Mediatization and Pedagogical Mediation in a Multimedia Techno-Pedagogical Environment: The Case of Learning Objects in E-Learning

Introduction

Information and communication technologies have been undergoing profound changes for many years: the workstation has become commonplace for an ever-increasing number of users, communication networks have developed, and technologies relating to the Internet and the Web have evolved. At the same time, learning processes have evolved considerably with the emergence of needs essentially for online learning.

The term ” Objet Pédagogique ” is beginning to be used in the French-speaking educational community to translate the American Term Learning Object, which would have been better translated as Objet of Learning. Yolaine Bourda (Bourda, 2002) recognizes that the concept of LO remains vague and that one can speak mainly of the assembly of LOs, with the metaphor of the grain, the brick or the LEGO, for want of a clearer definition of what a LO is. We consider that if the “LO” entity is in digital form, it comes from an educational entity that has been digitized in one way or another. The nature of such a Learning object remains unclear since it is its ability to be used in a pedagogical activity that also serves to characterize it.

Before the identification of the tools for mediatization of Learning objects and their articulation Mediation and Mediatization.

The determination of the concepts of Mediatization and Mediation constitutes one of the essential bases. The concepts of mediatization and mediation are not new terms. The term Mediatization constitutes the use of tools to transmit a content. It must be understood in the sense of a process of scenarization of teaching contents through a technical artifact, a media device. And if Mediatization is the process of scenarization of contents, it should not be confused with the concept of mediation which designates the relation instituted between the emitter and the recipient, the teacher, the tutor and the learner.

Mediatization of Learning objects is a set of transversal skills in technological interface design and networked mediated communication. It opens up the innovative integration of a Learning object in technological interfaces and the communicative dimension of interactivity. The Mediatization of Learning objects allows to build the architecture and to write the mediation and mediatization articulation of a detailed Learning object.

Our goal is to allow teachers or trainers to mediatize Learning objects based on their ideas and expertise. We are interested in the definition of the term Learning object to designate a digital document, allowing the learner an autonomous learning activity, independently of its context of use. We will try to situate the tools for Mediatization of Learning objects and to explore the relations between Mediatization and Mediation for the articulation of the content in the Learning object.