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Introduction
WWW Technology and New Models of Learning
Mr. Jyrki Pulkkinen
Project Researcher
Faculty of Education
University of Oulu, Finland.
E-mail: jyrki.pulkkinen@oulu.fi
Mr. Esa Niemi
Project Manager
Continuing Education Centre
University of Oulu, Finland.
E-mail: esa.niemi@oyt.oulu.fi
An important challenge facing the development of educational programs has been to find the relation between
the contents and the method of study. This model of thinking has traditions which date back to the remote past.
John Dewey, the American philosopher and researcher, crystallized the principle of his "problem method" in
the early 20th century in the concept of "Learning by Doing". Dewey thus thought that study meant problemsolving
that would be most successful through practical research activities. The same model of action is also
present in the "project method" introduced by Kilpatrick. Today these principles have re-emerged as
educational challenges thanks to the so-called constructive psychology, in which the basic idea is that the
student must construct his knowledge and skills though his own experiences. Systemic psychology has also
placed emphasis on independent research as the cornerstone of all study, but it has emphasized the social
nature of learning to a larger extent than constructive psychology.
The problem in Web based courses has been the lack of functional, practical models and tools for the
construction of the students' own knowledge. Just reading does not open the contents of courses, as the
participants need to be allowed to do things and produce knowledge themselves. The student who is struggling
alone with a bunch of WWW learning materials may well be longing for the strained atmosphere in the
classrooms of his childhood. In our developmental work, an effort has been made to construct a new kind of
open learning environment on Web which enables distance learning from work or home, adds the social
dimension to study and helps the student to develop his thinking further.
Pedagogical principles of Open Learning Environment (OLE)
In learning theoretical or practical skills mere experience adds to the student’s knowledge level but is not
sufficient, however, in order to reach for higher learning processes. This would presuppose so called reflection,
which can be described as a general term for those intellectual and affective actions with which an individual
handles his experiences in search of a new kind of understanding and evaluation. As far as reflection is
concerned, it should be remembered that although an individual controls the reflection process himself, he
needs also social interaction for reflecting and comparing own ideas with other’s. Individual learner can
process his own experiences and link new ideas and insights into others own cognitive schemes. Teacher’s role
is to assist and support this process.
A reflective process cannot develop in a void. We stop to reflect because some things require reflection before
action or a particular situation we are in calls for a need to reflect. Situations like this can occur in everyday
life, but they can also be situations which have been created on purpose, like in our Open Learning
Environment (OLE). Project learning situations arise practical or theoretical problems related to student’s own
learning goals, earlier experiences or related learning materials. For reflecting these problems, students can use
the questions presented in the learning materials or “bookmarks” as a starting-point. Special tools for
reflection and discussions are created on this purpose in our OLE. Reflective discussions are very important in