Transcript Document

The Role of the Internet in
Education and Training:
Medium to Long-Term Research Issues
John Cook
[email protected]
http://www2.unl.ac.uk/~exbzcookj/cook.html
Learning Technology Research Institute
(LTRI) www.unl.ac.uk/ltri/
& School of Informatics and Multimedia
Technology, University of North London
Structure of talk
• Aims and Scope of Talk.
• Current Context.
• Medium-Term Research Issues.
• Long-Term Research Issues.
• Conclusions.
Aims and Scope of Talk
• My main message is that Community,
Culture, Computing, Communication and
Cognition should be investigated in future
research.
• Learning applies to training and education.
Current Context
• Information Society Technologies (IST)
programme.
• KA III - Multimedia Content and Tools.
• EU’s eLearning initiative.
• eUniversities, school of tommorrow and
eCommerce, etc.
• Christopher Galvin, President Motorola:
• We are not hiring any more graduates with four year
degrees.
• We want employees with forty year degrees.
(Quoted by Wilson, 2000)
• Training and Development is a
• $62 billion dollar industry in transition;
• corporate spending on Web training hit $600 million in less
than five years;
• expected to jump to $10 billion by 2002.
(Wilson, 2000)
Gavriel Salomon from the University of Haifa:
“with the Internet and multimedia, with its modelbuilding and simulation capacities, with its email,
hypertext, CMC and other unfathomable
possibilities, seduces us to believe that it can do
miracles; Its introduction for learning purposes into
classrooms, colleges, homes and even work
places, is supposed to cause a major shift in
education.”
(Saloman, 2000)
However, Salomon and others in the field,
including myself, are disappointed with the
state of current research ...
• One possible criticism of current research is that it
has a tendency to investigate the optimisation of
current practice
• Are our expectations, and consequently the financial
investments in educational computing, justified?
• Some studies suggest that very little, if anything, has
happened so far as a result of computing in education.
• An anecdote attributed to Alan Kaye at an Ed-Media
conference some years ago runs as follows.
• We have a tendency to optimise the old, or current, ways of
doing things, e.g. putting lecture notes on the web. We are
only slowly finding new ways of doing things.
• A second possible criticism of current research is that
it has a technology centered focus.
• A typical rationale that seems to underlie much research is:
What can we accomplish with our new technology?
• Rarely do research papers start out from the learning
perspective.
• Of course there are always exceptions. Seymour Papert
(1980) for example, put forward some powerful ideas on
how to use computers to augment cognitive growth.
• However, technology is often seen as the beginning and the
justification for all rationales.
• Rather than knowledge construction, the computer or the
technology has tended to become the focus of attention.
Why?
• Computers hold a strong fascination for us. They are
marketed like cars, they are even sexy! Teaching and
learning strategies, unfortunately, can’t compete.
• A third concern is the choice of the wrong research
questions.
• For example, “Does the use of learning technology X
produce better learning results than traditional approach Y”.
• We have a tendency to keep repeating this car-racing
paradigm.
• Ideas of the interactive means by which different
teachers promote learning or by which learners learn,
nor ideas of ecological context, have had an impact on
the vast majority of studies.
• Another issue related to the third concern is the kinds of
research outcomes we expect from the new media which we
study.
• New technologies are not just another means to attain
the same old goals of traditional education.
• Imagine that I had just discovered electricity and I
decided to evaluate it in terms of its ability to light fires
in the coal stoves.
• Recent work at LTRI that has attempted to overcome
some of these disappointments.
• At the LTRI we have been involved in work that puts the
educational vision first.
• Internet based constructivist learning environments are
being developed to promote multimedia students’ critical
thinking and active learning (Boyle, 1997; Cook and Boyle,
2000; Cook, 2000a).
• The development of a pedagogical agent to foster musical
creativity (Cook, 1998, Cook, 2000b; Cook, 2000c).
• Davis (2000) has examined CMC in the context of social
and emotional factors in foreign language teaching.
Promoting active learning
Web-based critical arguments
Supporting musical creativity and problem-solving
Medium-Term Research Issues
Need multidisciplinary research teams.
• The Internet affords new activities, new
experiences, and new ways of encountering
the world. We should therefore adopt new
research goals.
• Of course some good research has already
been conducted in the areas I am about to
specify, but we need to build upon this work.
How do we promote in our students and
trainees the following abilities?
• to cooperate and collaborate in groups,
• to evaluate information critically,
• to acquire life-long learning skills,
• to construct higher-order knowledge
and probably above all else,
• to be adaptive and creative when tackling new problems.
• Research should test which learning
environment is better for what purpose. For
example
• How compatible is remote learning via CMC with what we
know, for example, about the difficulties of self-regulated
learning for the lonely student?
• Would we want to move socialisation away from the
school-based peer group and into the family environment?
• We also need more research into
• issues surrounding the re-use of educational materials,
• standards that enable good practice and materials to be
exchanged and extended.
• As well as some of the above issues, at the
LTRI we are also interested in looking at
 the theoretical basis of learning technology, i.e. establishing
the foundations of an applied discipline of computerassisted learning;
 design innovation based on the mapping of pedagogical
theories onto the opportunities created by the rapid
advances in learning technologies;
 methods for the development of computer-based learning
that promote communities of inquiry, creativity and
problem-solving;
 theory and practice for evaluation, which takes into account
the requirements of different stakeholders;
 the influence of cultural differences on learning and
assessment in e-universities.
Long-Term Research Issues
Gordon McCalla from University of
Saskatchewan, Canada, has recently
speculated on a research agenda in the
context of localisation for the design of
environments to support learning in the year
2010.
(McCalla 2000a, McCalla 2000b).
“By then, the increasing universality of
information technology will have so overloaded
people with information that they will find it
necessary to drastically constrain their
interactions in cyberspace. The result will be a
major trend to localization, not globalization.
This localization will [result] in a fragmented
social environment.”
(McCalla 2000b, p. 177)
• McCalla provides a useful perspective which
seems focused on communication.
• An alternative, but related perspective, is
selective coherence, a theme in psychology.
• How do you stop yourself being
overwhelmed by information or
communication demands?
• Mastery and control: are we being driven by
technology or can we stay in control?
Conclusion
Future research could focus on combinations
of some the following five Cs:
Community, Culture, Computing
Communication and Cognition.
• Community
• Localised villages, perhaps?
• But, care is needed so as not to exclude individuals.
• Culture
• May be unique to a community or distributed.
• Multidisciplinary approach needed to develop useful
systems. Teams may include social, political and
economic sciences as well as the more usual disciplines
found in research teams.
• Computing
• Tools and technologies designed to support the above
2Cs and embedded in that context to help the learner.
• A system’s pedagogical goals may be implemented
computationally.
• Software without boundaries: distributed ecological
agents, active data, applications take on meaning relative
to end-use, unpredictable behaviour of agents.
• Communication
• Inter and intra community.
• Tools that guide individuals, groups and communities.
• Cognition
• Fragmented styles of teaching and learning, just-in-time
teaching and learning.
• Socially distributed cognition and socially appropriated
knowledge.
• Modelling (AI-ED) may merge with situated/constructivist
approaches.
Endnote
We need to develop systems that
• promote in learners openness and creativity,
• that enable citizens to fulfil their potential, both
personally and in their work lives.
This should in turn lead to computers, and related
technologies, that help to create a new or modified
culture. We need to use computers to help build
communities of intelligent life-long learners who are
guided by some community and cultural values that
transcend simple self-interest.
References
Boyle T. (1997). Design for multimedia learning. Prentice Hall. Web site to complement the book, which is
accessable at: http://www.unl.ac.uk/simt/dfml/website/
Cook, J. and Boyle, T. (2000). Effective Delivery of On-Campus Networked Learning: Reflections on Two
Case-Studies. 2nd International Conference on Networked Learning, April 17 to 19th 2000, University of
Lancaster.
Cook, J. (1998). Mentoring, Metacognition and Music: Interaction Analyses and Implications for Intelligent
Learning Environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 9, 45-87.
Cook, J. (2000a). Designing web-based adaptive support for debate with dialogue modelling. Paper accepted
for International Workshop on Advanced Learning Technologies, 4-6 December 2000, Palmerston North, New
Zealand. Will appear in proceedings published by IEEE Computer Society Press.
Cook, J. (2000b). Cooperative problem-seeking dialogues in learning. In G. Gauthier, C. Frasson and K.
VanLehn (Eds.) Intelligent Tutoring Systems: 5th International Conference, ITS 2000 Montréal, Canada, June
2000 Proceedings, (p. 615-624). Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer-Verlag.
Cook, J. (2000c). Evaluation of a support tool for musical problem-seeking. ED-Media 2000 - World
Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications. June 26-July 1, 2000, Montréal,
Canada. AACE.
Davis, M. (2000). Computer Mediated Communication as a Foreign Language: Potential and Pitfalls in
Cyberspace. Presented at the PALSO Conference, Panhellenic Federation of Foreign Language School
Owners, Athens, Greece, August, 2000.
MacCalla , G. (2000a). Life and Learning in the Electronic Village: The Importance of Localization for the
Design of Environments to Support Learning. Invited talk given at Intelligent Tutoring Systems: 5th International
Conference, ITS 2000 Montréal, Canada, June 2000. Talk was based on MacCalla (2000b).
MacCalla , G. (2000b). The Fragmentation of Culture, Learning, Teaching and Technology: Implications for the
Artificial Intelligence in Education Research Agenda in 2010. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in
Education, 11, 177-196.
Papert, S. (1980), Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas. Harvester Press.
Salomon, G. (2000). It’s not just the tool, but the educational rationale that counts. Invited keynote address at
ED-Media 2000 - World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications. June 26July 1, 2000, Montréal, Canada. AACE.
Wilson, J. (2000). The Internet Tsunami - eLearning. Keynote Speaker at ALT-C 2000, 7th International
Conference of the Association for Learning Technology, 11-13 September, UNMIST, Manchester.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Tom Boyle for making some useful comments, at very short notice, on this talk.