Learning Technology: vision and reality

1. Learning Technology: vision and reality Tom Boyle Learning Technology Research Institute School of Informatics and Multimedia Technology

2. Introduction • Context • Vision • Pedagogically informed design • pedagogical framework and principles • case studies and examples • Structure the domain • Build deep and precise theoretical knowledge • Summary

3. Context • Revolutionary change • driven by developments in IT • Moore’s law • processor power doubles every 18 months • The IT revolution has a transformative effect • captured in phrases such as e-commerce and e-learning

4. Tsunami: waves of change • Microcomputers • - from the early eighties • Hypertext • - mid to late eighties • Multimedia • - early nineties • Internet and the Web • mid nineties • hypertext/hypermedia • electronic communications

6. The ‘Reality’ challenge • A period of huge, technologically driven change • Challenge of of adapting to this revolutionary change and trying to control its shape • We are at a key, pivotal point • In education the success with which we adapt will shape the educational experience, for good or ill, of generations to come

7. Getting it wrong • The salutory story of the ‘querty’ keyboard • Huge pressure to adapt quickly • Produce sub-optimal solutions that become set as standards • Immediate ‘opportunistic’ adaptation to the new reality is essential, but • So is a sense of vision driven by deeper theoretical understanding

8. Striving to get it right • Need a vision of • where we are going • what we are engaged in • Develop a deeper theoretical understanding • driven by technological opportunity? • driven by pedagogy? • Apply this theoretical understanding at the level of design • a highly creative creative discipline • Build a discipline of ‘Learning technology’?

9. A vision of what we are engaged in • At the highest level • Alan Kay and story of the printing press • Jerome Bruner • biology and culture • cultural artifacts and ratiocinative amplifiers • Kay - the interface as an amplifier of human abilities • Fourth class of amplifier - cultural amplifier of learning

10. The Challenge • Stop chasing the technology (all of the time) • Pedagogical based drive • to guide the creative exploitation of the technology • ‘interactive’ design • Develop a deep theoretical base • Build an effective discipline of ‘learning technology’

11. Pedagogy • Instructional systems design • Formal didactic method of developing computer based ‘teaching’ systems • underpinning traditional CBT (computer based training) • the computer as teaching machine • Constructivism • The computer not as a teaching machine but as a learning environment

12. Constructivism? • The person as a constructor of their knowledge of the world • Rejection of a simple transmission model of learning • Piaget and Vygotsky • Translated as principles for educational design • Variants of constructivism

13. The Psychological Base • Piaget • The person as a constructor of their knowledge of the world • Vygotsky • the social dimension • Modern research in language and cognitive development • Context and scaffolding

14. Principles of Constructivism • Rich user-centred interaction e.g. active discovery versus formal instruction • Use of authentic problem situations • use of multimedia • Collaborative learning • peer to peer (e.g. Linn 1996) • tutor/student (Cognitive Apprenticeship) • Deep learning – experience of and with the knowledge construction process

15. Constructivist Learning Environments • Virtual Clayoquot • CaBLE in management training • active goal driven • the use of ‘war stories’ • The Virtual Factory • Lake Nardoo • Similar learning principles mapped on to a variety of media

16. Learning to program • A highly structured problem domain • Teaching through lectures, textbooks and practice • the CORE - guided discovery learning approach • Applying ideas from natural language acquisition • CLEM - CORE Learning Environment for Modula-2

20. CLEM • CLEM - CORE Learning Environment for Modula-2 • Guided discovery approach - based on natural language acquisition • Example (micro-problem) based learning • Active learning - where students construct for themselves the rules of the language • Hypertext tool environment (Guide)

21. Use and Evaluation of CLEM • 240 students in year 1 • Observation - Questionnaire - Focus groups • Module results • Reductions in failure rate of between 32% to 47% • Interpreting results

22. Other CORE systems DOVE Dynamic Observation in Virtual Environments

26. VirCom Build your own virtual computer

28. Wider applicability Screen-to-Screen multimedia decision support system

30. The domain: layers of impact • Dealing with the complexity of the domain • Re-usability and extendibility • Theoretical analysis • Layering the problem space

31. Educational Use Resources Partitioning the problem space • We need to articulate the nature of the problem space • Student centred/resource based learning • Resource layer and pedagogical layer • Fits with hypertext paradigm (Hall)

32. Courseware Classware Resources Layering the problem space

33. Summary • Context • A vision - a fourth class of amplifiers - cultural amplifiers of learning • Pedagogically informed design • Layering the problem space • The need for theory-guided deep design

34. ‘In dreams begins responsibility’ W. B Yeats