Handbook of e-Learning Research
Richard Andrews and Caroline
Haythornthwaite (Eds.)
(forthcoming,
August 2007)
London: Sage
This work has been supported by the World University Network, UK
Economic and Social Research Council, and University of Illinois
Research Board.
Current trends in higher education indicate significant investment of
time and faculty resources in online e-learning environments, from
online support for traditional classes, to online courses, and full
online degree programs. Recent estimates report that approximately 68%
of 2 and 4-year degree-granting institutions in the US offer or will
soon be offering distance instruction, with 90% using the Internet as
the primary mode of delivery and with 3 million classweb enrolled
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2003). For all this effort,
we find little that focuses on key research questions for such
environments. While work is beginning to appear that reports on how to
conduct online programs, there is little that addresses what research
questions should be asked, whose perspectives and disciplinary
traditions should be brought to bear, and what practical, policy, and
research implications there are for the different forms and practices
of e-learning.
A major initiative in this direction began with support from the World
University Network (WUN) and the UK Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) to address what research needs to be done on e-learning.
A key part of this initiative has been a series of six seminars, held
in 2005 and 2006, Researching Dialogue & Communities of Enquiry in
Elearning in Higher Education, organized by Professor Richard Andrews
of the University of York. These working group meetings brought
together major US and UK scholars with the express purpose of working
on the future of e-learning research. A major outcome is the
publication of a Handbook of e-Learning Research, co-edited by Richard
Andrews and Caroline Haythornthwaite, forthcoming in August 2007 from
Sage, UK.
The seminars and the handbook explore what we know about e-learning,
and how best to research it. While work exists that collects local
wisdom on how to create, run, teach and learn in an online environment,
there is little that combines non-educational research with educational
practice. E-learning is more than educational practices; it is a social
and technical phenomenon that changes how we think about relationships
among students and between students and instructors, how we construct
higher education courses and programs, and how we practice teaching and
learning. This project brings a multi-disciplinary perspective to
e-learning, opening up how and what we look at and research in
e-learning environments, and exploring the complexity that constitutes
the whole of e-learning initiatives.
For more on multidisciplinary perspectives on e-learning in work by the
co-editors, see:
R. Andrews (2004). The Impact of ICT
on Literacy Education. London:
RoutledgeFalmer.
C. Haythornthwaite & M. M. Kazmer (Eds.) (2004). Learning, Culture
and Community in Online Education: Research and Practice. NY:
Peter
Lang Publishers.
Handbook of E-Learning Research :: Chapters & Authors
Introduction
1. Introduction to E-Learning Research :: Richard Andrews and
Caroline Haythornthwaite
The publication of the Sage Handbook of E-learning Research marks a
significant point in studies in e-learning. Although there has been
considerable development in teaching and learning, as well as in
learning design, there is as yet no coherent view of what constitutes
research in the field nor of how best to undertake it. The present
volume takes stock of progress in e-learning research, addressing a
range of issues from student experience to policy and provides a
foundation for further research and development.
By e-learning research, we mean primarily research into, on, or about
the use of electronic technologies for teaching and learning. This
encompasses learning for degrees, work requirements and personal
fulfilment, institutional and non-institutionally accredited programs,
in formal and informal settings. It includes anywhere, anytime
learning, as well as campus-based extensions to face-to-face classes.
E-learning includes all levels of education from pre-school to
secondary/high school, higher education and beyond. The potential for
this area is broad. For this handbook, the focus is primarily on
e-learning in the formal setting of degree-granting institutes of
higher education. However, with many kinds of e-learning and
computer-assisted teaching entering all arenas of education, from
schools to workplaces, examples from other arenas of education enter
into and carry important information for the discussion.
The introduction reviews the 'e' and the 'learning' in
e-learning, then
situates the current state of e-learning in the theoretical background
of rhetorical theory and social informatics. The authors elaborate a
co-evolutionary model of e-learning processes. This elaboration,
and a further discussion of the embedding of e-learning in
administration, pedagogy, technology, and community contexts,
emphasizes the emergent and co-evolutionary impacts of technology on
learning and vice versa.
Contexts for Researching E-learning
2. Development and Philosophy of the Field of
Asynchronous Learning Networks: Facilitating Collaborative Learning ::
Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Murray Turoff, and Linda Harasim
This chapter reviews the history and pedagogical philosophy of the
field of Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN), a major type of
e-learning. Asynchronous refers to computer-mediated communication
(CMC) systems that allow anytime communication via the Internet,
systems such as computerized conferencing or bulletin boards that
support threaded discussions. Learning Networks refer to the social
network or community of learners that emerges when students and faculty
communicate and work together to build and share knowledge. ALN thus
integrates social and technical aspects; it depends upon technologies
such as the Internet to link together teachers and learners, but it is
an effective means of learning only when collaborative social/
pedagogical processes emerge from the communication that is supported
by the technology.
The objective of ALN is not just to be 'as good as' traditional
classroom-based learning, but to use CMC to encourage and support new
forms of collaboration and learning together online. This has led to
changes in the roles of both students and faculty. Research on how ALNs
change student and faculty roles, and on the nature and effectiveness
of collaborative learning within ALNS is reviewed. The chapter ends
with a discussion of issues facing higher education as a result of the
transformative nature of ALN and other forms of e-learning.
3. On Computers and Writing :: Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe
In this chapter, we attempt to bring together the research in computers
and writing of the past decades by focusing on the many individuals who
have shaped current research practices along with the constellation of
factors that continue to contribute to e-learning. Overall, the chapter
focuses on the need to explore the history of research in computers and
writing in order to better understand the present and future of this
ongoing, expanding field. In the course of the chapter, we suggest some
of the complications inherent in such an endeavor. Although we organize
the discussion that follows along broad chronological lines, we do not,
for example, want to imply that the field has been characterized by a
tidy sequence of investigations that proceeds along a coherently
organized timeline. Technologies for composing and digital
communication environments emerge as distinct historical innovations,
but the community of computers and writing scholars 'as a diverse
disciplinary group' actually take up and examine these technologies
unevenly, recursively and in many different forms. Therefore, we have
tried throughout to resist a deterministic understanding of technology
uptake, which would reduce the study of computers and writing to overly
simplistic terms. Hence, the chapter "while recognizing that the field
has often responded with pedagogical enthusiasm to new technological
innovations soon after they have been released" also tries to describe
how subsequent research typically helps temper such initial excitement,
shifting researchers' focus from the technology itself to the ways in
which such technologies shape and are shaped by students and teachers,
rhetorical and pedagogical contexts, composing products and composing
processes.
4. Digital
Divide and E-learning :: Caroline Haythornthwaite
E-learning presupposes access to the Internet including connection via
contemporary telecommunications technologies, ownership or borrowed
access to computer hardware and software, and the skills to use them
all. Too often this kind of access is assumed, particularly in
developed countries, with rhetoric about e-learning suggesting it is a
way to provide equitable access to education. But is this so? Who can
take advantage of e-learning, and who is excluded? What does it mean
for e-learning if we continue to assume it is accessible for all
learners?
This chapter reviews the state of the digital divide at the time of
writing, highlighting the kinds of continuing differences in access,
use of computers, and use of the Internet that will continue to have an
impact on e-learning even as today's statistics go out of date. The
digital divide is more than just whether someone passes the abstract
line between being online or not. Use at or for school and work,
overall experience, and access to others with experience all affect
invididual's contemporary skill and confidence levels. Access, use,
confidence, and experience all play into the likelihood that someone
will choose e-learning as an option. With increased use and dependence
on e-learning strategies for distributed learners as well as e-learning
as supplements to on-campus courses, it is important to know who is
included and excluded from this new educational environment.
5. Online
Communities of Learning: Lessons from the World of Games and Play ::
Angela McFarlane
Digital gaming is now a mature cultural activity that ranges from the
pattern matching game on a mobile phone that may fill a spare moment on
a dull journey to the massively multiplayer online role play game with
an economy that outstrips that of many small countries. The commercial
global market for gaming exceeded that of film and music in the early
part of this century, and the trend continues. At the time of writing
the fastest growing demographic for gamers is middle aged women.
Clearly the stereotype of the lone, de-socialised, young male gamer, if
it ever really existed, is no longer the key actor in the world of
digital games. Indeed one of the aspects of gamers that often suprises
those who do not game, is that gaming is not a lone activity at all.
Gaming is a highly social activity. Even where the actual play takes
place at a single access point, by a lone individual, the practice of
gaming is a group one. Gamers talk, on and off-line, and share
information and experiences about their gaming. Indeed the web based
elements of games that are initiated and sustained by fans outstrip
those provided by the game makers. In many instances this extends to
the creation and sharing of versions of the game a practice known as
'modding' and the artefacts gathered within them. So gaming is a
practice that takes place within a community, and involves a range of
social and cultural practices that extend far beyond the actual playing
of the original game. Moreover many of these practices have been
developed with the sole purpose of learning to play the game more
effectively.
This chapter considers the ways in which gamers form a community of
users, and pay particular attention the evidence of knowledge building
practices within these communities. The chapter will not consider games
designed to support formal learning as these are not the focus of
communities of action in the way that digital games aimed at
entertainment have become. It will begin with a review of work that has
looked at the learning that takes place as a consequence of playing
digital games, especially complex digital games. This will draw
particularly on the work of Gee, Steinkuehler and Jenkins. The
relevance of some types of game play to formal learning will also be
considered, with particular reference to Squire and Kirriemuir. The
main focus of the chapter will however be on the activities within
gaming communities that have direct relevance to models of
collaborative knowledge building. These range from communication based
activities devoted to improving game play and design, such as Apolyton
University, to those where fans use the game as a starting point for
the development of their identity as writers through the production and
publication of fan fiction. Particular attention will be paid to the
role of language in gaming. The work of Black, Hayes and Robison will
be key here. The key themes will be explored through specific cases,
each of which
illustrates concrete examples of the ideas being explored in action.
In conclusion the implications of these experiences of learning through
playing and being a member of a games related community will be
considered. In particular this will be compared to common models of
computer mediated communication used widely in higher education
currently. Can the paradigms emerging in games based communities inform
the design of learning opportunities in the higher education sector? If
not, how can we reconcile the learning experience and preferences of a
significant section of our potential clientele with the requirements of
academic study? And finally how can we research gaming communities in
order to better understand the answers to both these questions?
6. An Overview
of Learning Sciences Theories and Methods for E-learning Researchers ::
Christopher Hoadley
E-learning research in the learning sciences blends a variety of
theoretical perspectives on learning and methodological and
epistemological stances. In this article, I discuss some of the
major characteristics of the Learning Sciences and their
relationship to the domain of E-learning research. Four goals of
E-learning research (theories, tools, activities, and design
models) are described, and compared to some of the characteristics of
the Learning Sciences. Theories of learning from the twentieth
century onward (behaviorism, cognitivism, situated learning, and
more modern theories) are presented, and the methods of Learning
Sciences (including design-based research methods) are discussed.
Some of the definining characteristics of the Learning Sciences
such as empiricism, multidisciplinarity, studying learning as a
product of context, and designing interventions that work in
practice are mapped onto the needs of E-learning research.
Theory
7. From Distance
Education to E-learning :: Melody Thompson
To many, the phrase "from distance education to e-learning" reflects
evolutionary progress in the complexity and acceptance of
technology-based education. However, this change in terminology-and a
concomitant exclusion of earlier related research-may actually
represent a narrowing of approaches to this activity that can lead to
impoverished conceptualizations, marginalization of some populations of
students and faculty, and poorly focused resource and research
decisions. "Distance" is a concept with relevance for all forms of
education; bridging the psychological distance between students and
instructors or among students is a universal challenge. "Education,"
which in the past has been understood to be a complex system of
stakeholders, structures, and processes, is hardly co-terminal with
"learning." Decades of distance education research resulted in
theories, research, and practice of continuing relevance. This chapter
argues that, given the current, commonly accepted terminology that
obscures the importance of the issues behind these terms, educators
must work to maintain an intentional focus on these issues. It also
makes connections to earlier distance education theories and research,
discusses current epistemological and methodological challenges, and
suggests a number of research questions that need to be answered to
maximize the potential of e-learning in meeting the needs of all
stakeholders.
8. E-learning and the
Reshaping of Rhetorical Space :: Terry Locke
To some extent the nature of any learning is affected by the discursive
(including textual) practices in which it is embedded. It is commonly
recognized that no technology is neutral a simple means of
achieving
a particular end, such as a particular kind of learning outcome.
Rather, technologies and discursive practices have a kind of symbiotic
relationship, mutually defining one another.
This chapter begins with the concept of 'rhetorical space'. It
draws on
and goes beyond the work of Bakhtin to elaborate a general model for
describing rhetorical spaces in terms of two dimensions, reach and
connection each of which has a number of aspects. It shows how each of
these dimensions is susceptible to reconfiguration in the particular
context of asynchronous online discussion.
Much of the chapter provides a selective overview of research into the
use of asynchronous discussions (or bulletin boards) in the online
delivery of courses or as supplementing traditional classroom/lecture
room modes of delivery. Each rhetorical dimension, reach (field and
company) and connection (duration, participation rate, feedback,
convergence/divergence/congeniality and structuration) is shown as
related to a particular focus of research. Major findings of a range of
research studies are highlighted, particularly as these impinge on the
effect/effectiveness of asynchronous online discussion as a medium for
learning.
The chapter concludes with some reflections on the overall balance of
the research reported on, noting current research emphases as well as
research gaps. It lists a range of topics that would benefit from
further research and notes a continuing need to address a number of
ethical issues raised by the nature of the medium.
9. Researching the
Cognitive Cultures of E-learning :: Andrew Whitworth
This chapter discusses the impact of the social shaping of technology
thesis and organization theory on the study of e-learning. E-learning
is shaped not only by technological and pedagogical concerns, but by
the organizational structures within which it is developed, implemented
and used. E-learning research needs to account for micro-level,
everyday practices and negotiations within those organizations that
influence e-learning in education, software development, government and
elsewhere.
E-learning researchers must be aware of how their participants' and
their own ability to develop, understand and use these technologies is
partly generated by, and concealed within, existing technologies,
organizational forms, and the vested interests which exploit and rely
on them. Neither researchers, participants nor practitioners work in a
politically neutral environment. Within organizations, particularly
large, fragmented ones such as universities, different cognitive
cultures can develop: sets of assumptions, values and goals which guide
action but which are not always compatible across the organization. The
result is organizational politics in all its various forms sometimes
consensual, but as often conflictual or concealed and this influences
e-learning just as much as technological or pedagogical considerations.
Yet because e-learning is political, e-learning research can
potentially provoke not only technological development, but
organizational learning and individual emancipation. E-learning and
e-learning researchers are not at the mercy of organizational politics,
but may be used in positive ways for both organizational and individual
learning, and hence, education's ability to adapt to environmental
change.
10. A Theory of Learning for the Mobile Age :: Mike Sharples, Josie
Taylor and Giasemi
Vavoula
Many theories of learning have been advanced over the 2500 years
between Confucius and the present day, but almost all have been
predicated on the assumption that learning occurs in a school
classroom, mediated by a trained teacher. A few educational thinkers
have developed theory-based accounts of learning outside the classroom,
including Argyris, Friere, Illich, and Knowles, but none have put the
mobility of learners and learning as the focus of enquiry.
Our aim is to propose a theory of learning for a mobile society. It
encompasses both learning supported by mobile devices such as cellular
(mobile) phones, portable computers and personal audio players, and
also learning in an era characterised by mobility of people and
knowledge where the technology may be embedded in fixed objects such as
'walk up and use' information terminals. For brevity we shall refer to
these together as mobile learning.
The focus of our investigation is not the learner, nor their
technology, but the communicative interaction between these to advance
knowing. At a first level of analysis we shall make no distinction
between people and technology, but explore the dynamic system that
comprises people and technology in continual flux. We shall show how
this leads to learning as a conversational process of becoming informed
about each other's informings, to cognition as diffused amongst
interactions and reciprocally constructed conversations, and context
not as a fixed shell surrounding the learner, but as a construct that
is shaped by continuously negotiated dialogue between people and
technology. We shall indicate how this allows us to understand the
ecologies of learning in a world of networked mobility. It also leads
to intrinsic contradictions, relating to the ontological status of
technology in learning and ownership of the means of communication. We
suggest that we can only begin to resolve these contradictions by
understanding the relationship between traditional and mobile learning,
and by creating a society in which learning as a global conversation
can be given a central role in our system of education.
11. Computer Support
for Collaborative Learning :: Naomi Miyake
Our society with rapid changes calls for 'community of learners' where
learning is expected to sustain over time, across different
situations. Research in CSCL allows researchers, practitioners,
and other stakeholders design successful practices of fostering the
growth of intellectual societies, and build scientific theories of
learning, so that the successful practices and robust theory building
can feed into each other. In CSCL research, a learner is
responsible for creating one's own knowledge through social interaction
with other human beings, also by interacting with physical objects, in
everyday situations. The theoretical foundation of CSCL explains why
collaborative cognitive processes lead to the acquisition of the
generative, adaptable pieces of knowledge.
Computers are inevitable component in CSCL because 1) the new type of
learning research requires recording and analyzing the processes of
learning and 2) designing effective learning environment requires for
collaborative learning, which call for making thinking visible,
sharable, reflect-able, and modify-able by the participating learners.
The depth and breadth of the theories and practices of CSCL are
introduced in three sections. First section describes a brief
history of the field. Then some theoretical perspectives on
collaboration as the basic form of high quality learning will be given
both from socio-cultural and cognitive perspectives. Lastly how
computers and networks can support effective collaborative activities
will be explained with some concrete research evidence.
Policy
12. Policy and E-learning :: Virgil E. Varvel, Rae-Anne Montague
and Leigh
S. Estabrook
When program administrators seek to implement e-learning they are often
challenged by institutional and governmental policies that proscribe
such critical areas as how many credits students may earn at a distance
or whether students who do not take courses physically offered on
campus are eligible for financial aid. These regulations "adopted with
the intent of ensuring educational quality" tend to advantage
face-to-face, synchronous instruction. As Chaloux (2003, p. 170)
cautions, distance learning may be hamstrung by a myriad of policies
and practices that, while effective for a traditional-aged population
studying full-time on traditional classrooms are barriers to access in
e-learning environments. Simonson & Bauck note that those policy
issues can span academic, fiscal, faculty, legal, student, technical,
and philosophical realms. (p. 2003, p. 418).
This chapter addresses these areas at two levels: (1) policies set by
the educational institutions that affect design and delivery of
e-leaning courses and programs; and (2) laws and policies of external
regulating bodies that circumscribe the ways e-learning is structured
and taught. The area of institutional policy is addressed at a
relatively general level because our evidence suggests policies vary
widely. To our knowledge no researchers have, to date, collected
systematic data about institutional practices at the national or global
level. The analysis of the legal framework focuses on the United States.
13. An International
Comparison of the Relationship Between Policy and Practice in
E-learning :: Gráinne Conole
This chapter considers how e-learning policy directives in different
countries affect practice. It focusing on exemplars which demonstrate
key rhetoric and attempts to distil out similarities and differences
across the different contexts. It reviews policy and practice in
e-learning across six distinct settings: the United Kingdom, Mainland
Europe, the United States, Australia, China and Africa. It begins by
describing the context within which modern education operates, arguing
in particular that technology is having an increasing impact on society
and that modern society is in a constant state of change and is an
increasing globalised, networked society. New technologies are
resulting in a shift therefore in education from a focus on information
to the processes of finding and critiquing, and from the solo learner
to learning in social settings. The chapter goes on to draw out some of
the key drivers which arise as a result of this context. It then
describes key e-learning policy and its impact in practice in the six
countries, highlighting key distinctions in each case. It then
concludes by reflecting on the impact of e-learning on higher education
and the longer reaching consequences, drawing up a set of ten
inter-connected key factors which have emerged from the review.
14. Community-Embedded Learning :: Michelle M. Kazmer
Elearners are often imagined as sitting alone at their desks, perhaps
distracted by domestic interruptions, but otherwise focused entirely on
the computer screen and their online interactions with fellow learners
and instructors. Frequently overlooked is that learners when they are
at their computers and when they are not situated in a real world
of work colleagues, family, and community. This chapter discusses the
learning that is embedded in a local context, in particular in work and
knowledge communities that complement online learning. Such
community-embedded learning (CEL) occurs among students who already
have ties to local communities and stay in those communities while
engaging in interactive e-learning. When students who are embedded in
communities like this take courses at a distance, they bring what they
learn in their courses back to a job and a community that they know
well and that knows them. Embeddedness influences the learning outcomes
of e-learning, the content of what is learned and the assessment and
application of learning. This chapter defines CEL and explains its
significant characteristics, including benefits and drawbacks; explains
how existing constructs such as situated learning, active learning, and
reality-based learning relate to CEL; and discusses emerging trends of
research and practice associated with CEL. As e-learning incorporates
increasingly hybrid methods of course delivery, and as learners and
their technologies become more mobile, understanding the embeddedness
of learners is vital for creating appropriate technological
infrastructures to support them.
15. The Challenges of Gender, Age and Personality in E-learning ::
Konrad Morgan and Madeleine Morgan
Over the past 30 years we have learnt a great deal about how individual
differences such as gender, age and personality influence the usability
of digital systems. This variation in acceptance and performance based
on individual difference is apparent in all digital technology and is
of direct relevance when digital systems are used within educational
settings.
This chapter will summarize the current state of our understanding of
individual differences, such as gender, age and personality and how
they influence the optimum design, use, performance and effectiveness
of digital learning systems. The chapter will include perspectives for
designers, educators and users with the goal of providing clear,
structured and concise summaries to aid in both theoretical
understanding and practical application.
Language & Literacy
16. Bilingualism and E-learning :: Janina Brutt-Griffler
The most significant linguistic effect of globalization has been
neither the dominance of English nor language endangerment but expanded
bilingualism. Though much of the world's population has always been
bi/multi-lingual, globalization is taking bilingualism from the margins
to the mainstream. Bilingualism entails the growth of communicative
knowledge, the linguistic reservoir that is frequently required to
participate in the new electronic world. E-learning constitutes an
integral part of bilingual development. The paper first discusses the
cognitive, linguistic, and sociocultural advantages of bilingualism. It
subsequently outlines the new developments in societal bilingualism
caused by international migrations, urbanization, and global economic
competitiveness, both in English speaking nations and non-English
speaking contexts. It suggests that global competitiveness will depend
on advanced bilingual proficiency. In the context of the changing
nature of bilingualism, the paper shows how e-learning can provide
solutions to challenges in language education.
The paper subsequently examines the application of technology and
e-learning in the teaching of specific language skills. It shows that
the current research base on the use of technology in language learning
is of an unbalanced nature: the majority of research studies focus on
the potential of technology/e-learning and on what is believed to
promote language learning as opposed to experimental research that
reports the measurement of outcomes. It concludes by outlining future
directions on how e-learning can effectively bridge significant
resource gaps in bilingual education.
17. Second
Language Learning and Online Communication :: Carol A. Chapelle
The potentials of e-learning are likely to be explored for many years
to come in view of some of its obvious logistical benefits for learners
and apparent financial incentives for institutions. One would hope that
such exploration of teaching practice would have a parallel research
program to investigate the nature and effects of dialogue and
communities of enquiry in e-learning in higher education. The common
sense approach to this issue is to compare outcomes of e-learning with
those of classroom learning, but this approach has proven to be too
simplistic to satisfy those attempting to understand the
characteristics and potentials of e-learning. As Garrison and Anderson
(2003) put it, Why would we expect to find significant differences if
we do exactly the same thing [in the two modes of learning]? (p. 6).
They conceptualize the changes prompted by e-learning as more radical
than what can be captured through assessment of outcomes and
comparisons with outcomes from classroom learning. At the core of the
issue, in their view, is that education is about ideas not facts, and
that e-learning provides more than access to information; it affords
opportunities for communication and interaction. But how does one
assess how well learners are formulating ideas through communicative
interaction in e-learning activities?
18. Literacy,
Learning and Technology Studies: Challenges and Opportunities for
Higher Education :: Illana Snyder
This chapter argues that the literacy, learning and technology
research, located mainly but not exclusively in the Preschool to Grade
12 (end of secondary education) (P-12) sector, has relevance for the
field of e-learning in higher education. Although there are significant
differences between school and tertiary education, such as the funding
models, the organisational structures, the resources, the age of the
students, the pedagogical approaches and the language used to denote
key constructs, there are terms, theoretical perspectives and questions
useful for research in all sectors. It seems reasonable, therefore,
that research knowledge from one sector may be extrapolated with care
to help understand another.
The chapter begins by considering the terms used to define and shape
research work. After some attention to e-learning, the focus turns to
four words: literacy, learning, technology and critical. Although
common in everyday usage, these words are understood in different ways
by different people. Further, they are highly contested and
value-laden, which means that any explanations are unlikely to be
accepted by all readers. However, despite these difficulties, the
concepts are integral to understanding the research that has
concentrated on young people's in- and out of-school literacy practices
since computers were first introduced into schools en masse in the
early 1980s.
After a discussion of these key terms, questions and theoretical
perspectives that have informed research are considered, followed by a
thematic analysis of the literature. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of the challenges facing the field of e-learning and some
questions to guide future research.
19. Problems of
Researching E-learning: The Case of CALL :: Zhao Yuan
This article, examines the problems remaining in researching
e-learning, with a special attention to language acquisition. The
article starts with the discussion of how the computer can best be used
in language teaching. It is suggested that effects of e-learning
environment on language acquisition much rely on how to design a
curriculum with the advanced technology available. The second section
discusses respectively three approaches self-access, instructed and
semi-instructed. Each approach has specific methods to employ computer
technology in language teaching, but problems arise in terms of the
choice of material, the ways of delivering the curricula and the
interactive relationships among teachers, students and computers. In
the final section the article focuses on problems in choosing and
applying research methods. It gives a good insight into the
difficulties of accessing target students and programmes and the
constraints of various research methods, such as questionnaire,
interview and e-mail.
Design
20. New Conceptions of Community Design :: Bronwyn Stuckey and
Sasha Barab
Over the last decade we have seen more and more instructional designers
work towards crafting something like community. A fundamental premise
of these designs is that through these community designs groups of
individuals will come together with the goal of developing
relationships in which all members struggle with and construct the
notions of what constitutes meaningful practice with respect to the
core practices of the community. However, in general, we are still in
our infancy in terms of understanding the dynamics that characterize
and drive internet-supported communities of practice, especially one
intentionally designed to support learning. Educators need to adopt new
conceptions of what it means to design for community if they are to
succeed in capitalizing on what community affords.
Many attempts to build online community may have failed because of the
very design efforts meant to facilitate them. These efforts unduly
focused on the implementation of a fine grained design and highly
structured web architectures while neglecting the social infrastructure
that is at the heart of any community. Experience clearly shows that
good design in socially- oriented environments is neither held as a
prelude to community nor enough in and of itself to stimulate and
support community. Designers, managers and facilitators need to build
more than a tolerance for the messiness inherent in social systems,
they must learn to leverage it. Issues of improvisation and balance
arise as we consider how to plan for, and accommodate, sociability,
emergence, participation and ownership.
This chapter presents, from the authors' vast experiences, a set of
critical considerations to move the reader toward a practical new
conception of community design. Specifically, we draw on a number of
experiences as well as those from the literature, to communicate a
change in focus that web-supported community design requires from that
associated with traditional instructional design: Content Transmission
to Engaged Participation; Mandatory Participation to Voluntary
Participation; Pre-Defined Content to Distributed Content; Focus on
Tool to Focus on Systems; Concern with Usability to Concern with
Sociability; Instructional Design Process to Participatory Design
Process; Ethically Neutral to Socially Committed. These seven foci can
be thought of as design tensions that designers should balance if there
focus is to develop web-supported communities. These tensions operate
not as opposites but as tensions or dualities with the challenging
being to establish an intervention that appropriately straddles both
aspects of each design tension.
21. Researching the Impact of Online Professional Development for
Teachers :: Wynne Harlen and Sue Doubler
E-learning is less commonly used for professional development of
teachers' subject knowledge and pedagogical practice, the subject of
this chapter, than for developing the use of the internet in classroom
teaching. The first part of the chapter reviews research studies of the
process and outcomes of on-line professional develop for teachers. The
review finds that moving from traditional to on-line learning requires
a considerable change in lecturers' relationship with their teacher
learners; it is not merely a new way of ‘delivering’
traditional
courses. In particular, there has to be a reduction in learners'
dependence on lecturer response and an increase in learning through
interaction among learners. It is also necessary to modify assessment
procedures.
The chapter then considers the challenges of
providing for teachers on-line course which have sound pedagogical
principles built in and which provide good examples of practice as
effectively as face-to-face courses. How these challenges can be met is
illustrated through the description of a program of professional
development in inquiry-based science education for elementary and
middle school teachers. There is an outline of research into how this
program developed from scratch for on-line learning compared in
practice with an on-campus version set up for the research. The results
of assessing the process and outcomes of the teachers' learning in the
two forms of the course reveal some advantages and disadvantages of
e-learning for professional development of teachers. Particular
advantages followed from communication through the written word,
requiring greater precision in language and the clarification of an
idea or observation in order to convey it effectively. Asynchronous
communication provided time for reflection and gave opportunity to
pursue a point in several exchanges without preventing other threads of
discussion. It also provided the space for asking and answering higher
cognitive level questions that require time to process.
22. Exploring E-learning Community in a Global Postgraduate
Programme :: Ellen Roberts and Jane Rostron
Higher education institutions are increasingly interested in the
potential of e-technologies to enable teaching and learning, for both
strategic and pedagogic reasons. One of the issues that has attracted
attention as a result is that of the 'learning community'. How can a
'learning community' be enabled and fostered when teaching and
learning
take place at a distance through e- technology? What helps and
hinders? How can these issues best be researched, and what issues
should form the research agenda? And, more fundamentally, how can we
assess the importance of the issue, and what are the measures of
success?
This paper is a contribution to exploring these
issues. It begins by examining the definitions of “learning
communityâ€,
an apparently elastic term which requires practitioners and researchers
to identify the meaning that they attach to it. The paper then sets a
theoretical context through a review of concepts relevant to
understanding the formation and development of e-learning communities
and discusses challenges in researching the notion.
The discussion is contextualised within a
description of a postgraduate programme of professional development:
the University of York's e - Masters in Public Policy and Management,
addressing the importance of “community†within it,
reviewing early
indicators from delivery of the programme to date, relating these back
to the theoretical context and finally drawing some conclusions about
the future research agenda.
23. Making The Moving Image: The Place Of Digital Video In The
Curriculum ::
Andrew Burn
This chapter reviews research literature exploring the use of digital
video production in schools. It proposes three broad distinct (but
overlapping) categories in which digital video production work with
children has been researched: in the contexts of media education, of
arts education more broadly, and of different school subjects across
the curriculum. It emphasizes findings and conclusions which point to
the need for educators to recognize the moving image as a cultural form
with its specific semiotic conventions. It seeks to distinguish aspects
of the research which clarify the new affordances of the digital
medium. It concludes by arguing that schools have inherited a
perception of ICT as information-processing, whereas digital video (and
other recent applications) need to be understood as cultural and
representational technologies.