INDIRECT LEARNING THROUGH COMMUNICATION

摘要

Distance learning is getting matured. It has a great potential, however, this potential still has not fully recognized yet. A reason of this situation is in inappropriate use of new technologies and naive combinations of existing materials with remote access to them. For example, to show some dynamical features of an object/process, animation is used. However, very often, a style of animation is boring and provides more negative than positive impressions. Another example is approaches based on "reading a book through computer screen." Just "reading" through learning sessions without essential support simplifying the perception and understanding the material can not be attractive, too. One more point is poor personalization of data/knowledge prepared and interfaces ignoring usage conditions and user's interests and levels. Though there is a great variety of important aspects to pay attention in distance learning, data/knowledge format, acquisition of data/knowledge in educational materials, and ways of access to the data/knowledge are the most crucial things to improve for demonstrating the above-mentioned potential. In this paper, we present a special-purpose communicator oriented to children with special needs. The communicator is based on an idea of self-explanatory technology where items of data/knowledge, as well as adaptive interfaces are represented in multiple view formats. The children develop their vocabulary, curiosity and ability to make a choice and decision just through the process of sending/receiving messages in a language of pictures.