Uses and contexts of NTIC in the (co)comprehension and (co)construction of knowledge

Speakers: Denis Legros & Patrick Yeu
(Equipe CoDitexte, IUFM Créteil, Laboratoire Cognition et Usages, LUCSI, Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie)

Date: 22 March 2004

The "N" in NTIC implies the uprooting brought on by the information superhighways, especially the internet, as compared to basic TIC. From now on, NTIC have created a new obligation to consider different points of view, traditions, and numerous language practices which causes us to re-examine the theoretical frameworks and procedures we use to study the process of building knowledge and comprehension.
Research on aides for (co) comprehension and the (co)construction of knowledge are now integrated into NTIC, making researchers explore new perspectives for usages and their contexts: contextual learning and teaching, cultural contexts, and linguistics that affect both content and practice.
If usage is restricted by context and if contexts impose "rules" on usages, meaning specific modalities of utilisation, it is clear that, by nature, NTIC reveal implicit rules that are particular to a culture once they have been confronted by restrictions on technique and cultural contexts.

The goal of our work is not simply to study the effects of these systems on knowledge construction, learning and teaching. Our projects also address the role of context and usage on the (co)comprehension and (co)construction of knowledge and, in particular, their aspects that are revealed by using NTIC.

Whether elaborated by an individual or present or distant groups, knowledge construction established by way of NTIC integrates the dimensions tied to the mediation of the tool, both in intercultural space (distance), multicultural space (cultures implied by the belong of subjects to different communities in the same place), and in intracultural time (mediation between generations).

The research conducted by J. Basque and B. Pudelko at LICEF-CIRTA, a research center for distance learning at the distance-learning university of (www.licef.teluq.uquebec.ca ; www.cirta.org ) examine knowledge construction within the following goals: (i) modeling knowledge representations, (ii) co-construction of knowledge in situations of learning and the transfer of expertise.
The work conducted and being conducted (Carrefour francophone et Classe numérique, Cité des sciences et de l’industrie [CSI]) on the conception and validation of hypertextual systems to aide comprehension and build scientific knowledge take into account cultural and linguistic contexts. This research aims to study their specific effects and especially the implicit "rules" tied to learning conditions.

Our work on text production and distance reviewing by subjects belonging to dfferent linguistic and cultural contexts aims to study the conditions of a collaborative, asynchronic distance-learning project that uses NTIC in these different cultural dimensions (inter, intra, and multicultural). This research also addresses the impact of NTIC on local contexts and conditions for their integration as tools.

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