etc.). These websites also worked as bulletin boards, but the communication was mostly unidirectional: from the teachers to the students (e.g. Dumont, 1996).
Only the newsgroup and IRC technology provided a possibility for true multidirectional communication (teacher-learner, learner-teacher, learner-learner). Newsgroups are a characteristic of the Usenet, or Unix User Network. They (normally accessed with programmes such as Tin, but nowadays also through applications such as Google) are groups into which users send posts just as if they were e-mails, but instead of going to certain recipients, the mail is posted to a newsgroup host and can be accessed by everyone who accesses the same newsgroup. Discussion topics and responses to them are presented in threaded format, so that the reader may follow the discussions as they develop. Figure 4.1 shows an example of one newsgroup and a sample of the threaded discussion. The first screenshot shows a selection of newsgroups, the second some threads in one of the newsgroups and the final screenshot shows an example of one particular discussion thread.
Figure 4.1: Three sample screenshots of newsgroup discussions
The presentation of asynchronous discussions in threaded format has survived to this day and is still used in many virtual learning environments, although following a topic can become hard when one thread continues for a very long time and starts to have several sub- threads. Whereas newsgroups are one example of asynchronous communication which frees the participants from restrictions of time and place, but IRC discussion forums were also widely used in distance education. Unlike newsgroups, IRC offers a chance for text- based real-time discussion.
With the development of the WWW, discussion forums and real-time chat started to move to this new medium, although it has to be noted that newsgroups and IRC are still very as active because they are accessible to everyone and are fast to load and use even with older equipment and a slow Internet connection (since they contain only text, no graphical elements that take time to load and may require special programmes to view properly).
Eventually, the previously separate chat forum, discussion forum and bulletin page media were collected together into so-called WWW-based virtual learning environments to better serve the needs of distance and computer-based education. Environments that encompassed all the different communication methods available for educational purposes made it possible for learners to access a single WWW address to find all that they needed in their learning. Also, with the advancement of presentation technology, discussion boards started to find new and better ways to present the discussion threads and topics to users.
Figure 4.2 shows an example of a modern discussion forum in which the topics and threads are more easily followed and with less jumping back and forth to get from post to post.
Figure 4.2: Example of a modern discussion forum
Modern virtual learning environments offer a variety of tools for communication and cooperation for learners and educators. Since in research literature these terms are often used confusingly and even illogically, it is necessary to provide here a short list of communication tools that VLEs usually provide.
- Discussion forums (or discussion boards) were discussed extensively above and are perhaps the most important tool for small-group work and cooperation. Both learners and teachers may discuss asynchronously on these forums by creating new topics or responding to existing ones. It is also possible to create sub-forums intended only for small group work (either inaccessible or accessible to other students). It should be noted that these tools are sometimes also called
“newsgroups”, but actually this term should only be used for the discussion forums that are available through Usenet (see above).
- Bulletin boards work like the traditional bulletin boards on school hallways and they are used to post notices and announcements to others. Such communication is usually unidirectional (from the poster to the rest of the group), but it is often possible to attach a separate discussion thread to any single bulletin.
- Chat forums (or chat boards) are intended for synchronous communication and work best with short messages and with small groups when all members are able to work online simultaneously.
- Work areas. These may consist of whiteboards (group members can access the same whiteboard simultaneously in order to draw, write or otherwise work on ideas), file areas (where group members may share their files and access, assess and edit each other’s individual work), web-page editors etc.
Virtual learning environments usually offer some or all of the aforementioned basic tools for communication, but their repertoire of work areas and tools may be quite different.
Certain modern tools offer learners the ability to access any article that is presented online and annotate it for their learning purposes. Students in the same VLE can see each others’
annotations and comments and make their own. Also, many VLEs offer their own learning material that has been prepared by the educator or the education provider and is only available to the users of that system.
With the development of technology and virtual learning environments, it has become easier for learners and educators to collaborate. At the same time, the technology that is used to realise these environments has created a digital divide between those with limited computer technology and Internet connections and those with the latest equipment and a high-speed Internet connection. A gap also exists between those well versed in the use of computer and Internet applications and those who are only learning how to use them.
Therefore, it is very important to the usability of virtual learning environments that all of the tools that they offer are logically organised and easy to access and use by the learners, so that the technological barrier between the environment and the learner is minimized.