Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4478] Theory for E-learning paper
P.Twining@open.ac.uk
Date: Mon 10 Mar 2003 - 15:08:17 MET
From: P.Twining@open.ac.uk Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4478] Theory for E-learning paper Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 03:08:17 +1300
Mark,
I am feeling particularly thick - wanted to join the discussion of your
interesting paper but the technology (or actually the implementation of the
technology) has beaten me - so far.
I have filled in a form to join the list - and had a long and very confusing
email containing lots of instructions and a password. What I can't work out
is (a) how I see what other people have said (b) how I say anything.
I guess the problem is that I am expecting this to be a threaded discussion
board and it is actuall a listserver - and so there is nothing for me to see
- but I will get copies of future postings. Ho hum -
Anyway, what I wanted to say (at least initially was):
Found your paper stimulating - and agreed with much of it.
I wasn't sure that your hypotheses are really hypotheses in that I don't
think they will become part of theory related to elearning. They are very
useful design principles - guidelines about how to implement teaching using
new technology - which are informed by experience (and maybe even theory).
Indeed I wonder about the extent to which it is appropriate to talk about
theory of elearning - I think this is what you are really saying under
Hypothesis 1 - what we need is theory about learning, which can inform the
design of teaching irrespective of the medium.
You may find some of my work relevant/interesting - cos it mirrors some of
the things you say, for example re ambiguity/confusion in the literature (eg
lack of definitions of terms). My particular interest is in how to enhance
the impact of investments in 'educational' ICT. I started by examining
frameworks for thinking about (and describing) the practice surrounding the
use of new technologies. This lead to the development of a set of criteria
for evaluating such frameworks and eventually to a new framework called the
Computer Practice Framework (CPF) - if this sounds like it might be of
interest/relevance check out my PhD thesis at
http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document.cfm?documentid=2515
Chapter 3 identifies problems with defintions/confusion in the literature
and the need for frameworks for describing computer use in education
Chapter 4 explores existing frameworks and applies them to some case studies
- leading to the development of criteria for evaluating such frameworks.
Chapter 5 describes the intial development of the CPF
Chapter 8 revisits some of the issues - explores some more recent frameworks
than those explored in Chapter 4 and sets out how the CPF can help enhance
the impact of investments in educational ICT.
One of the key issues coming out of all of this for me was the need to
develop shared visions about what we are trying to achive with new
technologies in education - this is the focus of my current research and in
particular of a questionnaire on the web that explores people's views about
the rationales that ought to underpin educational ICT. The questionnaire
(which takes less than 9 minutes to complete on average) is accessible via
http://www.meD8.info/qqa and once you have filled it in you can explore a
summary of key data from the current responses (over 800 so far).
Anyway - nuff waffle from me. Hope this is of some interest - sorry I didn't
do it through the correct route - I tried but failed!
Peter T
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