Development of Learning with Educational Technologies

HISTORY

• 1960s - 70s the use of learning machine
• Business, Higher Education, and the Military (as cited in Fletcher, 2002),

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• Agostino Ramelli in 1588 - the first developer of a learning machine “a revolving table” for the King of France.

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• Skinner in 1866 reported the first patent on his learning machine. 700 additional patent applications for similar "exercise equipment" have been confirmed until 1936.

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• Skinner and Holland in 1938 have had developed linear learning programs according to the law of operant conditioning.

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• Crowder in 1959 invented the branched learning programs in which an error-dependent presentation of the teaching content was made possible,

...that enabled the learning process to be individualised.

TICCIT & PLATO

• In 1971, the National Science Foundation started two major projects with the aim of the efficiency of computer-assisted instruction for teaching in the United States:

TICCIT (Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled Information Television)”

PLATO project (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations).”

These studies have confirmed Computer-assisted instruction as an effective tool (as cited in Kidd, 2010).

PLATO

• Blitzer in early 1960s created PLATO at the University of Illinois,
• A timeshared computer system; to address concerns about student literacy.

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• To develop and deliver computer-based education, including literacy programs,
• It allowed educators and students to use high-resolution graphics terminals and an educational programming language "TUTOR",

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• Its communication features were equally innovative and were the foundations of today’s conference and messaging systems (as cited in Kidd, 2010).”

TUTOR

• ...is used to create and interact with educational courseware and to communicate with other users by means of electronic notes–the forerunner of today’s conferencing systems (as cited in Kidd, 2010),

Due to Suppes “in the future it would be possible for all students to have access to the service of ‘a personal tutor’ in the same way that ancient royals were once served by individual tutors, but that this time the tutors would be in the form of a computer (as cited in Nicholson, 2007).”

Karl - Heinz Flechsig, had brougt up a reason for medial development process with the concept “Technologische Wendung in der Didaktik1”

Teaching techniques and their actual fulfilment in traditional teaching systems were tied on physical presence of a human instructor.

However, teaching techniques can also, remove the physical presence, objectified and transferred via medium.

In fact, the assumption of “technology can replace the instructor and make learning more efficient” is still present (as cited in Issing & Klimsa, 2009, p. 13).

GERMANY

• 1964 - after the ideas of Skinner, Holland, and Crowder:
• "Geromat III" where three students have to give the correct answers to the subject matter to go forward were invented.
• "Bakkalaureus" where sixty four people can learn at the same time were invented.

In the early 1970s,
The issue of computer-based teaching came into consideration in Germany which was forgotten for a meanwhile due to the problems with the traditional “German Didaktik”. Hence, in the late 1980s it was taken up again. The focus of computer-assisted learning was shifted from school to vocational training (cf. Niegemann, Hessel, Hochschied-Mauel, Aslanski, Deimann, & Kreuzberger, 2004).

Since the late 1990s, eLearning has experienced a strong recovery by the spread of the Internet. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has launched their several initiatives such as:

the "Schools on the Net",
"New Media in Education",
"Notebook University"

(cf. Federal Ministry of Education and Research, 2002).

Technological improvements changed direction from “one-to-one” to “many-to-many” with the introduction of the web.

New learning theories are established such as “constructivism” and “social constructivism” in 1990s.

CONSTRUCTIVISM & SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

• One of the most obvious trends in all areas of educational, business and training applications has been:
• the increased scale of adaptation of Constructivist paradigms,
• particularly social constructivism by Palincsar,
• distributed Constructivism by Resnick,
• and the uptake of constructivist pedagogies by Forman; Ridgway & Passey (as cited in Nicholson, 2007).

THE INVENTION OF WWW

• In the middle of 1990s The development of internet and the service “World Wide Web (WWW)” encouraged new teaching and learning practices.
• E-mail service of the internet has linked up the scientific world.

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• Communication and connectivity gained much more importance than previous practices.

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• Tools that enhance communication, collaboration, and connectivity are being developed in the framework of Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005).

Concepts such as web 3.0 “Semantic Web”, “Mobile Learning”, “Open Educational Resources (OER)”, and “Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)” are further developed in conjunction with recent technologies in practice; and today, they are continuing to develop dynamically.

eLEARNING

• “eLearning” as a concept has been established for defining educational technologies in practice (Issing & Klimsa, 2009, pp. 14).

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• eLearning is a very broad concept and it is often described as the implementation of a wide range of TELEs for different kinds of educational purposes.

EVOLUTION??

• Nicholson (2007) stated that it is important to note that there is no single evolutionary tree and no single agreed definition of eLearning; since the 1960s,
• eLearning has evolved in different ways in Business, Education, the Training sector, and the Military, and currently means quite different things in different sectors.

In the context of the wider education community, the use of the term eLearning has historically had wider connotations that embrace a diverse range of practices, technologies, and theoretical positions.

It is not only focused on online contexts, and includes the full range of computer-based learning platforms and delivery methods, genres, formats and media such as multimedia, educational programming, simulations, games and the use of new media on fixed and mobile platforms across all scientific areas.

It is often characterized by active learner-centered pedagogies.

INTERDISCIPLINARY DISCOURSE

• Klimsa in 2009 accentuated that eLearning is a dynamic process; thus the eLearning theories and models require revision as the field of educational technologies expand.
• There is no standard for eLearning; nonetheless, the development and achievement of these standards are inevitable for future applications and they would be really meaningful only in interdisciplinary discourse

DEFINITIONS

• eLearning is the acquisition and use of knowledge distributed and facilitated primarily by electronic means.
• Both its asynchronous and synchronous features allow learners to access it without time or location barriers.
• Wentling et al., (as cited in Shih, Feng, & Tsai, 2008)

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• In an eLearning environment, the learning process is more self-paced and self-motivated. This kind of experience is quite different from what learners might experience in traditional teaching and learning environments.
• Learners, on the one hand, have more control and flexibility in their learning, but on the other hand, they need to take more responsibility for their own learning.
• Wentling et al., (as cited in Shih, Feng, & Tsai, 2008)

to create and run eLearning, effective pedagogy must be combined with reliable, easy-to-use technology. If there is little or no pedagogy, the tools will be ineffective. If the technology is unreliable or too complex to use, eLearning will be an exercise in frustration.

(Nichols, 2008)

eLearning as a learning environment has numerous formats such as “Blended Learning”, “Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL)”, and “Self-study”; depending on the instructional strategy. However, the widely practiced format of eLearning is TEL where instructors enrich the teaching and learning activities of their own curricula via the newest technologies and methods in practice. The instructional context is the main determinant of the desired eLearning format.


(Nichols, 2008)

Horizon Reports Expectations

• The New Media Consortium’s Horizon Project is a comprehensive research venture established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years on a variety of sectors around the globe (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood, 2011).

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THANK YOU!