International Journal «Information Theories and Applications» 1 ON THE DIDACTIC PRINCIPLES, MODELS AND E-LEARNING Rositsa Doneva, Daniel Denev, George Totkov Abstract: It is presented a project BEST for development of a virtual learning environment, focuses on didactic principles of the e-learning and the following principles: learning is an goal-directed process; learners may define their own learning objectives, monitor and regulate their own learning process; learning is embedded in a social context; collaborative e-learning is more effective, etc. The BEST is realized on the basis of famous systems MOODLE and LAMS, and prototypes of PeU (Plovdiv electronic University) – PeU 1.0 and PeU 2.0. Keywords: e-learning, didactic principles, modeling of the learning process, Moodle, LAMS ACM Classification Keywords : K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education – Distance learning, K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education Collaborative learning, H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces – Asynchronous interaction, Web- based interaction Introduction The educational process is based on pedagogy – the methods used for teaching and learning, and the ‘teaching objects’ in a course, such as assignments, learning activities, objectives, prerequisites, etc. There are three op- tions for any learning technology when it comes to model didactic approaches: pedagogy-neutral (supporting no pedagogy at all), pedagogy-standard (supporting a single pedagogy) and pedagogy-driven (supporting a di- versity of pedagogy). A great part of the contemporary software tools and technologies in the e-learning field can be characterized as subject-dependent (reorganized for specific fields and users) and pedagogically neutral (they don’t support or provide any kind of methodical strategies and more specifically they don’t specify ways for interpretation of learning content and objectives that are dependent on other conditions). They are ‘neutral’ espe- cially in relation of the logic of interpreting of the course content while no learning requirements are specified. On the other hand, there are hundreds of different pedagogical m odels and strategies. As recorded by many authors: learning is different from consuming content learning and the implementation of one pedagogical model/strategy is not the right direction for e-learning researches and standardization. For example, the course may consist en- tirely of activities without any learning content and thus its transfer to a ‘pedagogy-neutral’ or ‘pedagogy-standard’ system would be difficult. In this paper is presented a project for development of a virtual learning environment, named BEST 1 . The BEST architecture focuses on the following concepts: learning is an goal-directed process; learners may define their own learning objectives, monitor and regulate their own learning process; learning is embedded in a social con- text; principles of collaborative learning; assessments and tasks are both product knowledge driven. Didactic Principles of E-Learning In nowadays, the e-learning educational paradigm gains more and more popularity, both as an alternative or as an integral part of the traditional learning. In order to become a real alternative of the traditional learning, the e- learning educational paradigm has to adequately implement the principles of traditional learning. Even a short comparison of the main elements of the learning for the two paradigms (Table 1.) shows that those principles should be further developed for the case of e-learning. 1 Bulgarian Educational Site