Keywords

1 Introduction

In a new societal context related to the evolution of digital uses, how can e-learning tools promote the development of knowledge and skills? It is obvious that today our societies are paving the way for a new more horizontal organization, more centered on the sharing of power where each individual thinks he has his place. If the democratic and open “West” favors individuals and puts freedom, independence and rights at the forefront, other societies have chosen to take a different path, leaving place to democracy and openness and maintaining a preponderant place for social and societal organization, based on an ancestral model still in place, which is the case of Japan.

In so-called collective cultures, priority would be given to group and interdependence; people would accept the roles and positions assigned to them [1]. The forms of learning will be analyzed by comparing the French system to the Japanese system, where the emergence of online courses is still in beginning, Indeed, Japan ranks 18th on the level of online training. According to Aoki, this is due to the lack of educational innovation in educational institutions in Japan. In the Confucius value system on which Japanese culture and society have been built, teachers are authorities that students should not challenge. In a typical class of a Japanese university, the pedagogical focus tends to be on mastering a specific body of knowledge rather than fostering students’ ability to reason and think critically [2]. This can explain the prevalence of the behaviorist approach which is duplicated in the construction of online courses. The technologies are used simply to reproduce the classroom with the advantage that the students can have access everywhere and at any time with supplementing the courses by presentations on this digital space, and which are a kind of tutorial.

For this purpose, we will analyze the foundations of learning, especially the question of the individual and the group. The social aspect of “collective representations” makes community of thought induced by application to a community. It is this reading that can lead to the emergence of multi-faceted approaches inducing a multi-normative reading within the same group, which is the case of a classical class, in which the teacher becomes aware of these different forms and which he must take into account this diversity to organize a course for all learners. We will take these observations into account by analyzing several pedagogical approaches in order to show that the individual first needs to conceptualize things before learning or understanding them and that the interaction within the group is a fundamental element to construct, a learning schema. Our tool and the interface must be the most adapted to this reality. Our main idea is how to anchor e-learning further through the discipline of information and communication sciences, because the diversity of audiences poses an important challenge, and some tools can be issued from this field to enhance user interface.

The first element will be analyzed, is from constructivist perspective. This intellectual approach shows that the learner needs to create his own world in which he will record his learning strategy and consequently emerges the idea of a personalization of the learner. From this perspective, he becomes the actor of his own learning but also of the one who stages the useful phases for his learning. We will also discuss the socio-constructivist model who rely the learner and his social construction, and his interaction with other actors, whether other learners, or the trainer. Vygotsky’s work has shown that, whatever the age of learners, we need social interaction to learn [3]. These social interactions are necessary to the cognitive development and the trainer cannot transmit to the learner knowledge or a real know-how without this interaction. Asubel will insist on one essential point, namely the knowledge or methods already acquired by the learner [4]. He criticizes the constructivist approach that learning can only be achieved by confronting the learner with a problem solving. These readings reinforce our conviction, that the learners are not uniform because they all have a different mental structure, but also different assets. To this end, we will outline Boudon approach in the learning process [5] and we will examine Hayek’s [6] work to better situate stakeholders, including learners, their strategies for learning and the role of the trainer.

Finally, another observation that emerges is related to the content itself. As a teacher, we realize, based on our experience, that our semantics must evolve sometimes adapting, even within the same class in order to ensure that the content is understood and memorized by all the learners. The challenge is important in an online course, where aside from the feedback; the means of interaction remain low. In this regard, we will use some tools, in order to analyze the text before it goes online, but also the analysis of the feedback of learners to point out if the content does not present any particular difficulties and moreover we will develop the notions of semantics and semiotics, in order to better understand the role of language in the online course.

2 Analysis of the Training Context

The analysis of the public and its motivation to learn and how to mobilize one’s attention is the prerequisite before setting up a course and even more for an online training. How the course is done in the absence of a teacher whose main function is mediation, since we consider the role of the trainer as a group animator. Several schools have been interested on teaching models and their organization as Dewey’s pragmatic approach [5], Skinner’s behaviorist approach [6], or social interactionism [8] and their involvement, which are at the heart of our works and through constructivism, social-constructivism, … These first approaches focus more on processes than on individuals, and encourage group normalization strategies rather than individual consideration, and exclude individuals who fail to integrate groups. We will see in detail the constructivist and socio-constructivist models and their impact on the online tool that we have designed and which is still under evaluation by users.

2.1 Behaviorism

This idea is the first to have emerged [7]. Several authors have put this method in evidence what is turning into an external stimulant on a person with the consequence of the reward or punishment. Watson [8] and then Skinner [9] have developed this model based on animal and human behavior, linking this situation to the learner’s behavior, forgetting in passing the way of thinking of the learner. New cognitive approaches will oppose to this model which consider that the learner must listen, remember and reproduce without thinking, in a rather mechanical way. Nowadays, the learner becomes a subject who thinks on the learning that he receives; he also becomes a fundamental player in this learning processes.

2.2 The Constructivist Model

This model makes it possible to conceive that the individual needs to conceptualize things along his learning period. The learner needs to better design and perceive things and the world around him. It is part of a constructivist approach. He needs to build a world of his own and in which he will write his learning strategy. He becomes the actor of his own learning but who also puts in place the useful stages and necessary phases to learn [10]. Asubel indicates that for the learner to assimilate knowledge, it is necessary that the things make sense to him [4] because the knowledge must be integrated in the conceptual schema of the learner. Taking up the idea of Piaget [10], every person has a learning structure stemming from his intellectual progression and the way in which it was constructed. All knowledge is the result of an individual learning experience. Piaget will set different stages during which the individual will be able to build himself through his own progression but also according to his interaction with his environment. Piaget analyzes the impact of the environment as a whole social, cultural context [11]. One could easily integrate the interactionist approaches and thus get back to the idea of more or less homogeneous groups and that thus justify that the school has built a rather general model which takes less and less account of the emergence of the new society of the world of information and cultural diversities. In this connection, it seemed useful to compare the Japanese system in terms of both structure and linguistic usage in order to show that a system still structured around the notion of group can still function according to a rather procedural approach, as the behaviorist model, and which can give still quite convincing results, for that, it is enough to see the ranking of certain Asian countries in the classification of Pisa. This model leaves little place for the individual and his mental structure, knowledge is defined in terms of observable behaviors expected at the end of learning.

In regard to the constructivist approach, several complexities of learning can emanate from the learner with the consideration that he has undergone, according to Piaget theory. This author shows how the intelligence is the product of a construction through the interactions that the subject has with arrounding objects. These constructions go through the action, operation and then the representation thanks to the assimilation mechanism where the child tries to act on the world according to his sensorimotor patterns, of accommodation where the child himself modifies these sensorimotor patterns, according to the external reality that we will consider to be social interactions and finally of equilibration, which is “the dialectical game between assimilation and equilibration” [12]. This constructivist approach can lead to a form of rigidity in receiving new knowledge that the trainer will moderate, hence its fundamental role as mediator. In fact, it is the learner who learns alone and according to his capacity and speed of receiving data and information, as well as according to the amount of data he can absorb in a given time, and also his ability to change his mental structure on the base of his mental construction. He will often face a phenomenon of cognitive dissonance that results in a form of resistance to the emergence of new knowledge, since it will upset his mental structure, his beliefs, even the norm of the group he frequents daily. In a constructivist pedagogy, there are elements to put in place that are essential [13], first the role of mediation, that the contents must be relevant to the learner, that the teachers serve mainly as animators learning, that multiple representations of content must be encouraged, and that knowledge must be interpreted in the context of prior knowledge.

2.3 Socio-Constructivist Model

This model will complete the previous model taking into account the relationship between learner and its social construction but also its interaction with other actors, of the learning structure even if we will be interested in distance learning, but also with other learners, and the trainer or artifact [14]. Socio-constructivism will give an important role to the social framework and the context in which the learner operates and what others bring as interactions. While constructivism does not consider in the context of learning, even if Piaget has integrated the role of interaction in the mental structure, without however considering its dynamics, and that the individual evolves in a socio-temporal space and that our societies evolve. So, it cannot have learning without taking into account the pedagogical context and unfortunately this aspect was more or less approached when designing online tools. It is this challenge that we try to integrate into this work. In this regard, some authors [15] evoke the idea of interpreting an experience in its context and that it must be the most realistic as possible. With our feedback on personal experience and in some of our courses, we talk about the idea to students that they are doing a job for a client, as considered in situated learning, which can give them, the desire to learn a new knowledge.

We cannot learn without confronting our ideas and debating. The role of social interactions is essential in learning process. The major element is the social interaction is constructive, the learner becoming aware of his own thought and its relativity and therefore he may be able to reconstruct a new mental scheme taking into account this new social representation and ultimately acquire this new knowledge [16]. The language becomes a way to represent our thought and serve to understand as well the thought of others [17]. In the same spirit for Hayek, the agents are moderately rational, which means that they decide to share a little with the hypotheses developed [18]. They are only partially informed, as they base their behavior on limited sequences of observations based on the past behavior of other agents shaping their social environment. And finally, on the socio-constructivist approach, and for Boudon, the implementation of a multi-tool system meets the current needs of agents who appear to be socially or culturally identical, but may ultimately be different and therefore require a different approach [19]. He considers a scale of temporality to build a product in a dynamic way, and consequently presenting a multi-faceted side. Indeed, he considers that our reflection cannot be in a long-term reading, because the modern sociological analysis aims to identify the logic of change in systems of interaction sufficiently restricted to be affordable. The dynamics of change lead to the emergence of the complexity of the groups of learners and the needs are such that we can conceive a static approach with an online course which is only a simple listening of a video or a text.

To complete this reading, we must give the complementary role of the semantic question. According to Piaget, acquisition is a construction, and it is the development that precedes learning and then the learner must experiment and draw consequences. For Vygotsky, acquisition is an appropriation, and objects have a social significance and he specifies that the learner cannot learn alone. The learner can learn and carry out an activity with the support of other, the knowledge is not simply constructed, it is co-constructed and the presence of a mediator is important between the learner and his environment and that the role of the language is primordial whereas for the constructivists it is not or less important. Vygotsky [20] emphasized the role of language and culture in cognitive development and the way that we perceive the world. Like Chomsky, and others, language provides frameworks through which we live, communicate and understand reality [21]. This importance of language in learning suggests that people learn with a sense and meaning, not just by focusing on the facts. Language and conceptual schema conveyed through language are essentially social phenomena.

3 Fundamentals Role of Linguistic Analysis of Contents

In the socio-constructivist model, the notion of language, meaning and signification is unavoidable and therefore the analysis of content is fundamental [17]. We have chosen to first evaluate the effect of context with the notion of semantic rigidity, which can explain the emergence of other forms of learning, notably through online courses in the form of tutorials, or the serious game more technical than educational. We observe this in some disciplines like mathematics or computer science. The language or meta-language used remains within the reach of the general public without seeking to enrich it, in order to develop the concepts necessary for the structuring of the thought, from which the new structuring language elements emerges that leads for learning and memorize this learning.

However, from our experience feedback, in a hybrid course (face-to-face and online), the return of learners is not encouraging, even if many succeed because they have a good foundation, many others fail because the tool is not adapted to their mental structures, also the language used and the lack of interaction with peers or with the trainer. This brings us to a different approach to the issue of linguistics uses and its impact on the emergence of our information system, to emphasize its importance as a concept and to define it rigorously in a multi-faceted approach, to respond to the diversity of our audiences, resulting from this more horizontal approach since places of learning can also be places of debate.

With the emergence of text analysis tools and the sentiments analysis, we can now assess content but also the feeling of learners without technical difficulty. This reading of the role of emotion has been highlighted by several authors; we retain among others Martin-Juchat in the role of emotion in the communication space [22]. The setting up of a forum or feedback at the end of each course, will allow us to build a course that will take into account the differences observed and thus be proposed according to the profile of the learners. But before seeing the benefit of these aspects, it seemed important to us to understand the notion of language and the use of words. When the course is conducted face to face, it is obvious that during the exchange, the teacher can review its wording and correct it in order to capture the attention of the learner, but in an online course this idea disappears to make way for a fixed text and therefore the risk is obvious to lose the attention of the learner.

Moreover, as summarized above, in the socio-constructivist approach, the social meaning of objects, and therefore of words, is important. Saussure provides us with a theoretical framework to better design our tool by understanding this question of meaning and sense [23]. Semiotics and semantics deal with these questions. This notion is also raised by reading due to information and communication sciences in the sense that concomitantly, a process of interpretation is implemented by everyone in the treatment of objects encountered and that sense is manipulated and altered [24]. In the light of Asubel’s [4] approach, the learner must be able to create meaning in the knowledge he or she assimilates, allowing knowledge to fit into the learner’s conceptual schema. One of the essential tools of learning is communication through language. In structuralism linguistics, we distinguish the language, social object shared by a community, from the speech, individual way of using the language. Before creating meaning, the word is based on a relationship between a sound, called “acoustic image”, and a thought, called “concept” [23]. This relationship can also be defined as a relationship between the meaning “acoustic image” and signified “concept”. Thus, when we speak about a tree, we evoke at the same time a concept, the idea of a tree, but also the reality of a tree. This “form” of the word tree is identified by its written or oral form, and its symbol is recognized and shared by the members of the linguistic community speaking the French language. On this principle, the sound tree is an imaginary and real tree. The “ideal” concept of a tree makes it possible to group the common characteristics of all the trees, rather than a long list of each existing tree. But the concept must give a simpler and reduced understanding, giving a simple definition: plant composed of a trunk and branches often leafy. Thus, the more the concept has a strong intension, the more one appeals to the understanding of the learner. Indeed, the more the intention of a word is broad, the broader its extension is. From the intention of the word “tree” that has been given, it is possible to group trees and some shrubs when extending the word to real referents.

From this relation between the signifier, the conceptual referent and the real reference, we can see a semiotic relation appearing. To enable the learner to understand what a tree is, he will assimilate his concept by giving it a general definition, which allows him to recognize it in objective reality thanks to his belonging to the tree class. On this principle, there is a tree in its subjective conceptualization and in its objective reality. This makes it possible to define the linguistic sign according to Saussure through the semiotic triangle. It is the relationship of the word between its reading, what means the general sense of the term, and its actual reference. This articulation between thought, language and reality is what creates the meaning, the semantic substance and gives a value to the “form”. Thus, the relation between the so-called signifying form, the signified or concept, and the referent creates semiotics. This is the system of the sign, in its expression and content, which can be the study of a semantic unit (a word) or a semantic entity (a sentence) [23].

Tools and methods of text analysis can both be mobilized to analyze the contents of pedagogical devices but also the speech of learners. To do this, several tools are available that provide different and complementary insights into the constituted corpus [25]. All these tools have in common the principle of segmentation of the text in minimal units and the count of these units making it possible either to judge the distribution of the vocabulary in one part of the corpus compared to the others (Author, periods, supports.), the identification of trends (regularities, graphs to evaluate the distance between the texts or parts of the corpus, networks of co-occurrences …). For example some tools like Lexico 3 or TexObserver allow to compare the vocabulary of the different parts of the corpus, meanwhile, Alceste or Iramuteq allow to emerge the salient themes of a text, or finally Tropes which on the basis of a semantic ontology, makes possible to identify the “reference universes” of a text. This setting up is interesting and it joins the constructivist approach, in the comprehension of the universe of the learners. As an example, we note the difficulties of some students who have little mastery of the language because of their origins. This analysis will enable us to better understand the source of the difficulties and to better correct both the content and the meaning in order to create signifier for each learner [26]. Indeed, the intelligibility of a phenomenon can only be done through the use of metaphors. In fact, a single model cannot alone represent the whole reality, because for Piaget as for Mucchielli the reality in human sciences is the result of an individual construction [27]. This semio-contextual theory of Mucchielli [28] identifies processes of communication and contextualization in relation, through which the meaning of a communication emerges in a given situation, called context. Moreover, this element is close to the classification made by Conole [29]. This context, for an individual, is a subjective reality of which he has a certain image, and it is by influencing this image, through the interaction that he can have with others that the meaning of his conduct may change in the considered context.

4 The Organization of Learning and Its Context

The theory of social constructivism emphasizes the collaborative nature of learning, with the underlying assumption that knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Traditionally, e-learning has been inherently transmissive. It is teacher-centered, which means that technology provides the knowledge. The learner is passive; he reads, looks, listens and learns. Based on the work of Vygotsky, we learn better through our interactions with others, through discussion and exchange. The Vygotsky concept of the proximal developmental area, which is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he can achieve with the help of a more experienced peer, is consolidated [30]. This mediator can be the trainer or another learner who understands the content.

These pedagogical approaches were partly taken up by Conole [31] who used a classification that underlaid these approaches, and divided the methods into four categories, Associative, Cognitive/Constructivist, Situationist and finally Connectivist. We clearly find some aspects that interest us, such as the effects of interaction that is also highlighted by Garcia-Penalvo [32], the notion of motivation and the mobilization of learners, … In the importance of the role of the social field, Garrison et al. [33], also shows the pre-eminence of the social field in the learner’s environment. Our approach is to insist on these uses and those we tried to introduce as well the linguistic analysis of the contents and also the emergence of the field of the information and the communication and especially the communication within the organization and the place of individuals and their roles in order to enable this organization to succeed in its educational mission. The constructivist approach already indicates that interaction is necessary. The concept of interaction is a fundamental element in setting up this new training organization, for Mucchielli individuals cannot be solely responsible for this failure, if our learning platform does not work. It is up to us to build an interaction system so that these situations can be solved [34]. To take into account the diversity of learning, learners and their contexts and to facilitate the transmission of knowledge, digital learning platforms (LMS), such as Moodle, Brightspace or Claroline, are used by French universities to support the organization of training and the dissemination of teaching materials. These platforms integrate features and modalities, allowing fostering collaborative interactions between learners.

Within the framework of the notions that we wish to develop to encourage the learning (motivation, interactions, mobilization of the learners, situated learning, etc.), it is necessary to specify, to be complete, that there are also other types of learning, in more specific training environments. These environments are often designed for domains, specific audiences, on a particular knowledge and for specific contexts as programming language, technical gestures, or professional behavior, … The forms of pedagogy mobilized are also adapted to the learning situation as the virtual reality [35], serious games [36], mobile device use [37], interactive Table [38] and simulation [39], …

The pedagogical design we have chosen takes this into account and can be more easily implemented in traditional LMS, in our case Moodle, whose current functionalities facilitate online collaboration between learners remotely via, for example, platforms messaging, forum, visioconference and digital sharing [40]. We can point out some indicators that measure the level of interaction in this learning structure, such as the Community Indicators Framework [31], which often depends on the types of platforms used. Whatever the learning environment, hybrid or not, learners need a return on their learning and personal progress. Tracing Learner Interactions in the Learning Environment is a Knowledge Engineering process [41] implemented to provide feedback to the tutor and learner [42]. These traces of interactions are thus perceived as the digital time registration, of a current or past activity, and sources of knowledge about the learner [43]. The research in this area offers a set of answers related to the personalization of learning according to the profile of the learners: according to the traces left by the learners, the profiles can be deduced automatically and then the organization of the courses and the level of exercises adapted, on the basis of the analysis of the interaction of the learners on the platform [44] as well as the exchanges on the forums [45].

Based on these analyzes and observations, we can draw several points that can justify the creation of our tool and that we will consolidate in this paragraph. The general conclusion is that each learner must be considered separately in order to allow better enrollment in an online course. On this basis, we have considered a scenario that takes into account this approach, especially with specific applets that will be chosen by the learner during the constitution of his educational path that he has decided. These choices are part of a rewarding approach that also allows the learner to make alternative choices that will allow him to optimize his learning path. Our approach is already tackled by several authors, called Adaptive Learning Design, which takes into account the profiles of learners, by setting up a model à la carte [46]. This approach will define in advance with the learners, the objectives, the prerequisites that we have set up, in the form of a Quiz to guide the learner to the right content but also if the content adapted and through a textometric analysis of the feedback from the learner. García-Peñalvo et al., compare this approach to a Lego method [47]. Thus, a scenario will be proposed at the beginning of each course with a sequence to be chosen by the learner. In this sequence, we will offer each learner a series of slides, a document to read and a video with a recommendation of sequencing, but free for the learner to organize it. The duration of each element of the sequence will be the subject of an in-depth analysis taking into account the speed of reading a text, of the order of 100 words by minute, and the length of the video that will be around 2 min, in order to keep the learner vigilant. In the educational offer, we have integrated textometric and lexicometric tools that allow at the end of each sequence to analyze the feedback of each learner. This allows to improve the content of the course, or to provide new video that will allow a better understanding of the proposed courses. We will also be able to analyze corpus of forum that we will put in place and which will serve as a place of exchange in this learning structure between the learners but also with the trainer. Moreover, we will put in place a portfolio that will contain all the elements that concern the exercise of the profession and therefore the skills to be acquired, which is part of the “situated learning” approach. Authors such as Noy and Mucchielli, among other principles that they state, go in this direction and indicate that the processes of elaboration of knowledge are directed towards the ends of action, as well as the principle of the experimentation of knowledge [48]. In fact, individuals act with regard to things according to the interpretive meaning that these things have for them. We find here again easily the concept of constructivism.

We have also planned the implementation of this portfolio to allow the learner to enter any questions that may arise and that are not contained in the offered online training and thus allow him to situate his own learning. The creation of a scalable, digital, web-based learning platform that is innovative and responsive in a pedagogical and interactive way seems easy, but it must be the consequence of deep reflections that must be carried out before any implementation of a learning platform. This cross-cutting project covers information technologies, teaching methods, interactivity with learners, validation of the understanding of skills and permanent optimization of format and content. We applied these approaches to a new course that is being evaluated, namely a course offered to students but also to employees. The course is presented by a teacher who will talk to the learners through a video. As a mediator, he will help develop the knowledge and understanding of these learners. He will encourage them to apply the content of the course in their own context, hence the implementation of several certification levels and whose semantic level has been analyzed according to the level of adequacy of these learners. We have in our tool created three levels to better get closer to the sociology of groups. Each lecture starts with a Quiz in order to analyze the notion of the object and meaning of the learner in order to offer him the best path and avoid putting him in a situation of failure from the beginning, because even if the scenario and the platform take into account our approach, the content and therefore the language can be incomprehensible and so it can put him in a situation of avoidance and thus ultimately lead to failure. Indeed, many existing courses consist of a series of PowerPoint screens, with voiceovers, based simply on the reading of the learner. This is the model that would be closer to the behaviorist model and which unfortunately causes a recurring failure. Our approach takes the candidates into a narrative story that reinforces the learner’s engagement and our entire linguistic analysis shows the importance of this aspect.

5 Conclusion

Our work complements previous work that we have evoked by highlighting the importance of learning models and makes it clear that LMS today make it possible to implement these reflections from a practical point of view. It opens us real prospects afterwards, after the feedback of the learners on questions like the importance of the linguistic analysis, of the scenario to the map but other reflection that we will begin on the duration of each sequence of learning.