:
• Discovery learning by clicking on objects
• Reinforcement of learning by offering a repository of learning aids and tools
• Collaborative workspaces, encouraging informal discussions
• Traditional instructor-led learning at a distance
• Simulated learning by modeling a process or interaction that closely
resembles that real world.
The virtual worlds are platforms enabled by multi-user three dimensional (3D)
software environments to provide an effect of real world scenario. Most
discussions on virtual worlds today focus on Second Life (see http://
secondlife.com). However, there are other virtual worlds such as Kanewa (see
http://kanewa.com/), Twinity (see http://www.twinity.com/en), The Palace (see
http://www.theplace.com/), etc. These virtual world environments provides
broadly four characteristics (Robbins-Bell, 2008):
• Persistence: A virtual world can’t be paused; it exists whether or not a user
is logged in.
• Multiuser: A virtual world must be populated or at least have the potential
for population.
• Avatars: Rather than offering an icon to represent a user, a virtual world
allows a user to create an agent that takes action, an avatar that can perform
actions on the request of the user.
• Wide Area Network: A virtual world is facilitated via a wide area network
rather than a local machine or a network of workplace.
Virtual worlds show potential and promise for improving teaching and learning
by motivating and stimulating the learners through engagement and immersion
in the learning event/process. So, it is believed that virtual worlds can be used as
a constructivist approach (Coffman and Klinger, 2007). The virtual world
40
environment such as Second Life (SL) provides opportunities for both the student Learning Support Systems
and the teacher to create and manipulate objects in the virtual environment leading
to a dynamic and rich learning environment. Subjects like History of Marine
Science could be taught using virtual world that would have ‘real effect’ of
teaching in the past or going down the sea. In the learning process, the individual
students, through their personalized avatars should also be engaged in discussion,
debate, designing and decision-making as in a real world. Robbins and Butler
(2009) present a pedagogical model for choice of virtual world as learning
platform. They present taxonomy of virtual worlds (first person simulations,
gaming worlds, emergent worlds such as the SL, and task worlds). They further
go on to use teaching (objectivist – constructivist) and learning (declarative
knowledge-procedural skills) as two dimensions and suggest that the use of virtual
world in education should be based on a clear purpose and adequate planning.

Fig. 14.2: Second Life-Virtual World

Using Virtual Worlds

Here follows some tips for using virtual world environment:
• You can use existing virtual worlds (as an activity) to design teaching-learning
around it. So, learners can discover, interact, discuss and prepare reports.
• Create simulation for role-play such as in a business environment.
• Provide virtual experience of space, sea and historical events through existing
resources or create your own applications.
• Teach interpersonal communication, team spirit and other soft skills.
• Provide internship opportunities in virtual worlds.
In whatever way you use virtual worlds, you should not forget to provide initial
orientation to the learners about the technology, avatars, user interfaces, keyboard
shortcuts, etc. (Calongne, 2008). Some time spent on these activities help learners
to feel not only comfortable about the technology, but also develops social skills
required for learning.
41
Support Systems, Legal and Some examples of virtual worlds are:
Ethical Issues
• Active Worlds: http://www.activeworlds.com/
• Cyber Town: http://www.cybertown.com/main_ieframes.html
• NASA World Wind: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
• Media Grid: Immersive Education: http://immersiveeducation.org/
• Qwaq Forum: http://www.qwaq.com/

14.4.4 Simulation
Simulation represents a powerful set of tools that can change the way instructional
designers create experiences as well as the way instructors facilitate those
experiences. Well designed computer-based simulations can make a valuable
contribution to student learning. Well planned simulations can provide an
environment for conceptualizing and allow learners to internalize major concepts.
However, it is important that the physical characteristics of a simulated
environment must inspire a learner’s imagination.
Computer simulations can be powerful tools for analyzing, designing and
interacting with complex systems or processes. Well-designed computer
simulations provide a model of those elements most relevant to the immediate
learning objectives. (Lunce, 2004).
Simulations structured by authentic rules that mirror actual results can facilitate
learners to model, explore, and try out a variety of strategies. Simulations may
include role-playing where they can collaboratively invent, experiment, and
practice in a relatively low-risk environment. Experimental simulations provide
learners the opportunity to engage in situations that would otherwise be too
hazardous or costly to conduct in real situations.
Use of Simulation in Education
Aldrich (2004) identifies the following elements in educational simulation:
• Appropriately used linear, cyclical, and systems content.
• Simulation genres, including branching stories, virtual products/virtual labs,
interactive spreadsheets, flight simulator; and 3D maps, as well as new genres
to be introduced.
• The appropriate use of genre elements, including modeling, artificial
inteligence (AI), graphics, and interface.
• Creating an atmosphere similar to the atmosphere in which the content will
be used.
• Presenting behavior to be modeled or recognized.
• Feedback from a decision (or series of decisions) that shows the natural
consequences of the behavior.
The Defense Modeling and Simulation Office of US categorize training
simulations into three types (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation):
• Live simulation – real people use simulated (or “dummy”) equipment in the
real world;
• Virtual simulation – real people use simulated equipment in a simulated or
42 virtual environment viz.;
• Constructive simulation – simulated people use simulated equipment in a Learning Support Systems
simulated environment viz. War gaming.
There are innumerable example of use of simulations in education and training.
Some important ones are elaborated here to give a glimpse of their usage in an
educational set up:
1) The NASA Glenn Research Centre has developed a series of interactive
computer programs for students to foster hands-on, inquiry-based learning
in science and math. All of the programmes are Jawa applet based which
run in browser, online, over the World Wide Web. (http://www.grc.nasa.gov/
WWW/k-12/freesoftware_page.htm)
2) Real Lives 2010 is a unique, content rich and empathy-building real world,
real life simulation that challenges life skills (not your hand-eye coordination)
as one has to make difficult, high-stakes choices that may lead to success,
or failure. Real Lives 2010 is a role playing kind of simulation which
makes the world come alive on a personal and global level. It has exciting
features 3D animated graphics of all faces in the simulation, family trees,
graphs of personal and country statistics, integrated Google Maps and Flickr
photos, and more in a user friendly interface. (http://www.educationalsimu
lations.com/products.html)
3) PhET provides fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical
phenomena for free. To help students visually comprehend concepts, PhET
simulations animate what is invisible to the eye through the use of graphics
and intuitive controls such as click-and-drag manipulation, slider and radio
buttons. In order to further encourage quantitative exploration, the
simulations also offer measurement instruments including rulers, stop-
watches, voltmeters and thermometers. As the user manipulates these
interactive tools, responses are immediately animated, thus effectively
illustrating cause-and-effect relationships as well as multiple linked
representations (motion of the objects, graphs, and the underlying science,
deepening their understanding and appreciation of the physical world. (http:/
/phet.colorado.edu)
4) Sim Teacher.com is an online simulation platform for teacher education.
Pre-service teachers may become “Sim Teachers” in a virtual school, applying
concepts they are learning in their college courses to teaching scenarios in a
simulated environment. The virtual schools contain fictional yet interactive
characters that add life to the scenarios and personalize the scenario-based
learning experience for learners. Sim Teachers may perform routine
activities, like creating lesson plans, taking attendance or completing an
Individualized Educational Plan (IEP). (http://www.simteacher.com).

Check Your Progress

Notes: a) Write your answers in the space provided.
b) Compare your answers with the one given at the end of the unit.
3) Define virtual laboratory.
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Support Systems, Legal and
Ethical Issues 4) Give three uses of simulation in education.
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14.5 USE OF INTERACTIVE TOOLS FOR

LEARNER SUPPORT
Today, email has become an important mode of communication from one person
to another or many others through the use of devices like computer, tablet, mobile
and networks.

14.5.1 Electronic Mail

Electronic mail or in short “email” is one of the most popular and useful features
of the Internet. By definition, it is mail delivered through electronic means.
However, while tracing the development of the email communication, Tao and
Reinking (1996) identified at least three definitions of e-mail:
1) It is mail being transmitted electronically.
2) It is the only communication through computers, but would include graphics
as well as texts as appropriate email communication.
3) It is the only text being transmitted through computers between senders and
receivers.
Some important characteristics of email are as follows:
• It is text-based, and requires literacy skills. Language is the major means by
which the e-mail communication is done.
• A mail once typed can be sent to multiple persons/locations without
duplicating efforts.
• It is asynchronous in nature, and can overcome problems posed by
geographical time zones.
• Messages sent and received as email can be stored and organized in a way
that can facilitate easy retrieval.
• It is a cost and time saving technology. It also reduces the use of paper and
is environmental friendly.
Educational Use of Email
It is the use of email that makes e-Learning possible. In most e-Learning
programme the basic need is to have an email account. Sometimes, a whole
course is offered through email as well. So, the use of email is enormous in
education. Primarily, email has two main applications in education: research
and teaching. Email is used as a research tool, and also as a carrier of research
tools (such as questionnaire and interview schedule). However, email is used for
44
communication and interaction between learner and learners, and learner and Learning Support Systems
teachers. Email provides the advantage of speed, and information and
announcements about a schedule/reschedule of classes can reach the learners
before they travel to the classroom/study center. Learners with special needs
(hearing impaired) can interact with the teachers using email, while visually
impaired learners can use email with other text-to-speech readers. In a
conventional classroom, a learner may feel intimidated to talk and raise questions/
doubts, but can choose to interact though email. Email can be used for delivering
of lessons.Teachers can develop email groups to discuss topics related to the
curriculum (Dorman, 1998). Kim (2008), through a review of the literature,
identified the following advantages of email use that contributes to academic
achievement:
• Enabling immediate, frequent support for individual needs: learner-
centered context; individualized instruction; exchange of resources and
information.
• Fostering psychological comport: intimacy; expression of personal ideas;
opinions, and emotions; informal conversations; social content exchanges;
interpersonal contexts.
• Building interpersonal skills: collegiality; awareness of others’ attitude;
insights into others’ perspectives; close relationships.
• Developing thoughtfulness: cognitive task structuring; careful analysis;
critical thinking; reflection; planning.
• Encouraging interest; enthusiasm; motivation: self-esteem; self-confidence;
change in personal values; active participation.
• Permitting authentic but convenient context: gap reduction between
knowledge and practice; real-world anxiety decrease.

14.5.2 Discussion Forum

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is becoming more commonly utilized
in the transaction of curriculum. There are different ways of incorporating CMC:
one application, that is being increasingly utilized, is online discussion forum or
group. As an application, the discussion group provides a limited and structured
online environment for the provision, exchange and/or discussion of information
between teacher and learners and/or between learners. A defining feature of the
asynchronous discussion forum as an application is that it allows for comments
to be posted and viewed at a time of convenience to the student or the teacher. In
other words, there is no need to be connected at a specific time.

In order for e-educators and those utilizing a blended learning approach to achieve
improved learning outcomes, it is imperative that teaching and learning strategies
incorporating online discussion forums are pedagogically sound. As such, the
increase in usage of online discussion forums in higher education has led to the
associated need to increase our understanding of how to best incorporate such
applications into teaching (Stodel, Thompson, & MacDonald, 2006; Tallent-
Runnels, Thomas & Lan et at;, 2006).

Educational Uses of Discussion Forums

Within the e-Learning environment, it is the discussion forum that commonly
provides the platform for dialogue between learner and teacher as well as 45
Support Systems, Legal and collaborative activities between learners, without the requirement of a face-to-
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face encounter (Garrison, 1997; Kear & Heap, 2007). Rudimentary use of
discussion forums within the delivery of a subject is as a means to provide
information or direction to learners on course content or administrative matters.
Used in this way the forum offers the student a right of reply often for confirmation
of understanding. And, perhaps more significantly, it presents a lasting record of
the information involved in the subject. This can contribute to a sense of a
shared learning space and process, involving instructors and students, which
can, in turn, lead to more open and productive communication around subject
content and procedures.
A more advanced and increasingly used application of the discussion forum within
education is as an online environment for subject content discussion, similar to
a tutorial. A relatively straightforward approach to this is for the instructor to set
a question or topic with learners encouraged or required to respond to the content
related topic and have ongoing discussions with their peers on this topic (Johnson,
2006). This conception of the online discussion forum manifests in a question
and answer format with the teacher posing the question, students required or
invited to provide an answer and the instructor positioned to confirm, refute or
provide the “right” or model response. Used in this way, the nature of
asynchronous online discussion forums (where messages and postings can be
viewed when convenient) and thereby encourages a more in-depth, academic
and constructive dialogue (Sandor & Harris, 2008, Garrison, 1997; Johnson 2006).
This is the real advantage of asynchronous discussion forums over more fancied
synchronous applications such as real-time or synchronous audio, visual or even
text only online classrooms or informal and rapid dialogue applications such as
blogs, wikis and chat rooms.
With respect to applying the discussion forums as ‘a learner centred, peer e-
learning environment’, the following need to be considered:
• Assess forum participation: A significant portion of the subject marks
accorded to forum participation, increases the student interest in participation.
All three components – primer, postings and facilitation should be separately
assessed;
• Participation as a requirement not an option: Student is required to
participate in each weekly forum with marks deducted for any forum missed
by the student;
• Limit the length of time the forum is open (one to two weeks): This
compresses the dialogue and promotes greater and more coherent interaction
among students. If you are running a series of forums across the semester,
this strategy will require students to engage with subject material on a weekly
basis;
• Limit participant numbers in a discussion group: Too few and too many
participants in a forum become counter productive. The ideal number for a
group is between 10 and 25 participants. Less than 10 participants is not
viable to sustain a discussion. The forum becomes too busy with more than
25 participants as they are less confident of their standing in the group.; and
• Set topics and assign students: The forums must set topic that is directly
linked with the subject being studied – ideally supported with resources
such as lecture, topic notes, references, and web links. Students must be
46 assigned topics (primer and facilitation role) early in the semester.
 Learning Support Systems
14.6 ICT FOR SHARING LEARNING RESOURCES
Sharing of resources is currently of much interest and investment throughout the
world. The widespread use of online resources in teaching-learning provides
new opportunities and benefits to the education system. Technology facilitates
sharing and re-use of resources among the institutions and their employees can
benefit from the resources. Despite the development of multiple educational
resource repositories worldwide, teachers occasionally use repositories to share
materials because of some restrictions. Institutional policies on sharing of
resources must ensure that employees share the resources as well as benefit from
the repository.

In the following sub-section, you will learn about the digital repository of NCERT

14.6.1 National Repository of Open Educational Resources

(NROER)
The National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER) is an initiative
of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India
and Central Institue of Educational Technology (CIET) of NCERT to bring
together all digital and digitisable resources across all stages of school education
and teacher education. This covers all subject domains and will be available in
all Indian languages. It facilitates use of the digital resources to reach out and
connect all members of the school community through a variety of events and
interactions (http://nroer.gov.in).

Fig. 14.3: Home page of National Repository of OER (NROER)

Currently, NROER has more than 21,200 resources of various categories including
videos, audios, documents, interactive objects and images. Till 20 July 2016, a
total of 10737480 hits, 206,132 unique visitors visited over 4415746 pages on
NROER. As on date, it has more than 22,000 registered users. Resources are
available in about 29 different languages, including tribal languages (Limboo,
Lepcha, Bhutia from Sikkim, Kokborak from Tripura, Santhali and Khortha from
Jharkhand, Methei from Manipur, Ao and Tenyidie from Nagaland, Garo and
Khasi from Meghalaya, Galo from Arunachal). The repository hosts concepts
from classes VI to XII and will soon span across classes I to XII in Environmental
Studies, Science, Social Science, Mathematics and Art education. The resources
include textbooks, audio, video, photographs, charts, maps and interactive content. 47
Support Systems, Legal and
Ethical Issues

Fig. 14.4: Theme-wise mapping in NROER

NROER Platform
This Repository runs on the MetaStudio platform, an initiative of the Knowledge
Labs, HomiBhabha Centre for Science Education. As a part of this initiative, all
the text books and resource books of NCERT are digitised into ePub 3.0 and
flipbook versions and everyone can access these e-books. Features of these books
allow users to select, read, zoom, bookmark, highlight, navigate, share and make
notes digitally.
(Source: http://www.ncert.nic.in/writeupnroer.pdf)

14.7 TOOLS FOR COLLABORATIONS

The World Wide Web (WWW) is considered as a flatform to retrieve information.
The information provided through HTML codes and sharing of resources through
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is its main utility. There was a need to add
“interactivity” on the web. Therefore, tools were developed to enable users to
add content to the web. Such content could be in the form of text, audio, video,
slideshows, etc. This at once turned the web to become a common communication
superhighway for all users. The term web 2.0 was first used in 1999 by Darcy
DiNucci; but it came into prominence in 2004 when O’Reilly Media hosted the
first Web 2.0 conference. Web 2.0 emerged as a platform where the users
(teachers, students and anyone) could read and write. It has taken the educational
delivery to the next level of advancement where content can be generated through
online collaboration. It is an innovative platform where the creative minds meet
and discuss or share ideas and innovations.
Web 2.0 offers many services like social networking, user collaboration, content
sharing, photo sharing, document sharing, video sharing, etc. Some of the key
Web 2.0 services that are popular among webusers today are:
• Blogs
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• Wikis Learning Support Systems

• RSS and syndication

• Tagging and social bookmarking
Let us discuss about Blogs and Wikis..

14.7.1 Blog
A blog is a personal website where the user posts his/her personal content
organized like a journal or a diary. Each entry is dated, and all entries are displayed
on the web page in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent entry is
posted at the top. Readers catch up with blogs by starting at the top and reading
down until they encounter material they have already read.

Blogs are typically thought of as ‘personal journals’. However, there is no limit

to what may be covered in a blog. It is common for people to write blogs to
describe their work, their hobbies, their pets, social and political issues, or news
and current events. And while blogs are typically the work of one individual,
there are some blogs that combine contributions of several people, These are
called‘group blogs’.

While the earliest blogs were created by hand, blogging become widely popular
with the advent of blog authoring tools. Among the earliest of these were Userland
and LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com). Today, most bloggers use either
Google’s popular Blogger service (www.blogger.com) or WordPress
(www.wordpress.com). These services allow users to create new blogs and blog
posts by means of simple online forms; the writer does not need to know any
programming or formatting. As a result, blog aggregation services such as
Technorati (www.technorati.com) have reported that tens of millions of blogs
have been created (Technorati, 2008).

The blogs are connected to each other to form what is commonly known as the
‘blogosphere’. The most common form of connection is form blogs to link to
each other. Blog authors may also post a list of blogs they frequently read; this
list is known as a ‘blogroll’. Blogs may also be read through special readers,
known as ‘RSS readers’, which aggregate blog summaries produced by the blog
software. Readers use RSS readers to ‘subscribe’ to a blog. Popular web-based
RSS readers include Google Reader and Bloglines.

While blogs once dominated the personal publishing landscape, the new form
one part in a much more diverse landscape. Many people, who earlier wrote
blogs, are using social networking sites such as MySpace (www.myspace.com)
or Facebook (www.facebook.com). Others use ‘microblogging’ services such
as Twitter (www.twitter.com). And blogs, which began as text-based services,
have branched into audio blogs (also known as ‘podcasts’) and video blogs
(‘vlogs’). Authors typically upload a wide range of multimedia content such as
‘art work’ to sites like deviantart (www.deviantart.com), videos to hosting services
such as YouTube (www.youtube.com), slide shows and PDFs to SlideShare
(www.slideshare.net) and photos to sites Flickr (www.flickr.com).

Using Blogs in Education

Blogs are widely popular in education, as evidenced by the 400 thousand
educational blogs hosted by edublogs (www.edublogs.org). Teachers have been 49
Support Systems, Legal and using them to support teaching and learning since 2005 (Downes, 2004). Because
Ethical Issues
blogs are connected, they can foster the development of a learning community.
Authors can share opinions with each other and support each other with
commentary and answers to questions. Additionally, blogs give learners
ownership over their own learning and an authentic voice, allowing them to
articulate their needs and inform their own learning. (University, 2007) Blogs
have been shown to contribute to ‘identity-formation’ in students (Bortree, 2005).
Further, blogging gives students a genuine and potentially worldwide audience
for their work (Aguilar, 2009). Learners also have each other as their potential
audience, enabling each of them to take on a leadership role at different times
through the course of their learning.
Moreover, blogging helps learners see their work in different subjects as
interconnected and helps them organize their own learning. Working with the
teachers and informed by blogs authored by experts in the field, learners can
conduct a collective enquiry into a particular topic or subject matter creating
their own interpretation of the material.
Blogs teach a variety of skills in addition to the particular subject under discussion.
Regular blogging fosters the development of writing and research skills. Blogging
also supports digital literacy as the student learns to critically assess and evaluate
various online resources.
How to Use Blogging in Learning?
• Most uses of blogs in the classroom began with the instructor using blogs to
post class information such as lists of readings and assignment deadlines
(Downes, 2004). This fosters in the teacher a familiarity with the technology
and with learners a habit of regularly checking the online resource.
• Before requiring learners to blog, instructors should lead by example, creating
their own blogs and adding links to interesting resources and commentary
on class topics. This not only produces a useful source of supplemental
information for learners, it creates a pattern and sets expectations for when
learners begin their own blogging.
• Learners should begin their entry into blogging by reading other blogs.
Teachers should use this practice not only to demonstrate how other people
use blogs to support learning but also to foster critical thinking and reading
skills. Teaching how to respond to blog posts is as important as creating
blog posts.
• Blogging should not be a solo activity. Encourage bloggers to read each
other’s works and to comment on them. Encouraging learners to set up an
RSS reader with each other’s blogs, will make reading and commenting a
lot easier. Teachers, also, should subscribe to learner blogs and offer
comments, again setting an example of the expected practice.
• A student blog becomes important because it is a manifestation of his or her
own work. However, to have this value, a student’s ownership of a blog
must be genuine.

14.7.2 Wiki
A wiki is a ‘website’ which can be edited by any one having an account on the
wiki platform. Wiki is a great tool for collaboration over the Internet and also a
50
store house of information. Allowing anyone to add, delete or edit the content Learning Support Systems
on the wiki pages has made it an effective tool for collaborative writing.

The term ‘wiki’ has been taken from Hawaii Language, where they call it a wiki
wiki (means quick or fast). In simple terms, a ‘wiki’ can be taken as simplified
web pages where all the previous versions of a page are also stored. This enables
one to retrieve any past page. There are different tools inbuilt in a wiki system to
keep track of changing information on wiki pages or uploading images, audio or
video or providing links (URL) to internal pages or external websites (external
links).

History of Wiki
WikiWikiWeb was the first Wiki software which was developed by Ward
Cunnigham in 1994. He described it as “the simplest online database that could
possibly work.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#cite_note-2#cite_note-2].
The Wikis are popular as collaborative software and are commonly used for
project communication, and documentation where one user can comment on
and edit the text of another user. Wikis are dynamic databases for creating,
sharing, updating, using and searching information on the web. Wikis function
as open platforms to engage in sharing and learning.

Fig. 14.5: Wikipedia home page

Strengths and Limitations

Wikis allow learners to contribute actively to knowledge construction, networking
and mutual collaborations. A wiki is an ever-growing web of knowledge that
any user may append. A wiki may be reused by many class sessions and different
groups of learners, with content being added to and modified on a continual
basis. Wiki-related learning activities enable collaborations among different
learners, instructors, classes, schools, universities, and experts from anywhere
across the globe (Bonk & Zhang, 2008). Wiki applications facilitate teaching
and learning by providing shared knowledge repositories that are constantly
updated and corrected. Learners may not only use existing wikis for information
and resources, but also create new wikis or add to existing ones, which further
empowers them with a strong sense of ownership in the learning process. Engaged
in a wiki project, such as writing a wikibook, learners have opportunities to
share knowledge through active, meaningful, and collaborative learning and
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Support Systems, Legal and research. Learners are highly motivated to work and collaborate continuously in
Ethical Issues
wiki-related learning tasks (Watson, Boudreau, York, Greiner, & Wynn, 2008).
Wiki-related learning activities may also address the demanding needs of
generational learners (Zhang & Bonk, & Zhang, 2008; Zhang & Bonk, 2008).
The easy function of incorporating multimedia also enables learners to add various
forms of expressions in wikis, addressing multiple intelligences (Zhang & Bonk)
without complex technical operations (Choy & Ng, 2007)”.
Strengths
• Free, openly available to anyone (you need an internet connection to access
pages).
• You can write on the topic of your interest while others can contribute to
your content.
• Since others can contribute to your content, it encourages peer review of
content and quality of content may improve.
• The wiki pages can be edited only by an authorized or registered user.
• You can create and save all pages and can revert back to a page any time.
• The ‘Watch’ feature keeps you informed of any change of content on that
page.
• It provides a collaborative platform for developing and sharing content.
Different people can work on the same document.
• You can include online quizzes and assessment activities in your course
modules.
• You can integrate other software utilities and applications into wiki pages,
like YouTube videos, Slide Share presentations, Google Calendar, MindMap,
etc.
• You can learn and use wiki editing skills easily.
• As soon as you edit and save a page, it is published on the web
instantaneously.
• There is a wide range of open source software that you can install for
institutional wiki. Thus you can save on licensing costs.
Limitations
• There can be incomplete information on a wiki platform.
• Since anyone can edit the pages, there are chances that incorrect information
can be uploaded onto the pages. (But since others can read that and correct
it, so this aspect can be taken care of). Also at systems level editing can be
blocked if required.
• Educational institutions are yet to recognize it as a full scale mode of
instructional delivery. There are questions about the validity and reliability
of content.
• There is no formal structure of wiki. Therefore, the information can be
disorganized if page designing is not done carefully.
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 Learning Support Systems
Check Your Progress
Notes: a) Write your answers in the space provided.
b) Compare your answers with the one given at the end of the unit.
5) How can you make effective use of discussion forum in education?
...............................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................

6) List three benefits of blogging in teaching and learning.

...............................................................................................................
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...............................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................

14.7.3 Example of School Collaboration

Let us discuss very popular school collaboration project known as ePALS and
its functions here.

The School Collaboration Project ‘ePALS’ connects 4.5 million students and
teachers in 191 countries for teacher-designed cross-cultural and interactive
projects. Classrooms use monitored email, language translation, discussion
boards, maps and more to work and learn together. Find a partner classroom and
collaborate on school projects, practice foreign language skills and establish
international friendships. (www.epals.com).
ePALS provides teachers and students with:
• a searchable online community of over 90,000 classrooms from 191
countries;
• access to the entire site in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese
Arabic, and Japanese;
• an instant translation tool integrated into web mail and the discussion forums;
• professionally moderated discussion forums and teacher monitored web-
mail accounts;
• secure password protected chat; and
• collaborative projects and activities.
The figure 14.6 shows how we can connect people through ePALS. You can also
filter information by language spoken, subject, interest, grade tought and
specialization.
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Support Systems, Legal and
Ethical Issues

Fig. 14.6: List of people available in EPALS who spoke Tamil language

Using EPALS
Go to www.epals.com and “join” the community. You will need to write a profile
– focused on your students, classroom and school – to be able to contact other
people in the global community. A real person will read your profile and suggest
how you can improve it. (Profiles are screened to see whether such a school
exists and whether the teacher actually works there.) Use your school district
email account when you sign up, so it’s easier to show that you are a teacher.

You can also choose to get free SchoolMail for yourself and for your students.
This award-winning email system provides features that teachers asked for, and
has received the highest standard of Internet privacy and safety. ePals has TRUSTe
certification. Look for the logo on sites that work hard to protect students… not
all education sites have it!

Once you have gotten a SchoolMail account (for your classroom or school), you
can easily upload student names and get names and passwords created. This
allows students to have a pen pal in another part of the world. If the pen pals are
in other countries, you can use the instant language translation feature to allow
your students to understand when students write in another language. Or the
students in the other countries might be quite interested in trying out the English
they are learning in school with your students.

To help your students learn more about Arctic life, weather, animals, and resources,
see whether you can find other students who live in Arctic areas to connect with.
You could ask a set of questions that go beyond what can be found in a textbook.
You might ask them to share pictures of their school, their homes and what they
do after school for fun. What kind of pets do they have? What chores do students
do before or after school?

ePals also offers some projects that might be a great way to organize your learning
activities. These projects provide great guidance to teachers in collaborating and
specifying what is to happen in five or six email exchanges. Two of particular
interest in science would be Weather and Global Warming. Students who live in
54
Arctic areas could describe observed changes in their environment that are Learning Support Systems
happening because of global warming and possibly even share pictures. In
addition, a focus area on Biodiversity this fall offers great resources to extend
student learning as well as encourage additional discussion on this important
topic.

Once your students have gotten used to the idea of learning from and collaborating
with distant students, they will want to continue the real-world interaction. You
can use many real-time data projects with your students, either joining an existing
project or creating your own.

14.8 LET US SUM UP

In this unit, you studied various uses of ICT in support services. The technology
used for self learning and how e-content and its components help the learners
teaching learning process. You also studied about digital library which is a
collection of digital objects that include text, visual material, audio material,
video material, stored as electronic formats. We also discussed the use of
simulation, virtual labs and virtual world. Interactivity plays very important role
in support services. We discussed the importance of email and its uses in
education. Also, you have learnt about discussion forum which is an asynchronous
tool that encourages dialogue, communication and collaborative learning. While
discussing about tools for sharing resources, we highlighted NROER the national
repository of open educational resources. At the end of the unit, you learnt how
blogs are important tools for teachers and learners. We have discussed the use of
wikis, strengths and limitations for teaching and learning. Lastly, we discussed
the ePALS project for connections and collaboration.

14.9 SUGGESTED READINGS AND REFERENCES

Aguilar, E. (2009). Blogs gives students an audience.
Aldrich, C. (2004). Clark Aldrich’s Six Criteria of an Educational Simulation.
Antonacci, D., DiBartolo, S., Edwards, N., Fritch, K., McMullen, B., & Murch-
Shafer, R. (2008). The Power of Virtual Worlds in Education, ANGEL Learning
White Paper, July 2008.
Bonk, C.J., & Zhang, K. (2008). Empowering online learning: 100+ Ideas for
online reading, reflecting, displaying and doing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
Bass.
Bortree, D.s. (2005). Presentation of self on the Web: an ethnographic study of
teenage girls’ weblogs. Education, Communication & Information, 5(1), 25-39
Calongne, C.M. (2008). Educational Frontiers: Learning and social inclusion-
focussing on learners and learning. Paper presented to MLEARN 2003 Conference-
Learning with mobile devices, 19-20 May 2003, London.
Choy, S. O., & Ng, K.C. (2007). Implementing Wiki Software for Supplementing
Online Learning. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology. 23(2), 209-
226.

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Support Systems, Legal and Coffman, T., & Klinger, M.B. (2007). Utilizing Virtual Worlds in Education:
Ethical Issues
the Implications for Practice, International Journal of Social Science, 2 (1), 29-
33.
Dorman, S.M. (1998). Using email to enhance instruction, Journal of School
Health, 68 (6), 260-261.
Downes, S. (2004). Educational Blogging, Educause, Septermber/October, 14-
16.
Garrison, D. R. (1989). Understanding distance education: A framework for the
future. London: Routledge.
Garrison, D. R. (1997). Computer conferencing: the post-industrial age of distance
education. Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 12(2).
3-11.
Garrison, D. R., &Baynton, M. (1987). Beyond independence in distance
education: The concept of control. American Journal of Distance Education,
1(3), 3-15.
IGNOU (2000), Unit 15, Instructional Management Related Activities- 11, in
ES-335: Teacher and School, New Delhi: IGNOU
Johnson, G.M. ( 2006). Synchronous and Asynchronous text-based CMC in
educational contexts: a review of recent research. TechTrends, 50 (4), 46-53.
Kear, K. L. & Heap, N. W. (2007). Sorting the wheat from the chaff: investigating
overload in education discussion systems. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning,
23(3), 235-247.
Kim, C. (2008). Using email to enable e3 (effective, effient, and engaging) learning,
Distance Education, 10, 89-101.
Lunce, Les M., (2004). Computer Simulations in Distance Education,
International Journal of Instructional Technology and distance Learing, 1(10).
Ravisankar, K & Murthy, C. R. K. (2000). Student participation circles: an
approach to learner participation in quality improvement. Indian Journal of Open
Learning, 9(1), 73-85.
Robbins, R.W, & Butler, B.S. (2009). Selecting a Virtual World Platform for
Learning, Journal of Information Systems Education, 20 (2), 199-210.
Robbins-Bell, S. (2008). Higher Education as Virtual Conversation, Educause
Review 43 (5), 24-34.
Sandor, M. & Harris, N. (2008). Understanding the experience of university
students as facilitators of the learning process within the medium of online
discussion forums. In I. Olney, G. Lefoe, J. Mantei, & J. Herrington (Eds.),
Supporting a Learning Community. Proceedings of the Second Emerging
Technologies Conference 2008, Wollongong: Univerisity of Wollongong, 173-
181.
Saxena A. (2011). Pedagogical Designs for Generation of Contents for the
Community,Community Development Theme, Indira Gandhi National Open
University publications, NewDelhi. pp. 01-03.
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Simpson, O. (2000). Supporting Students in Open and Distance Learning. London: Learning Support Systems
Kogan Page.
Stodel, E. J., Thompson, T.L., & MacDonald, C. J. (2006). Learners perspectives
on what is missing from online learning: Interpretations through the community
of inquiry framework. The International Review of Research in Open and
Distance Learning 7(3), 1-24.
Tallent-Runnels, M.K., Thomas, J. A., Lan, W.Y., Cooper, S., Ahern, T.C., Shaw,
S. M., & Liu, X. (2006). Teaching courses online: a review of the research.
Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 93-135.
Tao, L. & Reinking, D. (1996). What research reveals about email in education,
Paper presented at Annual meeting of the College Reading Association, October
31- November 3, 1996. (ERIC Document No. ED 408 772).
Taylor, J. C. (1997). Flexible learning systems: opportunities and strategies for
staff development in industry. In P. C. Chew (Ed.). Quality Assurance in Distance
and Open Learning. Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1. 11th Annual Conference
and Exhibition. Asian Association of Open Universities, 11-14 November, Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia.
University (2007). Removing barriers and creating new opportunities for learning.
Watson, R. T., Boudreau, M.-C., York, P.T., Greiner, M., & Wynn, D.E. (2008).
Opening the classroom. Journal of Information Systems Education. 19(1). 75-
86.
Zhang, K. & Bonk, C. J. (2008). Addressing diverse learner preference and
opportunities. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 34 (2), 3089-332.

14.10 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1) Learning support system refers to any system which provide academic
resources to support student learning in educational institutions
2) Some of the search criteria used are:
• Author
• Title
• Key Words
• Journal name
• Publisher
• Date
• Publication type (books/journals/CD)
3) virtual lab is simply a laboratory experience without the actual lab.
4) Uses of simulation in education are as follows:
• It can be used for modeling system before actual design.
• Teach high risk skill such as aviation and sophisticated medical surgery.
• Create science lab.

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Support Systems, Legal and 5) For effective use of discussion forum in education, the following can be
Ethical Issues
considered:
• Learner participation in discussion forum to be assessed.
• Participation should be a requirement to omplete a course and not option.
• Each discussion forum should be available for one or two weeks for
interaction.
• Topic for discussion given in advance.
6) The benefits of blogging in teaching and learning are:
• Learners can articulate their voice and take ownership.
• World wide audience to ideas.
• Lerners develop interconnection and collaboration by posting comments.

58