Distance Education

This was an interesting topic to look at particularly with the MOOCs, but the one thing that I first must address is the topic of revolution. To many times, some new technology or introduction of a new way of education comes and  we see it as revolutionary and it always ends in evolution not revolution. That being the case this article does not necessarily say it will cause a revolution but shows the potential for a revolution of education. In the article, what stuck with me the most is the idea that “Student control may be extended and even expanded even as demand for education increases on a global basis as new technologies associated with distance learning offer new choices to address an increasingly diverse set of student needs.” This is an interesting aspect of distance learning that could come about and one that would hopefully allow students access to course or resources to be able to give more students a quality education. I say quality in education in that students would now have an opportunity to be taught by a higher quality teacher. It also allows for students in lower SES schools, who we saw in the last readings, that did not have access to classes like statistic course to now have the option of taking those courses in order to be better prepared and ready for college. This could be where distance education, but it also can start an evolution where what we are seeing is more of the same just in a different format.

How will the curriculum, Pedagogy and Technology change?

This is an interesting question and one that depends on just how much distance learning changes education, as we know it. No matter what the affect of distance education has on education, distance education will cause a change in pedagogy, curriculum, and technology. I say that because with the growth of distance education it will cause the need for a change in pedagogy for online learning and how best to enhance student learning via the Internet. You cannot just have a talking head and expect students to watch a 3 hour lecture and have a deep online discussion, the teachers need to develop the content in ways that keeps the attention of the students. It will have an affect on curriculum by allowing a wider range of courses to students which can mean course that other schools offer such as statistics to students who only had basic math, or it could mean having courses students are interested in being available at a distance. It will also have an affect on technology causing technology to evolve or develop to enhance distance learning and what that depends upon is the pedagogy that develops as well. These two go hand in hand because with new technology can allow teachers to do more things and the more teachers want to do or students want will drive technology into developing tools to meet those needs.  The changes that distance learning will cause will be interesting and it will be interesting to see who controls that direction as well. 

Critical Theory Reflection

Two questions from our group stuck out to me and made me really think about how the two were connected and also gets at the heart of critical theory. The first question was focused from chapter 7 of the Feenberg book. In this chapter, Feeberg states that “societies are not transformed by political events such as revolutions, but evolve toward new forms in the spaces opened by those events.”  The question brought to the group was if we think this is true, and the answer is yes for the majority of the time. It seems recently there has been revolutions that because of social injustices and economic troubles have caused uprisings in the middle east known as the Arab Spring. Outside of the middle east in the United States the statement holds true and can be seen in today’s political landscape. Most changes do not occur through revolution and political uprising, but through interest convergence with the people in power, that causes changes to system. An example of this can be seen, as I stated earlier, through the recent election and the aftermath of the Republican presidential candidate. Over the next election cycle, there will be a fundamental shift in the parties’ platform, or overt platform. The demographics of the nation has shifted and has started to impact the elections and will continue to impact elections. Republicans do not want to continue the streak of losing the presidency based on these demographics so the people in power will start to shift away from policies that alienate the demographics that they intend to reach out too. This way they can still stay in power, but they do have to shift their policies to account for the change in demographics. This is not political revolution, but is based on interests of the people who are voting. Once the people in power have a reason to listen in order to stay in power then things will start to change. This occurs in daily life outside of politics as well, and in educational settings interest around how to integrate effective technology to help all students.  

This goes along with the second question that we each brought into for our group and that was what does critical theory have to do with educational technology? I will build off of my previous argument and that is that change does not unless there is interest convergence. There has to be enough interest to cause the change or change will not happen. Critical Theory looks to start the process or to point out the inequalities that are occurring. For example, in educational technology if we think technology is great and revolutionary, we will miss the unintended consequences and we will miss the students who the technology is a hindrance on their educational attainment. Critical theory seeks to bring attention to these issue in order for people in the field and general public to be aware of inequities. This develops interest and will hopefully spur change because as we have seen change only occurs when enough interest is put on the topic. In educational technology this is beneficial in that it seems everything that comes a long is going to revolutionize education with little  to no thought being given to if it helps everyone or not.  

Rational Technical Perspective

The rational technical perspective is one based on the thought that we can help solve our problems through technology and that the rational piece being that it is culturally neutral. The way in which it relates to morality in educational technology is that in the field the belief is that everyone should be educated.  The technology is introduced to improve teaching and learning, it goes back to the definition of technology that we discussed early in the semester. Instead, this rational technical perspective is too focused on the technology use in a way that does not help everyone, like our morals are telling us that we should be doing. Educational technology that is used is a lot like traditional ID models and not viewing learning as complex. The thought being is that technology, and the way it is used, is helping everyone but in reality that is not the case. An example in the article is the introduction of word processing and how instead of helping the student it actually negatively affected the students writing. Students who were struggling before and then received the technology with the intent of helping them instead hurt them even more. This is often times overlooked if the majority of the students are doing well and the student who is not doing well is then perceived to be a bad student. It also causes harm in equity issues. Students who were poor, minority, or female had less access to computers. The third way in which it is harmful is through pollution of the environment and the effects that it has on the world. In this country, everyone believes that you should have a fair shot, and that we should help keep our country and world prosperous for the next generation, but technology does not necessarily do that for us. It comes with a price, one if it is not closely watched can devastate what we morally believe in. If people truly have an equal shot students no matter what their background should have a fair shot at a high quality education and access to the same technology that other students have to help them through their education. Technology can be very useful in the classroom if it is planned in advance for the situation that it is used in, not just thrown in because it is new and cool. Teachers also have to be aware that some students might not be able to learn better through the use of technology and provide academic interventions that will help the students learn. We also have to be aware that we are damaging the earth through the use of technology and with that awareness the need to develop cleaner technologies to preserve the planet for our next generations is necessary. If we are too focused on the rational technical perspective we are going away from our morals and we need to ensure that our morals are not being compromised over uses that are not aligned with our morals.

Paradigm Shifts in IT

Paradigm Shifts in IT

The first paradigm that we will look at is CAI, or Computer-Assisted Instruction, that the author refers to as a design and evaluation of instructional technologies. In the article, he uses the Coursewriter I from IBM to be the first authoring tool of CAI. These programs were designed specifically to provide practical instruction for needs that were identified in the classroom. This paradigm views learning as passive, or that the teacher transfers knowledge to the students. In the paradigm’s case, the teacher and the CAI program transfer the knowledge to the students to achieve learning outcomes. This stems from behavioral learning theory and the paradigm is tested through measuring the proficiency of the students. This paradigm is focused upon this behavioral view of learning and the main concern is if the CAI is meeting the intended outcomes. CAI, as described by the author, resembles traditional ID models in that they identify specific set of goals, then breaks those goals down into smaller pieces, and then develops activities to achieve those learning goals they set out in the beginning. At the end, a summative assessment would be completed to see if the learning outcomes are being met.

The next paradigm the author talked about was ITS, or Information Processing Theory. This theory is rooted out of Artificial Intelligence and cognitive learning. The systems that are produced in this paradigm are ones that are designed to be a tutor, or skilled teacher, to every student. Learning is “the process by which the problem solver acquires a proper representation of a problem space.” The main difference between the two paradigms is the ITS being more interactive for the student. In CAI the programs are drill-and-practice where as ITS develops of focuses on developing more complex set of skills. The other difference between the two paradigms is the way in which they look to evaluate their programs. CAI looks to the learning outcomes, ITS model focuses on if the program is emulating skilled tutors.

Paradigm Logo as Latin

This next paradigm differentiates itself epistemologically through the belief that learning is subjective. It comes from the belief that “new information interacts with prior knowledge through a process of assimilation and accommodation.” In the previous paradigms, we saw the teacher as the power; in this paradigm, the student becomes the teacher. The student creates executable projects, or artifacts. In this paradigm, the focus is on developing general skills and problem solving skills of the learners. It is focused on transfer of the knowledge learned. This paradigm is different from the other twos based on this focus and it is different in its view of the program being the student not the teacher like the other paradigms.

CSCL

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning is the paradigm that the author puts forward as a developing paradigm shift occurring at the time the article was written. This paradigm starts off differently in the way in which it focuses on the learning environment. In this paradigm, it focuses on social learning and develops a collaborative learning environment. Instead of individuals “competing” they pursue knowledge as a cooperative group, where the teacher is a facilitator not an authority of knowledge in the classroom. This is like the logo as Latin paradigm in its view of the teacher, but differs from the first two paradigms which view the teacher as the authority of knowledge. The central focus of this paradigm is instruction as enacted practice. It is the process not a focus on the outcome, which is different from the first two paradigms. This paradigm unlike the other paradigms is no experimental, but rather it is descriptive. It is highly focused on the participant and their viewpoint.

TPCK and LOGO as Latin

TPCK is a framework that is developed off Shulman’s PCK. TPCK breaks down to Technology, Pedagogy, and Content knowledge. All of these have there own spheres that through out your pre-service teacher education you would expect one to develop. Technology knowledge is the understanding of technology, or how to use technology. Pedagogy knowledge is the process, practice, and methods used for facilitation of learning. Content knowledge is the understanding of the subject matter. They then can be overlapping such as PCK, TCK, TPK, and TPCK. PCK it the pedagogical content knowledge, which is understanding how students learn the content that you are teaching. Such as what areas students will struggle to grasp the concepts, and how best you can help facilitate learning. TCK is the Technological content knowledge; this would be the understanding of technologies that can be used in your content area. For history, one example would be the library of congress or CSPAN as they have many content explicit items for history teachers. TPK is the Technological pedagogy knowledge, is the understandings of the constraints and affordances when teaching with the technology and how that facilitates learning. Finally, TPCK is the combination of these areas the PCK, TCK, TPK together to facilitate learning.

TPCK and Logo as Latin are different in their approach to teaching and learning, but also, in my view, have some similarities. One of those is they both see learning as knowledge as assimilation and accommodation. Both of these take the approach of subjective view of learning, but TPCK focuses on more than just technology and its role but brings in other factors that play a role. TPCK as stated above brings in the different roles of technology content knowledge and pedagogy. They not only look at these factors, but also look at how these interact with each other and the role those play in teaching and learning.  In Logo the goal is to create or execute through programming, and with that problem solving skills will be developed that can be transferred. In the TPCK framework that can be the goal developing problem solving skills and transfer, but I would say the main goal is developing effective ways of students to learn the content. This can be through programming and using the logo as Latin paradigm if it fits within the TPCK framework.  This framework gives teachers in content areas freedom to exercise their expertise in how teaching and learning occurs in their content area. It also gives a framework for research in those specific content areas to look for what fits in to these categories for TPCK. 

Paradigm Shift and ID models

The paradigm shift can be simplified down to the idea that rapid prototyping is not an alternate instructional design but a view on the development of learning environments. The article lays out four assumptions that go against traditional ID models. The first is that there is a fundamental difference between science and design. This difference is the way in which they attack the problems that they encounter. Science looks to find general principles, or rules, to the problems. This view can be seen in traditional ID with principles that follow a linear model. Design looks to develop solutions to the problem in ways that achieve the results desired. This takes a non-linear focus in that they are looking for results not a set of guidelines to follow. The second being that using the design view learners can still achieve the learning outcomes. That it is possible through the method put forth to learn, or to achieve the intended results. The third is the issue of validity and what this rapid prototyping article puts forth is to use the term optimality. Validity is defined as how correct, or valid, the model is and this definition for rapid prototyping cannot be used based on the view of “truth” being subjective. The term optimality is used instead because it is based on this belief of truth being subjective. Optimality is defined as “research that determines if the model achieves the desired results in a specific instructional situation”. This is on track with the shift away from this view of science undergirding ID and focuses on the epistemological view of truth being subjective. This goes into the fourth and final assumption put forth by this article and that is the view of post positivist idea of objectivity. That is that humans can not be objective in social sciences. These four assumptions focus break away from traditional ID models and as stated before how the scientific approach was applied to the design process. The authors are putting forth this as not just another model that designers can use, rather they are putting forth a belief of how instructional design takes place.   

            Chaos theory, the R2D2 model, and Rapid prototyping have similarities that are fundamental assumptions of these theories, and models. They all look at learning being complex, that there are many variables that go into and can affect learning. This idea is differentiated from that of traditional id, the traditional model uses reductionist views or breaking down the problem. Traditional ID models also define the problem at the outset. The alternative models do not break down the problem or define the problem at the outset. Instead, they let them develop throughout the development of the learning environment. This helps lead to the belief that the ID person becoming the content expert. They are not relying on a SME for the information that needs to be learned, but rather engrossing themselves into the environment in order to develop the learning environment to achieve the intended results. The next fundamental assumption that they have is the model being non-linear. In traditional id the principles were developed with the models being linear or following a step by step guide.  This is not the case with these alternative models, they have differentiated levels in the model but they do not go step by step. You do not have to finish one section before moving on and you have the freedom to go back to the level at any point to enhance the learning environment.  They all focus on open systems instead of closed systems like traditional ID models. An open system is one in which it receives input from environmental factors meaning that the context as an impact on the ID. The closed system is based on efficiency and control of parts. They do not have the belief that context or environmental factors play a role, or that they can control these aspects.  These are the fundamental assumptions that each of these model share and the differences they have with traditional ID models.