Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] VLE's Flash and the joys of distance ed.
mowen@rem.bangor.ac.uk
Date: Thu 15 Jun 2000 - 12:22:36 MEST
From: mowen@rem.bangor.ac.uk Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] VLE's Flash and the joys of distance ed. Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 03:22:36 -0700
List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@topica.com
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issues about "plug-ins" etc and virtual learning are importnat. They are
barriers that need to be overcome. There are clear issues however:
How information and communication technology savvy should learners be? Is
it a function of the VLE to make them savvy or is it a pre-requisite?
Students who arrive on my post graduate F2F course are not only expected
to have the pre-requisite academic qualifiactions and through interview
and reference demonstrate that they are potential teachers, they are also
expected to have certain "life skills".
They are expected to be able to travel about using public or private
transport. They are expected to know about stationery, paper file
management and organisation. They will understand the etiquette and
permissable behaviour in these settings. They will know how to use a
library and a library catalogue, the difference between text books,
monographs, journal papers and magazine articles. They will be able to
operate video recorders and photocopiers. They will also have some feel
for how to be act in lecture, workshop, seminar and tutorial. They will
understand the formalisms of timetables and campus maps.
I can make no similar assumptions about VLE students. We might care to
think about "what they need to know".
Some of these issues can be built into the affordances (see Norman: The
Psychology of Everyday Things) of the VLE we design, however Norman
distinguishes between knowledge in the head (stuff we have to learn and
explicitly remember) and knowledge in the world (stuff we have learned
about the world that has become tacit knowledge and does not need the same
"sort" of recall because we re-learn when we encounter it as a familiar
and "obvious" encounter in our culture).
However nowing about plug-ins is not common knowledge of the world, and
these is no visible indication to say that the system used in a VLE is
equipped with a plug in.
IMHO in a quality service one of three things should happen:
1)The need should be anticipated and be dealt with explicitly in advance.
The student should be equipped with an easy-install set up disc which
installs all the componenets needed to undertake a course or some similar
coourse of action.
2) The course should have a meta curriculum to create media savvy learners
and not leave them teacher/provider dependent.
3) Avoid using things which go beyond standard configuarations.
(3) is limiting as the use of (say) time based media is clearly useful in
web delivered courses... but please not unecessary eye candy.
Clearly the degree of comfort or discomfort a leaner has in a given
learning environment is important to the success of the learning
environment.
Martin Owen
---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html
Change your subscription options (digest, vacation hold etc.) at: http://www.topica.com/lists/ifets-discuss/prefs
---------------------------------------------------------
___________________________________________________________
T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16
Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Thu 15 Jun 2000 - 12:22:43 MEST