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ICT's Impact on Distance Teaching and Learning
1. Learning and teaching with ICT
Expanding opportunities in
teacher education
Thuridur Johannsdottir
Iceland University of Education
BERA – 11th-13th September 2003
2. Iceland University of Education
Student population 2002-2003
Distance learning students: 1339
Traditional on-campus students: 891
Distance learning - undergraduate: 822
Distance; primary school B.Ed on campus: 462
Distance; primary school B.Ed distance: 401
The Department of Graduate studies -
only distance learners 517
3. Reasearch on distance education
How is the use of ICT affecting the
way the institution goes about
organizing teaching and learning?
How is the use of ICT affecting the
way the teachers perform their
teaching activities?
How is the use of ICT affecting the
way the students perform their
learning activities?
4. Activity Theory applies well
The activity system as a unit of
analysis
has been used to research the
effectiveness of everyday learning
environments
the relationship between the individual
participant and the activity system’s
purpose
Activity as mediated by tools is
central
http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~brent_wilson/acttheory.html
5. The Activity Theory model
www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/6b0.htm
Object
Subject
Tools
Division of labor
Rules
Community
Outcome
6. Teaching and learning as activities
Break teaching and learning down into
tasks – (M. Allyson Macdonald 2003)
Identify the tasks as performed on the web
in distance learning and teaching
Get a better understanding of how ICT-
tools used to mediate teaching and
learning are affecting the task
Identify underlying conceptions of learning
in activities performed or planned by the
teacher – and mediated through ICT-tools
7. Twining’s CPF (computer practice
framework)
Developed to evaluate to what extent ICT use
is affecting learning activities
How much? In what purpose? In what way?
When used as a learning tool:
Support
Improving efficiency – no change of content
Extend
Content and/or process are different – but ICT
not necessary
Transform
Content and/or process are different – not
possible without ICT
8. ICT as a tool for teaching and learning
in distance education
Possibilities and constraints of the tool?
McLuhan: The medium is the message
David Wood 1998:
computer-based teaching systems have
their roots in assumptions about theories
of how students learn
any limitations of the theory will be
inherited by the system
intelligent users of such systems in
education must measure their promise
against our general knowledge of how
people learn
9. Internet is the main tool in distance
education today
Learning to understand the
possibilities that lie in the tool
Access to resources
Publish learning products
Communicate and collaborate
Multimodal representations, multimedia
and hypertext possibilities
Technical constraints caused by e.g.
bandwidth
10. Available tools for teaching tasks
Main categories
E-mail
E-mail list servers
Conference systems
Course management tools or course-
ware: WebCT - closed
Web-editors - open or closed webs
Team or project management tools:
Lotus: QuickPlace
Microsoft: SharePoint
11. Sub categories – ICT-tools
The computer
Word
PowerPoint
Excel
The Internet
Discussion webs
Interactive database
blog
Chat – MSN
Management systems
Drop box for assignments in WebCT
Managing assignments – grades, feedback
12. Distance-teaching as activity or task
Teaching activities ICT-tool Effect of ICT
Structure learning
process
Word linear text-file
Hypertext
Text with icons
Supports
Extends
Extends
Provide resources List of books and
journals
Hypertext links to
sound and videofiles
and interactive
assignments
+textfiles
Supports
Extends
Transforms
Reading instruction Word linear text-file
Hypertext
Text with icons
PowerPoint slides
with or without talk
Supports
Extends–Transforms
Supports
Supports
13. Distance-teaching as activity or task
Teaching-activities ICT-tool Effect of ICT
Assignment
instruction
Word or PPT
WebQuest with links
web page with icons
and photos
Supports
Extends
Extends
Feedback and
evaluation
Closed grading
system WebCT
Interactive exams
Open space to share
documents
Supports
Extends
Transforms
Motivation and
enhancing
empathetic
atmosphere.
Cultivate the social
Creating nice
learning environment
on the web.
Take part in
students’ discussion
Chat – MSN
Using pictures
Using sound - talk
Extends–Transforms
Supports
Transforms
14. Distance-learning as activity or task
Learning-activities ICT-tool Effect of ICT
Discussion E-mail
E-mail postlist
Threaded discussion
webs
Supports
Transforms
Collaborative
projects
Telephone
E-mail
Chat
File-exchange by
attachments
Share Point
Supports
Extends
Transforms
Present learning
products
Word file as
attachment
PPT-presentation
Webs - digital
portfolios
Supports
Supports
Transforms
15. Distance-learning as activity or task
Learning-activities ICT-tool Effect of ICT
Find and evaluate
relevant resources
Search engines
Databases
Supports
Supports
Peer support Chat
E-mail
Telephone
Discussion webs
Sharing documents
Supports
Extends
Transforms
Self-reflection e.g.
writing learning logs
Word file log-book
Write learning-log og
open blogsite on the
web and making links
to co-students
Supports
Transforms
16. Underlying learning theories
Behaviourism – transfer of
knowlegde model
Linear structure of the learning process
Reading textbooks
Answering questions
Getting the right answers from the
teacher
Course webs used to exchange files
Discussion used to ask the teacher to
clarify content FAQ
17. Underlying learning theories
Social constructivism
Dialogue as a learning tool
Collaborative assignments
Foster the learning community
Build around meaningful activity
Work with the available tools
Publish the learning products and
sharing them with co-students –
stressing the social construction of
knowledge
18. ICT-tools – inherent learning theories
WebCT built on transfer model
Not easy to present and share
documents with co-students
Collaborative groups are supposed to
work on closed area
Students are supposed to send the
teacher their assignment and get
direct/personal feedback and grade
Tool for interactive multiple choice
exams
19. Tools for constructive learning
Open web-sites where the teachers
provide for resources and tools
needed to learn
Use authentic tools available on the
Internet
Share Point for team work
Lotus knowledge rooms Weigler
Blog-sites
Digital portfolios
20. Authentic learning on the Internet
Learning as an authentic activity
Using the tools available in the respective
culture
Learning from real communities on the
web –
how they work – rules
Which tools they are using and in what
purpose
How they collaborate – division of labour – and
distributed cognition
Editor's Notes
When analyzing a complex system like an institution, which offers flexible teacher education off campus (decentralized or distance) we find it useful to refer to activity theory. It provides an holistic approach, analyzing not the individual learner but the activity system. Activity theory is used to explore the effectiveness of everyday learning environment in research and can also be useful in the design of learning environments (Peal and Wilson 2003).
Activity theory, also referred to as cultural-historical approach, is developed from the learning theories of Vygotsky and related Russian scholars who stress the social nature of human learning and the role of language as well as other tools in learning activities. The theories of Vygotsky have lead to an understanding of the role of the teacher as well as peers in scaffolding students´ learning. Constructivists stress the importance of learning as an activity where the learner is constructing her knowledge, and Vygotsky added the social dimension, emphasizing the importance of the dialogue taking place in a learning community and the important role that the teaching activities plays.
Key features of the Activity theory model are:
Activities are designed to lead to an outcome
Activities are carried out by subjects on objects.
Activities take place within a community which has distinct social and cultural features
Activities take place according to a set of rules
Instruments/tools are used in activities e.g. to mediate learning.
If we take the activity of the teacher educator in teacher education as an example:
Teaching activities are designed to prepare teachers for the workplace according to the ideas that teachers have about the workplace
Activities are carried out by teacher educators with students in mind
Activities take place in a community of students situated in time and place
Activities are regulated both at an institutional level and at an individual level
ICT can be used as a tool to guide students through a task
In the same way the students activity can be analyzed with the model as well as activities organized by the institutions. These three actors in the activity system of distance learning programs might well have different ideas about the outcome of their activities which in turn easily causes dissatisfaction.
It is of special interest in this context to take into account the use of ICT as a mediating tool in learning.
Distance educational programs increasingly rely on technology developements. Here it could enhance our understanding to look at theories of distributed intelligence (Pea 1993) that consider the role of tools as cultural artifacts used to solve a certain task but at the same time a person learns from the tool how to solve the task. Tools thus affect the way we learn and has been identified as effects with the tool and effects of the tool (Salomon & Perkins 1998:10).
A man with a tool makes a new intellectual unit with increased capacities which can then act to enrich the respective culture.
M. Allyson Macdonald. 2003 An analytic tool for deconstructing teaching and learning tasks. BERA – conference.
The CPF is a conceptual tool for thinking about computer use. Helping individual practiotioners to develop conceptual framework through which the can better understand their own practice. It can support reflection on existing practice by providing guidance about fruitful ways to thinking about that practice. (p 350)
The CPF highligts three key-questions that can help to provide clarity in thinking about and understanding the potentioal impact of ICT in education.
What are your main objectives for using ICT?
What impact do you want ICT-use to have on the curriculum?
How much time do you want the learners to spend on using computers? (p.349)
David Wood (1998) has pointed out that computer-based teaching systems “have their roots in assumptions about theories of how children learn” (p. 295). He adds:
More generally, however, it is important to recognize the theoretical assumptions about the nature of human learning and development which have inspired the design of such systems. Any limitations of the theory will be inherited by the system. .....If we are to be intelligent users of such systems in education, and not simply a dupe to a hard sales pitch, then we must measure their promise against our general knowledge of how children think and learn.”
Wood, D. 1998. How children think and learn. (2nd edition). Blackwell publishing, UK and USA:
Weigel. Van B. 2002. Deep learning for the digital age. Technology’s untapped Potential to enrich higher education.
QuickPlace from Lotus Notes. Transforming the classrooms into knowledge rooms.