»learning-system«

After thousand of sketches and numerous files (which were mostly white and thus were deleted).... here the state of the art.

First the image I had gotten stuck with the whole d*** day.



I didn't like the colors and it's just too crappily handmade and whatever. Didn't like it at all.
Now I tried to fix it a bit. It's far from being finished, the colors are by no means fixed (even though I see myself to go for neutral), I'm not patient enough to draw filigran lines in the moment, the typo (what's my problem with type?), don't need to have a line-block-bla-background andandand.... If you don't see much of a difference between the sketches... don't tell me. It was a huge step :-) It's a sketch to finish the day, drink a beer with Rosa and get back to it tomorrow and fill it with life.


(click to enlarge)

Ok, no this is not information design par excellence. But I'm stuck with this one - so I leave it for now and turn to other things. Have mercy on me and don't pick it completely apart...



(click to see in big and full...)

Alone for economical reasons work is taken very serious in Poland. The gap between the rich and the impecunious is bigger than in Germany without a broad middle class. There are only the very rich, then a rather small middle class and then nothing for a long time. And there is no legal coverage by law like we know it from Germany. ("Die, die keine Arbeit haben, die, die nichts haben, die sind wirklich arm - unterhalb des Existensminimums." Vieth, 25.14 min.) For most families it is taken as a matter of course that both parents work.
For their workplace people are willing to shuffle 80 km every day from home to work and back again. ("Fahrgemeinschaften - 4 Mann in ein Auto und dann 80 km." Vieth, 2nd 04.06 min.) This reflects also how difficult it was for Panopa to find enough workers and it explains the necessity to train them into decent forklift drivers: coming from the countryside most of them will have only driven a tractor before. ("Das war eins der Probleme natürlich auch, dass Sie Leute kriegen; deshalb auch die Staplerschulung. Wenn die vom Land gekommen sind, 40 km weg, die haben - auf Deutsch gesagt: am Tag vorher haben die noch Traktor gefahren. So, und dann Staplerausbildung, sind da teilweise hervorragende Leute dabei. Kann man nicht anders sagen. Und die sind Ihnen auch ewig dankbar, dass sie nen Job haben. Sobald sie da in ländliche Gegenden reinkommen, dann ist auch in Polen noch: Licht aus." Vieth, 2nd 04.20 min.)

Continuing training is seen at the least as absolute necessity. Many understand it as means to learn something for oneself in order to be able to get ahead. And getting ahead offers the possibility to afford a nice appartment or little house. ("Sie werden kaum Familien sehen, wo die Frau zu Hause bleibt. Da pflegt wirklich die Mutter das Kind und die beiden arbeiten - weil sie's müssen, vom Finanziellen her. Sonst könnten sie sich kein Haus leisten, keine vernünftige Wohnung leisten, und so weiter. Da hat Arbeit einen anderen Stellenwert." Vieth, 24.31 min. "Arbeit hat wirklich unter anderem den Stellenwert irgendwo Karriere zu machen. Die sehen die Notwendigkeit, dass sie lernen müssen, um später irgendwann mal gesichert dazustehen." Vieth, 24.13 min.)

At the same time work also has a different social significance. When faced with problems concerning retirement payment for example, Polish employees would definitely turn to their company instead of turning to the official institutions. Mr. Vieth accounts this partly to the complicate bureaucratic system in Poland. ("Das Unternehmen in Polen hat eigentlich einen anderen Stellenwert für den polnischen Mitarbeiter als ein Unternehmen hier. Wenn die ein Problem mit der Rente haben, lösen sie das über die Firma. Hier würde man selbst die LVA oder wen auch immer anschreiben; machen die nicht. Dazu muss man aber auch wissen, dass das System das die da haben wesentlich komplizierter ist." Vieth, 26.15 min.)

Since obiviously nobody takes the story of Opac and me serious (Marie called my relationship a "running gag" ... excuse me?!) I'll cut it short. My requests got lost - just like that and the lady at the counter actually dared to imply that it might be my fault since first of all I didn't pay and then on top I put them in the right but actually wrong box. I was brought up to be a good girl so I smiled at her and filled in all these ******-*******-requests anew. Now I get the wonderful opportunity to wait ..... and wait ..... and wait until eventually I get the books.

Meanwhile I read some other books. In particular a thesis on Interface-Design for a Web-Based Learning System. It was written here in Weimar by Ulf Schubert in 2001 and might actually free me from reading all these learning and teaching theories myself.

Web-based learning systems were developed to support traditional learning environments such as in schools or universities. They are based on the ideas of self-managed learning and learning in groups. Due to their avaibility as an online-source, it is up to the learning individual to decide on when to study, where to study as well as on how and what to study. The idea of group learning is made possible by the fact that several users can be online and connected to the system at the same time and by the use of communication systems like chats or forums or blogs (yippieh!).
N. Döring is quoted (and I'm trying my best to translate into English): "In all internet-services the user can be information-recipient as well as information-producer, he/she can passively watch or become active, thus proving implicit and social learning to be regular side-effects of regular internet-use." (Döring, N.: Lernen mit dem Internet, S.319)

Since the internet offers such a wide range of information, the user has to learn to differentiate critical what could be useful to him/her. This goes in accordance with the theory of cognitivism which constructed the idea of discovering learning: being driven by curiosity and personal interests the learning individual tries to find his/her own solutions to interesting questions by looking for relevant information independantly. To learn like this can not be forced from outside but relies on an intrinsic motivation which of course is the best foundation to gain intensive and lasting knowledge.

Yes! That's what I'm doing here.
But, actually, in the moment, I really don't care: Basketball is calling..... Yippieh!