Berlin is the location for Comenius, a pilot project which is testing the use of multimedia educational tools in a networked communication environment. The Comenius Project (not to be mixed up with the EU Socrates-Comenius Programme) links five schools in Berlin and the Lanesbildstelle via a fibre-optic ATM network supplied by Deutsche Telekom. The project takes its name from the educationalist Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1670) who encouraged the systematic use of pictures in teaching.
The goals of this Comenius Project are:
to investigate, how a network can enable teamwork in school projects and the educational use of multimedia resources
to research the new educational dimensions opened by the use of telecommunication tools
to determine what practical educational problems and which limitations are associated with the use of this technology.
It uses a multimedia three-dimensional communication space to enable learning in teams regardless of their location. The project’s two main innovative characteristics are:
Firstly, the use of a wide area network to enable joint class-projects in which the pupils, teacher, and external users communicate and document the educational results of this process.
Secondly, joint access to the multimedia resources made available by the central database (Landesbildstelle Berlin) and the utilisation of this source material to create their own individual multimedia productions.
The overall goal of the Comenius Project is the compilation and implementation of an educational concept for the utilisation of multimedia information and communication systems in the field of education. In the project students learn to create, evaluate and use multimedia materials and documents independently, creatively and responsibly both individually and as part of a team. The associated acquisition of media skills occurs in close accordance with the course content, plan and school curricula. A multimedia communication network is used for the educational process.
The research is aimed to be practical and application oriented focusing on an evaluation of the potential of media in education; the use of networked multimedia teaching and learning technology in learning psychology. Innovation in this project is not limited to the technology used, but may be also be found in both the completely new educational applications and the communication space created by the networking of the schools. It is hoped that Comenius will make a large contribution toward the development of pedagogical media and didactics.
Comenius is a three-dimensional communication space that may be used by students, teachers and parents through this electronic world. They may enter it and use it every day around the clock from any location. Thus Comenius enables contact and teamwork via the network under the motto - "communication any time from any where".
Every user is visable as they move through the communication space and use the functions offered in the space. The paths between the locations are crossed as in the real world, so that this virtual world is experienced in its extent. There are private and public areas and each user has their own "private space" - the virtual school satchel in which documents can be stored and processed with standard programs. Multimedia conferences can be created with the help of the media tools as well as electronic mail tools to enable the sending and receiving of private mail.
The Comenius Project schools are linked with each other and the Landesbildstelle via the Telekom’s fibre optic lines. Where this is not available, this is not available, the communication runs over bundled ISDN lines. The schools that are directly connected to the high speed network can call up data from the Landsesbildstelle at 155 Mbits/s - which is equivalent of about 5000 text pages per second. External users can also enter the network from their PC at home via either telephone lines or ISDN at lower speeds. Located in each school is a special device (router) that links the PCs of individual students to either the high speed network or to other PCs in the school. The students’ PCs have an access rate over the entire network at 10Mbits/s - which is equivalent of about 350 text pages per second.
The public space within the Comenius network, in which students and teachers fromdifferent schools can cooperate on joint projects is known as "DisNet" for "discoursive networking". The joint work is represented as a three- dimensional net structure. This web presents an image not only of the relationship between the contents but also makes directly visible the creation process - the communication learning process.
The DisNet is thus a universal environment for co-operative work in projects. For example:
In a project concerning water pollution, a pupil writes that swimming in the Elbe presents no health problems. Their text is presented as a graphical object in the three dimensional space.
Another student disagrees with the first student’s assertion. She researches the available information and finds a film clipping that reports on the pollution in the Elbe. She places this clipping in the DisNet and connects the two argument objects with a link arrow that is clearly marked as disagreement.
Every participant in the project can take part in the discussion by adding their own arguments. Over a period of time, a content structured web is created of the joint work in the topic water pollution.
Developments in this project will be carefully monitored. It potentially is addressing some very interesting pedagogical issues relating to remote groupwork in an educational context. It is perhaps a prototype for a future community learning utility as described in an EC report - June 1994. It is also hoped that the project will address issues of scaleability and sustainability which could enable wide scale adoption.
For further information contact: DeTeBerkom, Voltastraße 5, D-13355
Berlin, Germany.
Tel +49 30 46701 221
Fax +49 30 46701 444
Email: pr@detberkom.de