What I thought I knew that was confirmed:
I suspect that technology is created because we can create it. If we want to learn using it, we must adapt “innovations in ways that support human learning process[es]” (Clark & Mayer). When we do not remain learner centered, the hopes for new technology to revolutionize society are unrealized. Throughout history, “strong claims were made for the potential of the newest technology of the day to revolutionize education, but in each case that potential was not reached (Clark & Mayer).
I understand from working 20 years in the education industry, that teachers and the educational systems are collectively not the beta-tester, early adopter type. However, there is a repressed agreement in Higher Education that primary school systems are more agile in using technology for teaching and learning. None of the hierarchical school systems will be more successful than the military or private business industry. I am interested in reading more about Burkman’s (1987a, 1987b) analysis of the reasons why instructional design efforts in schools and universities have not been successful compared with the more favorable conditions that exist in business and the military (Reiser, 2001).
What I thought I knew that was wrong
Simply put, I thought we were adding graphics to text. Instructional design was augmenting great textual content with illustrations. I believed this was because our attention spans are shortening and we needed to keep the attention of the learner through the chunked content. I now see the use of media for instructional purposes and systematic instructional design as “two practices that have, over the years, formed the core of the field (Reiser, 2001).
I now understand that historically “instructional design was having little impact on instruction in the public schools (Branson & Grow, 1987; Burkman, 1987b; Rossett & Garbosky, 1987)” (Reiser, 2001). A recent event in my home also triggered a deep learning moment. My daughter came home with a homework packet yesterday all about Nonfiction Text Features. This packet was a fill-in the keyword blank and draw example graphical forms to show learning from videos hosted in Canvas. She was taught about pictures, maps, graphs, labels, heading, subheadings, bold, italics, and underlining. From the video, she was able to make her own comparison graphs, maps, and labeled diagrams. I was floored to find we are learning the SAME information but from the perspectives of consumer and producer.
What I did not know at all
As my research will focus on digital literacy, I wrestle with complex learning and information processing and how multimedia and instructional design can help achieve the instructional goals according to Clark & Mayer (2016) which are to minimize extraneous processing, manage essential processing, and foster generative learning. Much attention is given to educational virtual environments (eve) because of the potential for new technology to revolutionize education by connecting relevance to learning. However after reading that “little can yet be concluded regarding the retention of the knowledge acquired in EVEs”, I am concerned now about the lack of assessment in the initial design of the technology, as if it was not designed with learning purposes in mind at all (Mikropoulos, T. A., & Natsis, A., 2011) Possibly one of the new facets of technology with foster the realized potential of EVEs as one of the new findings from eVEs is the existence of “collaboration and social negotiation [. . . ] between participants and avatars” (Mikropoulos, T. A., & Natsis, A., 2011).
References
Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-learning and the science of instruction : proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (Vol. 4).
Mikropoulos, T. A., & Natsis, A. (2011). Educational virtual environments: A ten-year review of empirical research (1999–2009). Computers & Education, 56(3), 769–780. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMPEDU.2010.10.020
Reiser, R. (2001). A history of instructional design and technology: Parts I and II. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(2), 57–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02504928
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