CLAN
SOFT LEARNING VIRTUAL
ENVIRONMENT
September 19, 2008
Kaunas
2nd Meeting
The SO.le Model (soft learning)
• General principles:
- personalised timetable
- learning by enjoying
- personalised contents
- creating permanent communities of
learners
- increasing interest and participation
How
 Personalised timetable
 First step : the communities have to “know who are the
participants”, exchanging information about the single profiles
 Second step: every participant has to engineer his/her own
timetable planning when to act. Just one task: Keeping in touch with
the community
The moderator has the task to gather any useful information about the
timetable organisation
The community decides if and when to meet in presence
How
 Learning by enjoying
Some activities are actually games:
e.g.
 Short quiz shows
 Competitions (which Clan takes the best
picture telling something about the local history
and post it in Picture Blog)
Role games (using virtual Worlds as they are
in the Project Learning Village ) ….
How
 Personalised contents
 In the Clan Communities there aren't teachers and
students.
They are communities of Peers.
The Moderator has to let them be able to create their
contents.
The communities can invite experts to take part to the
activities to give their contributions to the Clan
(e.g. if the contests is about local history the Community
can invite a local historian to explain something or to
suggest some book to read)
How
 Creating permanent
communities of learners
 The Clan user has to feel not a mere
experimenter but a member of the
community.
 The aim is to continue the activities after
the project is “legally” finished
How
 Increasing interest and
participation
The learning process has to be active and
cooperative
This means that:
The learners have to be involved in the activities
 The learners have to consider the activities as
socially and personally interesting and
respondent to their needs
 The learners have to feel something to share with
the others
The organisation of the Clan Village
The Clan Village is:
• A place where the communities can meet
and exchange information and contents
• Each Clan has its own place in the village
where it is possible to find many resources
• Each Clan member has his/her own “hut”
where he/she can invite some friends
Clan village could be…
The project experimentation steps
The Curricula foreseen in the project are:
History of knowledge and places
Citizenship rights
Digital knowledge
The project experimentation steps
1. Each Clan takes possession of the
village and the members meet each
other
2. Each Clan chooses a moderator (one of
the member or an external resource)
3. Each Clan creates the timetable and start
the activities
The Phases
Phase I - Network facilities (Digital Contents)
The objective of this phase is to verify the familiarity with
internet and its functionalities
Each Clan will be asked to develop some simple activities
(such as to create a blog, to publish a video on YouTube,
to upload the photo of their families, to search a famous
painting and to describe it, to look for a quotation etc…)
The Phases
Phase II - Knowledge of history
The objective of this phase is to describe the traditions
through images, tales, quotations…
Each Clan, through the use of the identified tools, will be asked to create a
framework of objects to tell their story to the others, through the following
areas:
- Senses (taste, sight etc…)
- Voices (music and sounds)
- Images (photos and videos)
The Phases
Phase III - Citizens Rights
The objective of this phase is to choose a hot topic about the
dimension of citizenship
Each Clan will:
Discuss (in presence or in the village) with a guest (expert invited to join the
Clan)
Create some content using the e-environment (contents are related to the
chosen topic. The moderator creates an index, the members have to
choose how to comment the index, posting video, pictures, texts and
anything is considered useful to identify the individual point of view about
the chosen topic.
Number and characteristics of the CLAN
experimenters
Number of the CLAN experimenters
7-10 for each CLAN
Main characteristics:
- Homogeneous Features
- Groups with similar characteristics
- Different formal learning
Before the experimentation each partner organization will have to :
- organize a meeting with the experimenters
- propose a questionnaire for a deep anaysis on the different CLANs characteristics
On-line soft learning environment
The CLAN experimenters will work in an on-line soft learning environment
Educational technology is seen as key factor for CLAN experimentation
CLAN e-learning environment needs:
- a high degree of autonomy for the adult learner
- to be open to eclectic sources
- to support soft informal learning activity
- to allow evolution both in the experience of the learner and in the context in which
this occurs
So to:
- embed learning in a natural environment
- make participants to be immerse into a mixed reality composed by physical,
educational and social space.
Main characteristics
Syncronous and asynchronous interaction
(the social aspect)
User-friendly interface
(the ICT aspect)
Learning centred method
(didactical aspect)
So to guarantee:
Active learners
Motivation and enthusiasm
Student-centred learning
Main tools
 Forum discussion
 Curricula
 Glossary
 Resources (including links to the library, study skills
materials, electronic resources, search engines, and
personal notes)
 Wiki space
 Student area (including students’ own marks,
personal homepages, student groups, chat rooms)
 Data gathering
 Blog
 Web meeting
 Educational games
 Digital streaming video, audio, screen capturing, animated text, chat,
discussion board, etc...
Thanks for your attention!
September 19, 2008
Kaunas, Lithuania
2nd Meeting