Collaborative learning activities at a distance via interactive videoconferencing in elementary schools: Parents' attitudes

The essence of this paper is twofold: (a) to investigate how parents view their children's opportunity to acquire new educational and interpersonal experiences from the introduction of collaborative learning activities by distance via videoconferencing in school settings and (b) to examine the differences in parents' attitudes to the use of the Internet and web based technologies by elementary students in the family home as an acknowledgment of their importance in their children's day-to-day social and educational activities, in two developing but still traditional European countries. Using data from two groups of parents (N = 98) - one from an urban province of Crete (Rethymno) and the other from a rural province of Cyprus (Avgorou), the present paper showed that parents respond to the “newness” of digital collaborative learning and interpersonal activities of their children according to their level of use and perceived compatibility of the information and communication technologies.