Those who visited the World Congress of the ICDE in Düsseldorf at the beginning of April, which was organised under the title, were surprised by the abundance of events which, in one way or another, dealt with questions of virtual learning worlds and the possibilities of e-learning from the most diverse perspectives. At least as difficult to keep track of were the numerous products offered by companies from numerous countries for the purpose of designing virtual learning worlds and conducting e-learning events. These e-learning products ranged from simple databases of various subjects to learning and communication platforms to complex interfaces or framework programmes for constructing one's own learning software. - However, only a few could report on solid, methodically verifiable success studies.
The scene on the Internet, which one scours for "virtuality" and "e-learning", is hardly different: dozens of companies and institutes offer "e-learning" products. Without describing in detail what is "e-learning" about their product. In most cases, it turns out to be electronically stored, editable and/or extractable learning material, the learning benefits of which are assumed beyond doubt.
A second weak point: what is actually meant by "learning" with the help of electronic media, what the producers, authors, etc. imagine by this, is even less frequently addressed. Nevertheless, the market is huge in all areas of education, it is estimated to be expanding, and in connection with electronic media, the education market is occasionally even characterised as a growth market. Plenty of reason for optimism, even more reason for detailed inquiries!
However, work, detailed studies on the complexes of "virtuality" and "e-learning" are still to be sought with a magnifying glass. It is undoubtedly one of the tasks of a journal "medienpaedagogik", which also presents itself to its readers online, to raise research-relevant questions in connection with virtuality and e-learning, to take up and evaluate experiences from the field and to develop further questions related to these two complexes. This is what this issue attempts to do.
Here, initial reports of experiences stand alongside tentative research approaches and theoretical analyses or the attempt to gain initial didactic indications from previous experiences.
Horst Heidbrink, for example, already presents a summarised experience report from several virtual seminars that were held at the Institute of Psychology at the Open University with a total of about 200 participants. His references to the relevant literature confirm how recent these experiences and reflections on them are. Ina Siekmann goes into a similar background of experience, but primarily addresses questions of emotional relevance, which have been completely ignored in many previous considerations of virtual events. Although her material is not yet sufficient for a more far-reaching systematic analysis - the basis is too narrow for that - it does arouse curiosity for observations and analyses that turn decidedly to the complex of emotionality in virtual learning worlds. This much seems certain: emotional behaviour also occurs there, but the forms seem to be more diverse and different than in direct communicative contact. One of the very few differentiated empirical surveys from virtual learning work is the contribution by Marion Degenhardt, who uses the analysis of log files to investigate the actual computer use of a sample of pupils. Apart from the urgent need for empirical research, the contribution is also significant from a pedagogical-didactic point of view. On the one hand, it illuminates our ideas about how students actually use educational software, and on the other hand, it provides important clues for the future design of educational software and gives a methodological basis for developing criteria for this. Hopefully, it will also inspire other researchers to broaden the foundation of empirically proven knowledge about e-learning through further research. Peter Kührt connects these studies to an attempt to use our still scanty knowledge about the use of electronic-virtual learning worlds pedagogically and to draw methodological-didactic consequences from it in his contribution about Future Guide, a didactic design principle based on action-oriented learning environments.
Finally, Horst Dichanz and Annette Ernst take up the discussion about e-learning once again and attempt to clarify the terms from the abundance and confusion of their usage. With reference to a constructivist interpretation of learning processes, they examine the real possibilities of using electronic learning aids and environments and conclude by documenting them with a project design of a teacher training project that has just begun.
This issue of the journal MedienPädagogik aims to critically review the possibilities and limits of e-learning in connection with the terms, products and project designs on virtual learning environments, to sensitise for a realistic approach and to articulate the need for research. Perhaps it will then be possible in a few years to present the first research results in a systematised form.
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