Katy Luchini (luchinik@cse.msu.edu)
Wed, 5 Aug 1998 12:13:16 -0400 (EDT)
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Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 12:13:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Katy Luchini <luchinik@cse.msu.edu> Subject: [ifets] ITS and college-aged students
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While the discussion has so far raised some interesting questions about
the use of ITS with young children, my experience with developing ITS for
college-aged students has uncovered many similar problems.
At Michigan State University, nearly all freshman students are required to
take an introductory humanities course designed to explore American
history, identity (both personal and group/cultural), and social issues
while developing strong skills in critical thinking and analytic writing.
This course had extremely expansive goals and is taught to nearly 2,000
students each semester, using graduate assistants to lead classes of 25-30
students in discussion after watching videotaped lectures.
In order to make this course a more interactive experience for the
students, plans were laid out to create a series of CD-ROMs which
contained both primary and secondary source materials that students could
use to explore topics of their own choosing. I worked with the
development team on the first of these CD-ROMs, which focused on
immigration and migration to the US between 1880 and 1920. (For those who
might be interested, information on this project can be found at:
http://www.msu.edu/unit/cisah/iah_201/aie_manual/AIEmanual.html)
Part of the challenge of developing this CD-ROM was to create tools that
would enhance the students' learning as they browsed through the material.
The information was not presented as "lessons" but rather as a vast
library of information separated into categories. These divisions
allowed students to compare, for instance, the experience of Italian
immigrants in Detroit to that of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco and
to African-American migrants coming to Chicago from the deep South. To
facilitate this exploration, the technical staff created many tools,
including search engines, "notepad" features that allowed students to
record their own observations, and electronic organizers that let students
manipulate the information they collected and use it as the basis for
papers and projects.
In designing this CD-ROM, we wanted to present the information in a
manner that was easy to navigate and gave the students sufficient tools
to become actively involved in their research rather than simply reading
endless text on a computer screen. We found that students quickly became
bored if the information was presented simply as a "digital book" that
required them to scroll endlessly through textual information. Yet we
didn't want to add so many functions and gadgets that the program became
more of a game than an educational resource. Interestingly, students
didn't seem to want a "game" either - for the most part they wanted a
program that would allow them to quickly find the information they were
looking for, record the facts and observations they found interesting, and
then collect and sort all of the information they had gathered when they
were done with their research.
Clearly many of the challenges ITS presents to teaching younger children
apply to college-aged students and likely to older students as well.
Finding a balance between entertainment and education is critical if we
hope to create an ITS that will engage the learner's attention for
extended periods of time without being so much like a video game that it
distracts from the material that is being presented. While it's true that
many games can be educational, I think there are also situations where
students want and need to have a more focused and "academic" attitude to
their studies. I believe that ITS have great potential for bridging this
gap between entertainment and education, and I would be interested in
hearing other views about how we can strike this critical balance for
students of all ages.
Katy Luchini
email: luchinik@pilot.msu.edu
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