A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration: towards a model of telematic learning environments

Abstract

In the T3 project (telematics for teacher training) seven European partners actively adopted the use of telematics in their teaching programmes. Partners collaborate through face-to-face meetings, videoconferencing and virtual workshops. Virtual workshops are web-based discussions using groupware facilities mainly focusing on the enhancement of future collaboration plans. This paper reports on the first virtual workshop organized within a telematic learning environment which was created by the project evaluation team. The research focused on the learning effects of the virtual workshop. Although the workshop as a whole has been evaluated positively by the participants, the results also show that the virtual workshop did not contribute significantly to their learning process. This leads to the conclusion that, in order to stimulate learning in virtual workshops, specific pedagogical actions must be taken.