Capacity building in tele-houses: A model for tele-mentoring

Abstract

This paper describes the tele-house pilot project designed to serve Hungarian learning communities. In the project participating children are mentored by students in pre-service Informatics courses using distance learning technology. Two web-based learning material collections designed by the TEAM Lab provide a constructivist approach and allow different learning styles to emerge. The NETLogo component provides selfpaced discovery learning with individual guidance while the Creative Communications component provides project-based group learning with collaboration and group mentoring. The pilot project went through two sessions of an Action Research process that aimed to build a suitable model extendable to the whole network of tele-houses and to contribute to the introduction of distance education in order to support under-developed regions of Hungary. © 2003 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.