"The challenge of the educational context" is to1.3.2 The Educational Contexts of Past Projects 1.3.2.1 The Educational Goals of Past Projects 1.3.2.2 The Focus of Educational Goals of Past Projects [See 6.2 The Educational Contexts of Advanced Courseware Projects.] [See 6.2.1 The Educational Goals of Advanced Courseware.] [See 6.2.2 The Focus of Educational Goals of Advanced Courseware.] [See 6.2.3 The Impact of Educational Contexts on Advanced Courseware.] [See 6.2.4 Implications for the Educational Contexts of Future Projects.]
decide what educational role technology will play,
avoid "technology for the sake of technology" by
examining traditional educational experiences
and determining goals based upon the special
"value added of the technology" for both the
discipline content representation as well
as cognitive and motivational outcomes.
Improved Representations of Discipline
________________________________________________
Increased Involvement for Learner Outcomes
(Cognitive & Motivational Improvements)
Nicol, A. (1990). Children Using HyperCard. In Ambron, Sueann and Hooper, Kristen (Eds.). Learning with Interactive Hypermedia Developing and Using Multimedia Tools in Education, Microsoft Press. ____________________________________
In each successful project in this study, neither the learners nor the
discipline were slighted. Each of the projects provided mutual benefits for
the learner and the discipline. This attention to the dual set of issues
within each of the courseware projects appeared to be a major factor in
their success. The fact that courseware did not succeed if it did not
provide for active learner involvement may be an infrequently discussed
reality behind what has become known as "Constructionism" (Papert,. 1980).
A common interpretation may be that "Constructionism" represents a predominant
and overriding concern for the learner. A more accurate representation of
"Constructionism" may be reflected within Lawler's portrayal of the central
dilemma of education as a concern for "instructing" while respecting
"the self-constructive" character of the mind (Lawler, 1982). A deep
concern for "instruction" is not absent from this formulation of the
central dilemma of education, as it was not in any of the courseware
projects. On the contrary, it was evident that the "learner oriented"
educators were also dedicated to the discipline that they taught.
Educators may arrive at concerns for the learner by way of realizing
that in order to effectively communicate their discipline, they must
do so within the constraints of the "self-constructive" nature of the
learners who will carry on that discipline. Attempts to "instruct"
without taking the nature of the learner into consideration are
ineffective, so "constructivism" can emerge from a concern for the
effective communication of the discipline, in addition to humanistic
concerns about improving learners problem solving skills and overall
enjoyment of their educational experiences.
Educational Conclusion & Recommendation
Carefully Base Goals of Computer on Value Added for Both Discipline Representation and Broader Learner Outcomes (Cognitive & Motivational) and Avoid Using the "Computer for Computer's Sake"
Corresponding Discipline and Learner Oriented Goals
There were reports of change associated with the use of computers in
every site. This was not surprising because the use of the computer for
each successful project was based upon what it could do that traditional
forms of education could not accomplish as readily. The educational
experiences designed to do things differently resulted in different
outcomes. Educators who determined how computers could improve the
representation of the discipline and levels of learner involvement
also rethought how they taught the content of the course and their
role as instructor. This is reflected by Bucciarelli in the following passage:
We have raised some questions, prompted by my attempts to make use of Athena in 2.01.
My questions are as much about traditional modes in undergraduate engineering education
as they are about computers. But that is the value of this new machinery.
Like an ethnography of a recently discovered culture in some far off land, the computer prompts reflection on one's own way of doing things, one's own assumptions, objectives and values.(Bucciarelli & LaVin, 1992)
While changes that resulted from computer use were sometimes incidental,
they were also sometimes the result of deliberate processes. Before TODOR began,
the entire faculty of a division reexamined their curriculum to determine the most
appropriate and valuable approaches to using the Athena workstations. They employed
an innovative bi-directional analysis in which they openly and concisely reexamined
their curriculum, in search of the ways in which computers could contribute to
improvements in the communication of their discipline. They broke down their
traditional topics by content and the different fashions in which they felt
these topics would be addressed by the technology. They decided that some
areas of existing material could be enhanced through the use of interactive
graphics, because these were topics that seemed difficult for students to grasp.
Other topics were selected in which the computer curriculum would be used to
replace existing materials because modern developments in the discipline had
caused traditional methods to largely be replaced by computational methods.
These proposed changes in the curriculum reflected larger changes in their
discipline that had already taken place due to computer use, rather than
changes they hoped to precipitate. Finally, some topics were chosen because
the faculty felt that the workstations could provide more realistic "hands-on
approaches" to the material through problem sets on the computer
(Murman, LaVin & Ellis, 1988).
Successful courseware endeavors examined during this study
provided explicit rationales describing how the computer based
tools met multiple educational goals in multiple ways that could
not be done in any other way as effectively, efficiently or cheaply.
They went beyond providing a high quality experience, to providing
a significantly different kind of experience than was available
without the computer. They made sure that their goals were based
upon thoughtful outcomes that could not be easily achieved in more
traditional ways, rather than to use "technology for the sake of technology."
As learning environments become more powerful, they also become
more expensive and necessary to justify financially. The trend of
needing increasingly expensive technology to support more valuable
educational goals is likely to continue in the future. Educators
will be more successful if they deliberately define the unique
contributions that their use of computers will serve in order to
justify the expense. Courseware projects in the future will be most
justifiable if they are founded upon goals focused around providing
unique contributions to both discipline representation and broader
learner outcomes. To insure an appropriate focus, projects should
begin with the deliberate reexamination of traditional content and methods.
This process should be done under the leadership of one or more faculty
with an understanding of the opportunities and limitations inherent
in computational technologies. The reconsideration should begin with
determining the ways in which the computer might serve to do the following :
o Enhance existing materials in areas which students traditionally have difficulty grasping fundamental concepts.
o Promote the application of existing material through the development of more realistic hands-on experiences for the student.
o Replace existing material with more modern computer based approaches.
(Murman, LaVin & Ellis, 1988)
Educators should then systematically determine which functions of the computer could be used to enhance, extend or replace the representation of each topic in the traditional curriculum. The following are the five main functions of computers which relate to improved representations of particular aspects of disciplines, although as computers evolve there will be new forms of representation to be considered:
o Linking through hypertext functions supported better representations of the structure and interrelationships of knowledge.
o Powerful database functions allowed for the inclusion and management of more extensive representations of the knowledge-base of the discipline.
o Multimedia functions allowed for more realistic and powerful representations of multimodal and experiential content.
o Microworlds were emphasized for their ability to provide students with the ability to interact with computational representations of dynamic systems and processes.
o Networks were emphasized for their ability to precipitate increased levels of connectivity and collaboration with both local and geographically dispersed communities of learners and scholars.
Improving the representations of course content is one role that
computers play during successful projects. Future projects should
also determine ways to use the computer to provide increased levels
of learner involvement resulting in improved motivation and attainment
of higher-order cognitive goals. Increased involvement can be achieved
through particular characteristics of courseware or software as well as
carefully selected implementation strategies:
o Courseware structured to provide opportunities for interaction with representations.
o Implied invitations to participate in courseware construction resulting from sincere formative evaluation practices.
o Courseware structured to allow learners opportunities for modification or construction of representations within the context of a course.
o Carefully crafted assignments requiring learner construction of representations to change the relationship of learners to content.
o Educational opportunities to participate in construction of representations as members of courseware teams outside of the traditional classroom.
Future courseware projects may also consider the possibility that
courseware be structured to provide different degrees of learner
involvement in different situations. During this study, levels of
learner involvement were sometimes increased relative to the
sophistication of the learners. Less participation may be provided
for learners early in their academic careers, while the more extensive
forms of involvement may be emphasized for more advanced students.