ZPD in eLearning
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- Can be difficult to determine who is MKO or LKO in areas where levels of development vary.
- For example, Peer A understands the presentation software best, so is better equipped to problem solve in this area, and shares her knowledge with Peers B and C, thereby reducing the ZPD between them.
- Email and chat (text and video) allow feedback between peers to determine and shrink ZPD.
Cloud Computing
Peers can collaborate online using platforms like Google Drive on projects like this one. There is probably a complex relationship between peers where competencies vary from one topic to the next.
- Interaction is only teacher to student (or MKO to LKO), not the other way around.
- Student can scaffold more easily than with a live teacher by going back and repeating sections
- But, if a student can't grasp how the tutor goes from step 2 to step 3, and requires a step 2.5, he can't get it from the tutorial alone.
Blogs
- There are many opportunities for interaction
- Relatively easy to determine what a student knows about what they know
- MKO/teacher can use feedback on blog to reduce ZPD, and has a record of it for later assessment.
- May be more difficult for the teacher to know how a student constructs knowledge in this text-only environment
Online Tutorials
Usually the blog creator is the MKO, but users with a wide range of different competencies might be using the same blog, so for one user the ZPD will be quite small compared with another.
The creator of the tutorial and perhaps the tutorial itself are the MKO, and the viewer is the LKO.
Zone of Proximal Development
Digital Simulations
Vygotsky's definition as originally translated to English: "The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 33).
Usually used with a teacher in a blended learning environment, so in this case the ZPD is not between the student and her computer, but rather between student and teacher like in a traditional classroom.
Social Media
- Problems encountered in simulation are discussed with teacher
- Teacher provides a framework for understanding and solving these problems.
- Student reduces ZPD through simulations by building her own framework for understanding and problem solving.
- Finally, the student can move beyond simulation to use her framework in the real world
Learn about topics through peers posting and commenting
- Sometimes the "More Knowledgeable Other" or MKO (McLeod, 2013) comments on a peer's posts, thereby helping their LKO (less knowledgeable other) to be able to better understand and solve problems related to the post. (see https://www.facebook.com/vygotskyubc for an example of this in action).
- Ideally, through the course of a thread, the LKO shows greater and greater independent understanding of subject matter based on feedback from MKO.
- Often, peers are of equal competence and nothing is really learned