Subject: Fourth Summary of Student Hypermedia Composition Formal Discussion 29th Nov - 10th Dec
From: Jill Jameson (jjameson@easynet.co.uk)
Date: Mon 13 Dec 1999 - 03:30:27 MET
From: "Jill Jameson" <jjameson@easynet.co.uk> Subject: Fourth Summary of Student Hypermedia Composition Formal Discussion 29th Nov - 10th Dec Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 02:30:27 -0000
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Dear IFETS Colleagues,
The formal discussion on Student Hypermedia Composition (29th Nov - 10th
Dec) continued during 7th-10th December, with contributions made by Margaret
Farren and Dr Goswamy.
Although several other discussions on other subjects have been taking place
simultaneously in the Forum, this summary specifically confines itself to
those comments posted on the debate on student hypermedia composition. As
the second comment below came in the summing up period for the formal
discussion, I have included it as part of the overall debate. The final
overall summary of the formal discussion will be posted in the next few
days. Many thanks to all contributors throughout the formal discussion
period.
Main themes emerging from this final stage of the discussion are the
following:
* MULTIMEDIA/HYPERMEDIA/AUTHORING TOOLS
Margaret Farren (7th Dec) made a thoughtful contribution to the debate,
noting that she is currently teaching "about the design, creation and
evalution of multimedia programmes" on a 15 hour Multimedia module for
teachers. Margaret selected HyperStudio for her teaching, specifically
selecting this user-friendly programme to avoid the "tool ... get(ting) in
the way" and to enable the students to "plan, design and create a multimedia
programme by the end of the course", whereas with an application like
Director she felt they might not achieve this in the time.
Margaret comments that although her students "are finding HyperStudio
relatively easy to
learn", she does not agree with Belzano' s IFETS posting that "HyperStudio
has too low a ceiling of learning for students to benefit" from using it.
Importantly, Margaret comments that the "whole issue of planning, designing
and implementing comes into play regardless of the authoring tool", although
"it depends on the emphasis or nature of the course, and this is an issue
for the facilitator/mentor".
Picking up on an earlier posting by Dr Farhad Saba, Margaret indicates that
she'd like to know more about Postmodern theory in relation to teaching
multimedia and hypermedia (NB - a good overall perspective on critical
theory and hypertext/hypermedia is given by George Landow (1997) in his
book, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and
Technology, Baltimore, Maryland, The John Hopkins University Press).
Margaret reminds us that multimedia "allows us to do things in other ways,
and perhaps, better ways", confirming Dr Betz's view that "people should not
just jump into a computer software program and quickly cut and paste
material in a fast and easy production". She agrees with Dr Goswamy that
"there is a large amount of analysing and thrashing the issues" and notes
that "a lot of processes are happening when students design, develop and
implement a multimedia project" - Margaret would therefore "encourage
students to reflect and document these processes", querying whether others
in the discussion "think that these processes are worth assessing" and
asking for recommendations on how to do this.
*IS THE ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT HYPERMEDIA COMPOSITION
SUFFICIENTLY VALID TO BE USEFUL?
Dr Goswamy (9th Dec) takes up Margaret Farren's queries, stating that nearly
all teachers/trainers involved in facilitating student hypermedia production
"willy-nilly got involved in 'exploring' the thought process that 'goes in
the learners' mind (or head)". Dr Goswamy comments that this "is probably a
'byproduct' of using or teaching the use of hypermedia for comprehension
projects", saying that "it is apparent that 'understanding' the issues and
analyzing "the processes (that) are happening when students design, develop
and implement a multimedia project" not only would help in improving
instructional delivery but also strengthen the planning and 'goal-setting'
process before undertaking a hyper-media project."
Dr Goswamy notes, however, that there is a particular problem in relation to
the issue of whether such work is "worth assessing". He states that his
efforts with hypermedia have led to a conclusion that the "process involved
has more to do with 'creativity' than mere 'subjective thinking' and thus
the first question to ask is "will the assessment (be) sufficiently valid
and reliable that it would be of any specific use for the teacher(?)". Since
Dr Goswamy's work in student hypermedia composition was specifically not a
research study but more of a day-to-day practical investigation, he found
that "by just encouraging the students (to) 'reflect and document' these
processes ... the range of response was so varied and 'indeterminate' in
nature we found it too difficult ...to actually extract a common
identifiable thread in the process involved which would 'unequivocally'
indicate or identify the process involved."
Although some of the students' replies to his investigations were promising,
Dr Goswamy "soon ... realized their limitations .. the explorations were not
'provocative' enough to reflect any in-depth analysis of the process". He
and his fellow invesigators "also realized that any attempt to provide
external 'provocation' to explore any deeper mostly resulted in eliciting
more 'right' responses which fit well-recognized patterns", since students
tended to give answers that they felt were acceptable, rather than think
more deeply for themselves.
Analysis of the students' replies thus led Dr Goswamy to decide that "quite
well developed 'imaginative thinking' (expansive in nature) rather than ...
'evaluative thinking' (convergent in nature)" tended to be involved in
student hypermedia production. Students tended to "brainstorm" rather than
use logical sequential processes, and therefore he concluded that "the
process involved (in the authoring-tool or hyper-media based learning or
designing) had all the ingredients of a 'creative process', stimulated by
"the time and efforts invested in planning, analyzing and developing the
idea". He was also "perplexed ... to observe that (the) higher the 'creative
thinking' capability of a learner (as depicted by the quality of their work)
(the) less is his capability to exactly 'reflect and document' these
processes." Dr Goswamy therefore "decided not to carry out my
'investigations' any further" since he "strongly felt (he) may be doing an
injustice to the learner ... as exposing them to this additional 'work
evaluation' may lead to undermining their intrinsic motivation which in turn
may inhibit creativity".
Jill Jameson
Director, Student Programmes
Abingdon College
Northcourt Road,
Abingdon
Oxon, UK
OX14 1NN
Tel 012350 216221/555585
jjameson@easynet.co.uk
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