Dispositifs et situations. : Contribution à l’étude anthropologique et communicationnelle des environnements d’apprentissage en ligne dans l’Enseignement supérieur

摘要

Nowadays University is going through institutional changes under the pressure of international issues. Consequently, offering online courses becomes essential. Although Internet is a well known educational environment this knowledge is not sufficient. The situations faced by the actors (learners, teachers, tutors…) who are virtually gathered need to be questioned. This synthesis aims to examine the relations between the potentialities of computing devices and the practical situations experienced by the actors in higher education. A research program is built within Cognitive Anthropology theoretical framework. The first part of this text focuses on asynchronous communication within e‐learning practices and shows how student’s participation and learning outcomes are linked. A second part provides qualitative data using the analysis of social interactions within online forums in order to understand the learning situations. The fisrt outcomes highlight the way knowledge is spreading within these collectives and shows the importance of a "social presence" in distance education.