Recently, I’ve discovered the excellent Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning from George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger, Learning Technologies Centre (LTC), University of Manitoba. This handbook is freely available in two formats: wiki and PDF. The number, diversity and quality of the bibliographic references are worth mentioning. A must read!
Conclusion excerpt: The use of technology for learning is influenced by developments in numerous fields: technology itself, global trends (market economy growth, changing immigration patterns, intellectual shifts to emerging economies), societal trends and trends within educational research.
Much of the change in education over the last several decades has been defined by discussion of content. Should we teach more math? Science? What about ethics? How should we teach? Lecture? Problem-based learning? It seems that much of educational reform has been concerned with determining the content of education, rather than the model and process of learning design and delivery in a technology infused world.
For individual faculty members and departments, greater use of emerging technology can serve as an important bridging process between the traditional role of education and the not yet clearly defined future. Active participation in the ecology of perpetual change provides organizations with the capacity to sense, recognize, and respond to emerging patterns.
The Innovate – Journal of Online Education, June/July 2009 issue is dedicated to virtual worlds, simulation and games in Education. Editors’ note excerpt: Virtual worlds and simulations are a source of both excitement and anxiety for educators. Alongside the seemingly limitless opportunities for enhancing learning, educators must also grapple with the challenges that arise with novel ways of communicating, connecting, sharing, and knowing. This special issue of Innovate presents a collection of frameworks, design experiences, research results, and informed opinions that seek to bridge this divide and advance our understanding of effective teaching and learning in these new environments.
Highlights:
Virtual Worlds, Simulations, and Games for Education: A Unifying View. Synopsis: While there is some overlap in the uses and structures of virtual worlds, games, and simulations and the three often look similar, their differences are profound. Clark Aldrich presents a taxonomy of virtual environments that recognizes both the distinctions and the similarities among virtual environments for learning. All three, he suggests, are points along a continuum, all instances of highly interactive virtual environments (HIVEs). The HIVE framework recognizes the various relationships among virtual worlds, games, and simulations that can help educators, researchers, and builders of virtual environments think more clearly about the usefulness of virtual environments.
MUVEs and Experiential Learning: Some Examples. Synopsis: Multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) like Second Life present unparalleled opportunities to help students connect knowledge by description to knowledge by experience; in a MUVE, students can experience phenomena rather than only reading about them. Baba Kofi Weusijana, Vanessa Svihla, Drue Gawel, and John Bransford describe their use of a maze constructed in Second Life to help students experience firsthand the phenomena described in their educational psychology course. Their use of Second Life is particularly notable in its use of MUVE-based movies and other strategies to leverage Second Life’s interactive powers for exploration despite restricted access to technology.
U.S. Department of Education Study Finds that Good Teaching can be Enhanced with New Technology – Analysis of Controlled Studies Shows Online Learning Enhances Classroom Instruction.
Press Release: Providing further evidence of the tremendous opportunity to use technology to improve teaching and learning, the U.S. Department of Education today released an analysis of controlled studies comparing online and face-to-face instruction.
A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified over 1,000 empirical studies of online learning. Of these, 46 met the high bar for quality that was required for the studies to be included in the analysis. The meta analysis showed that “blended” instruction – combining elements of online and face-to-face instruction – had a larger advantage relative to purely face to face instruction or instruction conducted wholly online. The analysis also showed that the instruction conducted wholly on line was more effective in improving student achievement than the purely face to face instruction. In addition, the report noted that the blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions.
“This new report reinforces that effective teachers need to incorporate digital content into everyday classes and consider open-source learning management systems, which have proven cost effective in school districts and colleges nationwide,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “We must take advantage of this historic opportunity to use American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to bring broadband access and online learning to more communities.
“To avoid being caught short when stimulus money runs out, school officials should use the short-term federal funding to make immediate upgrades to technology to enhance classroom instruction and to improve the tracking of student data,” Duncan added. “Technology presents a huge opportunity that can be leveraged in rural communities and inner-city urban settings, particularly in subjects where there is a shortage of highly qualified teachers. At the same time, good teachers can utilize new technology to accelerate learning and provide extended learning opportunities for students.”
The study was conducted by the Center for Technology in Learning – SRI International, under contract to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Policy and Program Studies Service, which commissioned the study.
Download PDF version of the final report: Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies.
University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education. The high-quality, low-cost and global pedagogical model embraces the worldwide presence of the Internet and dropping technology costs to bring collegiate level studies to even the poorest and most remote places on earth. With the support of respected academics, humanitarians and other visionaries, the UoPeople student body represents a new wave in global education.
How it works: The student community will be divided into sub-groups of 15-20 students, all participating in the same online course. Students will be expected to review the assigned study materials, mark down questions or issues which weren’t clear and note any difficult exercises. Each student will be assigned a “study buddy” with whom to confer and clarify issues which seemed unclear.
Each student will maintain an online portfolio containing a photograph, a short biography, and all the exercises, papers, projects, and quizzes given as assignments for the course. Students will be expected to devote at least eight hours per week to studying, reading lectures, writing exercises and assignments and posting to their online open forums.
University of the People Programs: Presently only Business Administration and Computer Science.
Other Frequently Asked Questions about University of the People: FAQ.
In the news:
Haaretz: Israeli founds world’s first tuition-free online university.
UPI: U.N. announces first free e-university.
Report of an independent Committee of Inquiry into the impact on higher education of students’ widespread use of Web 2.0 technologies: Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World.
From the Conclusions: Web 2.0, the Social Web, has had a profound effect on behaviours, particularly those of young people whose medium and metier it is. They inhabit it with ease and it has led them to a strong sense of communities of interest linked in their own web spaces, and to a disposition to share and participate. It has also led them to impatience – a preference for quick answers – and to a casual approach to evaluating information and attributing it and also to copyright and legal constraints. (…)
Higher education has a key role in helping students refine, extend and articulate the diverse range of skills they have developed through their experience of Web 2.0 technologies. It not only can, but should, fulfil this role, and it should do so through a partnership with students to develop approaches to learning and teaching. This does not necessarily mean wholesale incorporation of ICT into teaching and learning. Rather it means adapting to and capitalising on evolving and intensifying behaviours that are being shaped by the experience of the newest technologies. In practice it means building on and steering the positive aspects of those behaviours such as experimentation, collaboration and teamwork, while addressing the negatives such as a casual and insufficiently critical attitude to information. The means to these ends should be the best tools for the job, whatever they may be. The role of institutions of higher education is to enable informed choice in the matter of those tools, and to support them and their effective deployment.
Download this Report (PDF, 2 MB)
