Akihiro Kashihara (kasihara@ai.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp)
Mon, 3 Aug 1998 14:50:36 +0900
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Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 14:50:36 +0900 From: Akihiro Kashihara <kasihara@ai.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp> Subject: RE: [ifets] Formal Discussion
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Dear all,
let me first introduce myself briefly.
My name is Akihiro Kashihara, and I am a research associate at the Institute
of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka Univ., Japan. My interests are
mainly in instructional and learning processes. I especially address them
from a cognitive point of view. I currently focus on the following issues:
- How to control cognitive load on learning with ITS,
- Supporting knowledge externalization with Diagram Tailoring,
- History visualization and reorganization in hypermedia/hypertext,
- Adaptive and adaptable reorganization of learning resources in WWW,
- Roughly estimating the usability of hypermedia/hypertext with cognitive
load theory, and
- Exploration space control for supporting learning-by-exploration.
Second, let me state my views to the first issue Prof. Patel has arisen.
Patel> 1. For a lot of children, the Cartoon Network Television channel has
Patel> become a compulsive viewing. The fact that there are repetition
Patel> of the cartoon films does not seem to cause boredom and I have
Patel> seen quite a few children who speak out the dialogues spoken by
Patel> the cartoon characters as they watch i.e. the dialogues are
Patel> memorised by the children who are having difficulty remembering
Patel> their sevens and eights tables! The same children would spend
Patel> some time with the Microsoft Encarta but you wouldn't find them
Patel> systematically working through the multimedia encyclopedia to
Patel> learn about new things.
Patel> Looking at this behaviour which is menifested among both the
Patel> adults and children, can we say that the very act of 'consciously
Patel> learning' causes additional stress ? And therefore everyone has a
Patel> threshold beyond which they cannot carry out the learning
Patel> activity. Yet we can easily learn film dialogues and card playing
Patel> skills because we are not consciously trying to learn these and
Patel> therefore can enjoy engaging in these activities.
This is an interesting issue for me.
Learning for playing will bring about much stronger motivation to learn than
learning for studying, researching, or working. However, which is most
important depends on learners' contexts although "playing" is usually more
enjoyable/attractive than the others.
With motivation to learn, learning would be facilitated even in working, or
studying contexts. (The motivation would come from curiosity, the necessity
to continue jobs, to complete homework, etc.) On the other hand, if somebody
is not interested in cartoon films/playing cards, he/she would not be
motivated to learn. He/she would just watch or play with boredom.
In a working place, workers are often stuck in using an application
software. In such a case, they would consciously have to learn how to use it
for continuing a job, and have a strong motivation to learn.
SO, we can't always say consciously learning causes additional stress. If
learners have no/little motivation to learn, that is true. With the
motivation, learning would be facilitated even consciously. The key point of
learning in this view is not conscious/unconscious but the extent of
motivation to learn, I think.
Certainly there is a threshold where learning is encouraged or discouraged.
However, the threshold does not indicate a boarder between consciously
learning and unconsciously learning.
Edutainment is one approach to promote motivation to learn during playing,
which learners can learn consciously or unconsciously during playing.
Playing is a better activity for motivation to learn for
continuing/completing the games.
Regards,
Dr. Akihiro Kashihara.
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Dr. Akihiro Kashihara
I.S.I.R., Osaka University
8-1, Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, Osaka, 567-0047 JAPAN
TEL. +81-6-879-8426
FAX. +81-6-879-8428
E-mail: kasihara@ai.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp
URL: http://www.ai.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp/thome2/kasihara/index-e.html
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