I just posted about a number of Education Technology tools. In this post I want to further explore my thinking on education technology. My current unit of study, Education Technology through Central Queensland University has required us to consider online learning in terms of both Kearsley and Shneiderman (1998)’s Engagement Theory and Oliver’s (1999) ICT learning design framework (see image). Co-learner and educator Richard Hu summarized that the ICT framework: “It is made up of three components of learning tasks, learning resources and learning supports, with assessment as the core in the middle where the three components overlap.”
Another co-learner and educator Jess Parker offered the following for the engagement theory which I thought was quite nice:
‘Engagement Theory’ which provides a framework for technology based teaching and learning. This theory requires three key elements to ensure learner engagement;
1. Emphasis on a collaborative effort
2. Project based assignments
3. Non Academic FocusIf these three elements are combined in a learning task, it will result in creative, authentic & meaningful learning experiences. Students will be intrinsically motivated to learn which is required for ACTIVE self directed learning.
The post about individual tools offers more information about how individual tools meet this learning ideals. I think another important consideration is the (inevitable) comparisons between face to face and online education. Learning principles are of course not isolated to either or, but I admit I had not really fully considered online teaching in this sense. Jess Parker summarizes many of the advantages of educational technologies but in some respects I disagree. The true advantage of the online era is flexibility. Students no longer need to be on-site, this restriction has truly disappeared. Further still, whether we like it or not and for numerous reasons, online education is here and we need to make the most of it. The advantages of online do not exceed those of face to face, but the thoughtful use of educational technologies means that many of the principles of learning do not have to be compromised by it either. Principles of the ICT learning design framework and engagement theory promote good learning activities and in some cases (such as the openess and re-use of resources) offer greater opportunities for the learning to be recycled.
Peggy
September 24, 2010
It is true what you say in that online learning has the benefit of flexibility and that a student need not be on-site anymore, but I wonder if it at present it is engaging enough?
My very limited experience of learning outside of a classroom has not been altogether successful.
HSC – dropped out of course because I could not concentrate enough, but back then, there wasn’t anything called online.
GCE – last semester, did not enjoy it, and deferred (for some family reasons), and the instruction was … difficult and … hard to understand, but that was in part the lecturer.
I think it is still under development to a degree, the right balance, to strike engagement with students in an online situation. Online learning can’t just be a ‘set and forget’ for the instructor, and I don’t think it should necessarily be a codified ‘once-per-week-one-hour-at-3pm-online-tutorial’ either.
Looking at the CQU VC’s Moodle forum, I’m not the only one that thinks this. There’s a thread with (quite ironically) two students complaining that the forums are dead in their course.
Leigh Blackall
September 30, 2010
The concern Peggy quite rightly points to, is I think too often answered with statements like, “…but I wonder if it at present it is engaging enough?” where “it” assumes singular, and that singular idea of “it” is as you describe in your post Ben, as Penny describes in her comment, and is as you are doing through CQU. That is – a formalised and structured course, with limited time, limited participation, and limited motivation.
Yet online learning abounds us everywhere! We don’t have to look far to find Wikipedia editors discussing and learning from one another, Youtube communities sharing demonstration videos on how to harvest water on farms with swales, blogging networks sharing information on all manor of things, forums of young mums talking about raising their first babies, etc etc.
This informal learning has always been going on, despite the struggle that formal education people have in achieving their idealised ‘learning outcomes’. We’d do well I think, to study these informal learning practices more closely – as say the field of Marketing does for example, and widen the frame with which we think about how learning and engagement is maintained.