E-Learning Tools as Means for Improving the Teaching-Learning Relation

Abstract

Generally, educational activities consist of teaching and learning processes. Teachers disseminate knowledge towards learners through teaching processes, while learners acquire knowledge through learning processes. The purpose of teaching methods is to facilitate the settlement of teaching-learning relations between the dual teaching and learning processes. A teaching process is really working if and only if the associated learning process is working. Therefore, we are successful in teaching if and only if our partners (students, colleagues, etc.) obtain successes in learning (Prodan, 1996). These assertions are true in all educational contexts, from traditional face-to-face courses to new electronic educational environments offered by e-teaching and e-learning technologies. In a face-to-face course, pedagogical virtue is mainly radiated by physical presence of a good teacher. This is the reason why our approach to e-learning is so called blended learning, which combines traditional face-to-face and computer-based learning, with focus on principles of active learning. The main goal of our work is to improve the teaching-learning relation by means of e-learning tools. For this purpose, we used Java and XML technologies to implement practical and intelligent e-learning tools (Prodan et al., 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010), which we began to incorporate in a Moodle based e-learning system (Martinez & Jagannathan, 2008). We started our researches concerning e-learning technologies in the last years of the previous century, when we created a pool system consisting of e-courses to be used in a context of open learning. We observed that open learning is the most important component of the real learning, because the real learning is achieved for the most part through open learning. In an open learning context, learners have more control, they have the freedom to choose where, when and how to learn, each learner having his own pace. The benefits are for both slower and faster learners. The foreign students learning in a second language have extra time they need to understand the meaning of words by using dictionaries. However, we considered this new type of open learning not as a substitute, but as a supplement for traditional learning (Prodan, 1998). We rely on new paradigms of artificial intelligence (Bayesian Inference, Case Based Reasoning and Intelligent Agents) for creating e-learning scenarios to be used in a context of active learning. An e-learning scenario combines simulation and interactive visualization