Final Assignment

1. Develop your personal vision of educational practice and/or learning design practice.

For this final assignment for the course EDCI660 (Fall 2007), I first define key terms for this assignment: educational practice, learning design practice, and learning. Based on the definitions, I develop my personal vision on inclusive educational practice with respect to human learning, universal civic responsibility, research, communication, and equity.

I define educational practice as instructional and research activities concerning education. Instructional practice is to design, create, and implement formal and informal learner activities that are helpful for learning. Research activities are to discuss instructional activities in a variety of organized, academic manners to disseminate research findings to enhance effectiveness of educational practice. Educational practice traditionally refers to practice in formal education, but educators can also create informal learning environments where learners are expected to use their own personal styles of learning. As a human being becomes mature, he/she develops his/her own style of learning design, that is, the “process of conceiving and selecting the structure, elements, arrangement, materials, steps, or procedures” of learning activities (Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, p. 86). Learning is defined as a change in performance or performance potential (Driscoll, 2003).

I talk more about learning because educational practice should respect the nature of human learning and make use of its characteristics for the best learning outcomes. I think that meaningfulness is the construct that is the most important in learning. Meaningfulness is discussed in both learning theories and motivational theories. I find the importance of meaningful learning throughout all learning theories including behaviorism, cognitive-information processing theory, schema theory, situated learning theory, constructivism. Keller’s ARCS model and Malone’s motivation theory cannot be discussed without meaningful learning. I believe, also from my experiences both as an instructor and as a student, learning is facilitated both cognitively/intellectually and attitudinally when there is an element in learning objectives that is meaningful to the learner’s life.

My personal vision of inclusive educational practice stems from my belief that there is universal civic responsibility. It means a global citizenship regardless of what country you live in. I think the ultimate goal of formal education is to help people become good citizens for the society. All teachers probably would not like to help anti-social people learn anti-social activities. However, difficult part of this multifaceted world is that it is not the case that all societies have the same political position. Yet, I personally believe that there is a universal type of global citizenship that would transcend what any particular political or religious position designates. Given this belief, I discuss in the following my personal vision of inclusive educational practice for all students regardless of age, skin color, or native language backgrounds and for all students with or without special needs or disadvantaged backgrounds.

I think that research, communication, and equity are the most important to make inclusive educational practice really happen. Research is important to convey important messages to educational practitioners, educational administrators, and people who have power to influence educational policies and other decisions in education. Teachers should conduct research on their instructional experiences and disseminate their research findings to the world. Communication has to be promoted among all constituencies (school, community, industry, students, etc.) that pertain to any student learning. I personally believe that educational methods such as service-learning and authentic learning should be promoted. Service-learning involves school, community, clients, and students. Students can learn through real-world experiences that are meaningful to their own lives in that their experiences are linked to all other constituencies. Learning is thus situated and students increase academic understandings and civic engagement from social interactions. The last thing I want to emphasize is equity. All students should be treated in a fair manner in that no one would feel they are under-privileged in terms of educational well-being because of their special backgrounds with respect to age, skin color, native language, special needs, etc. In order to address this issue of equity, I believe that evaluation should be researched further in terms of its nature of fairness. I think scale-based evaluation should be abandoned. I don’t think there is any objective method of quantifying student performance and performance potential. Qualitative methods such as portfolio assessment should be reconsidered as a form of evaluation. In order to increase communication and social interactions and make a fairer form of evaluation, what educational technology can do is significant, which I will discuss in the next section.

2. Identify the relationship of educational technology to the broader field of education and to other disciplines as well.

First of all, it is crucial to note that technology is continuously advancing. The impact of the continuously-improving technology could be comparable to the invention of block printing in China (AD 800) and modern printing in Europe (AD 1440). Considering what technology can do as a communication tool in order to enhance educational effectiveness, the mission of the field of educational technology (Ed Tech) is enormous. Ed Tech is the field to keep up with the advances in technology and find the best use of technology for all areas of education and other disciplines. In the following, I discuss aspects of research, communication tools, and limitations of technology.

Researchers and instructors in Ed Tech should carry out research on educational use of technology and contribute to construct the world knowledge of what computer-assisted activities can do to suit various factors of education.

The field of Ed Tech should pursue and promote the best use of the Web as a communication medium in education and in other disciplines. This medium includes e-mal, list-serves, chat rooms, bulletin boards, discussion boards, video conferencing, wikis, blogs, Blackboard, Web-CT, etc. These tools can be a powerful device to connect diversified population including groups of people from different races, cultures, language, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds, and with or without special needs. Communication between such different groups of people who are with various backgrounds helps them to understand each other. Constructivist ideas of collaborative learning, situated learning, communities of practice are congruent with the role of communication for mutual understandings among people. Also, coming back to the issue of evaluation discussed above, I think electronic portfolio is a powerful method for evaluation. E-portfolio is considered a type of communication and assessment tool between the teacher and student and this tool will be another communication and assessment tool for the future employer to use to learn about the student.

The field of Ed Tech should also be aware of the limitations of the computer-based communication. There are factors that people cannot do with computers as opposed to real-life fact-to-face interactions. The essential role of such interpersonal communication cannot be diminished because face-to-face communication is a better way to convey affective messages, such as empathy, emotions, caring, etc.

In short, the field of Ed Tech should relate to the broader field of education and other disciplines by contributing to increase knowledge about the use of technology in education. The field of Ed Tech should concern both continuously-advancing technology and its educational use AND universal human nature of human learning and affective aspects of human communication.

3. Relate presentations in this class or others you have taken this semester to this vision.

In the section 1 above, I developed my personal vision on inclusive educational practice with respect to human learning, universal citizenship and also with respect to research, communication, and equity. In the section 2, I discussed Ed Tech’s contribution for the broader field of education with respect to research, communication tools, and limitations of technology. I also pointed out that Ed Tech should concern both continuously-advancing technology and cognitive and affective aspects human learning that are of unchanging nature. In the following, I discuss how these main points of my personal vision are related to the EDCI 660 presentations of this semester.

Continuously-advancing technology and human learning
During the Envision Center tour, I witnessed the most advanced technology including Haptics and Visual Reality Theater. Interestingly, the facilitator was talking a lot about human learning. There are a number of research topics about such advanced technology and its educational use for us. Ed Tech professionals deal with the use of technology to enhance instruction and human learning. Dr. Kim’s case study on hard and soft scaffolding was actually an example of how to use technology to enhance human learning. Her conclusion was that peer- and teacher-scaffolding and technology-enhanced scaffolding have to be considered together in a holistic way.

Inclusiveness and equity
Regarding inclusive educational practice, Dr. Lehman’s presentation on his study “Assessing the Use of Video Conferencing for Linking Teacher Preparation Programs with K-12 Schools” discussed a disadvantaged group of children who were observed in the study. A pre-service college student in the study commented that all children (including a disadvantaged one) were equally capable of learning materials through technology. Dr. Campbell’s presentation on Course Management Systems of Purdue was also about inclusiveness and equity of education. A high rate of attrition has been a common problem for e-Learning in general (Clark & Mayer, 2002). Dr. Campbell’s study dealt with attrition. It is not surprising that many college students feel uncomfortable studying with computers for a variety of reasons. But Ed Tech professionals should find out a solution for this problem. During Dr. Campbell’s presentation, some students pointed out that face-to-face communication, encouragement, and care by students’ academic advisors would be important. This comment touched upon a limitation of technology.

Global citizenship
Dr. Strobel’s presentation, “Interaction Design: Integrating Scaffolding into an Interactive Game for Children” would be congruent with my idea that the overall rationale of Ed Tech should be based on global citizenship. The important assumption behind his study is that educators are interested in teaching children to become good intelligent adults regardless of what country they live in. Dr. Strobel’s project considers 140 countries and involves UNESCO.

Social communication
Dr. Richardson’s presentation on her study, “Peer Feedback in Online Discussions” exemplified the importance of social communication in a learning context with computers. The topic of Dr. Ertmer’s presentation, “Strategies for Facilitating PBL in the Middle School Classroom” was problem-based learning, which also requires learner collaboration, authentic learning, and problem solving. Situated learning with social interactions is important for problem-based learning. Dr. Schaffer’s presentation, “Activity Theory as the Basis for Developing Blended Learning in the Workplace” was also about social interaction. What Activity Theory supports are collaborative learning, problem-solution outcomes, involvement of experts, authenticity in learning, and use of technology with an abundance of resource. All these seemed to be important features of constructivism.

Mission of Ed Tech research
Dr. Watson’s presentation was about systemic change. Systemic change is the entire change in education that involves large educational systems. This systemic change can be discussed at the school district level and also at the ecological level. Systemic change has to occur due to the historical, societal paradigm shifts from Industrial Age to Information Age. I think that his research is a good example of research in Ed Tech where Ed Tech professionals talk about their mission to the world. With the idea of systemic change, some Ed Tech researchers recommend a fundamental change should happen in education instead of piecemeal changes during the historical paradigm shift.


References
Clark, R. C. & Mayer, R. E. (2002). e-learning and the science of instruction.
Hoboken: John Wiley.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Pcychology of learning for instruction. Boston: Pearson Educatoin.
Houston, J. E. (2001). Thesaurus of ERIC descriptors. Westport, CT, The Oryx Press.

Dr Richardson's Peer Feedback in Online Discussions

This presentation was about peer feedback in online discussions on Web-CT that happened in 2004 at Purdue. There is Ertmer et al. (2007) already published about this study.

It is true that there are a lot of benefits from online discussions for students: Creating interactive online community, scaffolding learning, enhancing feedback, increasing social skills, increasing satisfaction, strengthening persistence in distance programs, strengthening teamwork. Most of these are supported by social constructivist viewpoints. These benefits are possible from student’s active participation (students cannot hide), exposure to diverse perspectives and chances to compare viewpoints. However, there are some “costs” from instructor’s perspective. He/she has to monitor and supervise activities and give corrective feedback. Peer feedback does not “scale” for courses. In short, it implies a lot of work for the teacher, and it is valuable to consider student feedback for teachers’ purposes.

One conclusion from the study is that students’ giving feedback is a good learning process for students rather than receiving feedback from peers. (When receiving feedback, it seems that students do not really care what other people think about them.) This finding supports establishment of validity of peer feedback.

But my comment is that their feedback includes peer evaluations on the scale. I think without the performance scale, students’ reactions to the study might have been different. Peer feedback is not a normal activity in every day life. The evaluation scale (poor, neutral, and good) might have made this peer feedback an even more unusual activity for participants.

As my personal experience of participating “online discussions,” I know they were motivating and scaffolding activities. So, in the future as a teacher, I would like to use peer feedback in my teaching class. I think I learned how to explain benefits of online peer discussions or feedback to others from this presentation. Also, I think it is important to be aware that, as Dr. Richardson said, online discussions may be useful as a “supplement” to other main activities.

Shigetake

Envision Center

Envision Center

We had chances to learn Virtual Reality Theater, Haptics, and Motion Capture. I enjoyed a lot. I thought there are vast potentials for Educational Technology research to play important roles in what they do in the center.

As Dr. Schaffer points out, their Haptics study seems to be similar to what we see in some Educational Technology studies. They did not find differences in learners’ performances between the use of normal visuals and the use of Haptics visuals. In Educational Technology, we have seen no difference between face-to-face learning and distance learning. But, this Haptics (as well as other devices in the center) appeals to learner personalities that normal visuals would appeal to. Also, I think retention study might be very interesting. Learners can show longer retention.

“A whole bunch of numbers and formulas” are shown in a form of tube between the Earth and the Moon in V R Theater. That was impressive.

Additionally, I think our learning in the center can be translated to a type of museum learning. The informal learning really “sparked my interest” (Perry 2002).


Reference:
Perry, D. L. (2002). Profound learning: Stories from museums. Educational Technology.

Shigetake

Dr. Kim's Presentation

I learned a lot about scaffolding today. Because I am planning on doing a case study for my MS thesis, her study with a case study design was very interesting. Her study was an explanatory case study with specific research questions derived from literature in the field. And it's a hot topic too. I thought her conclusions about scaffolding would also be understood in terms of hard and soft scaffolding idea. I think her result and finding would suggest that hard scaffolding that had been "built-in" to the instructional tool will have to be implemented in a holistic way; meaning that peer- and teacher-scaffolding happening together with technology-enhanced scaffolding will have to be considered to understand the scaffolding as a whole.

I was also interested in her methodology. I think I should ask her about Camtasia some time. I was planning to use camtasia to capture all my participant's activities on the screen with sound, but if this software will crutially slow down their web-based activities within my thesis project, then my thesis plan will have to be modified.

I appreciate I had a chance to attend Dr. Kim's presentation today.
Shigetake

Dr . Johanneaus Strobel

His presentation's title was "Interaction design: Integrating scaffolding into an interactive game for children."

I was wondering about the future of the project. Is this a really awesome project that is to be adopted by many countries quickly? I was not sure about the “online community” part, which is not completed yet. Considering the large body of discussions on constructivism, collaboration, social cognition, and online community involving children would be very important topics. Their plan of assessment of children’s cognitive development seems to be tentative. Without a concrete plan of evaluation, I cannot tell if this project is interested in collecting information for improvement of the field of child cognitive development or educational technology. Also, I could not find a specialist in child development in the people who contributed in the creation of the program. To me, SMEs seem to be missing there.

However, it was a very intriguing project. The number of countries (140) that the project had to consider to create this educational interactive program was so large. The UNESCO’s involvement as a client seems to add a lot of value to this project. I really liked the literature discussion regarding the difference between modeling, coaching and scaffolding; hard and soft scaffolding; and how they integrated those ideas into their project.

Shigetake

Dr. John Campbell

We had Dr. John Campbell as a guest speaker today. He is Vice President of Informational Technology. He talked about Course Management Systems (Web-CT, Blackboard, etc.).

His study (with Gateway Biology Course) was to find out how helpful the course management systems are for Purdue students. I thought this type of study is really needed now to grasp the behavioral facts about students using the systems. In order to revise the study for Spring, three questions have been raised: 1. How to get students' attention? How to word the message? and How to refine predictions? I thought Dr. Schaffer's question was important. The messages to students were in the "punishment" mode. It might be helpful to switch to the "recommending self-direction" mode. I also thought Academic advisors' roles are crutial for those students who drop out classes (if we really have to help those students who have hard time).

I was wondering the focus of the study was not very clear. It seems to aim to help students (pedagogical study) and at the same time it is also trying to find attitudinal facts about the students (research study). These two things are different. By focusing on just one, there may be more informative and specific findings to learn from the next study.

www.educause.edu/eli
www.educause.edu/ecar

Shigetake

On Job Postings (facilitated by Dr. Schaffer)

We looked at several job postings today.


It is good to know that the market is good in the field of Ed Tech. However, those job postings look always daunting to me. It is just important to keep on applying and not to take things personally.

I learned the word “Learning Science” is becoming popular and important. It means that this field considers sociocultural, constructivism, informal/non-formal components in learning. “AIM” means authorizing Instructional Materials. “ISD” (meaning Instructional Systems Design) would mean that applicants would need to know Dick & Carey, ADDIE, and Smith & Ragan. I learned all these information in authentic activities of looking at job postings in a type of informal, apprenticed, collaborative ways today.

On a side note, because I am not doing a TA in the program, I might be missing informal conversations with peers and professors in the field which might otherwise give me a lot of occasions to learn those culturally-embedded pieces of information.

Shigtake


Shigetake