Situated Learning: A Theoretical Base for Online Learning: Wikipedia Translation into Oshikwanyama at a Namibian school

摘要

This paper provides an in-depth literature review on situated learning and its conceptual model of cognitive apprenticeship and their influence on learning in an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) domain. These are used as epistemological basis to reflect on an intervention involving the translation of Wikipedia content into Oshikwanyama, an indigenous Namibian language in a high school context. This intervention follows a series of research works on ways to engage and integrate ICTs in African indigenous language classrooms. Cognitive apprenticeship principles provide participatory units of analysis which help to explicate the socially mediated learning process, in which all the elements co-contribute to learning in a community of practice using interactive multimedia such as the Internet. The paper argues that situated learning provides a useful theoretical and analytical lens through which a set of authentic activities - reflecting on the way knowledge is constructed and used in real life - can be explored in the classroom. Its key advantages seem to be access to expert performances, modeling of the processes, providing learners with multiple roles and perspectives, supporting collaborative construction of knowledge through coaching and scaffolding.