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H809:Activity 3.8: Reflecting on frameworks

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Listen to the Week 3 podcast. Peter Twining and Gráinne Conole talk about the various frameworks that have been used to examine the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on education.

Notes

Rhetoric- reality gap: little impact on practice
More joined up in FE/HE
Assumption that education needs to prepare people technologically
Education different from other fields, complex
Disenfranchisement - learners feel school is not relevant, does not use the tools that they use in their everyday lives.

Confusion in research - different terminology to describe the same things
Identified 5 types of frameworks:

  • achievement - measuring people's progress in terms of their learning;
  • cognitive - impact of an individual in terms of their thinking;
  • software - type of software, drill & skill etc or in terms of role of software - technologically determined (positive)
  • pedagogical - e.g. Squires & McDougal - relationship between student, teacher, tool
  • evolutionary - how technology has been rolled out or changed over time

Danger - can be misused: pretty diagram can simplify complexities

Each has their own methodological foundations; give different lenses

Laurillard's conversational framework - dialogic emphasis, not good at wider contextual aspects

Activity theory - wider context

Pedagogy transfers across locations i.e. school, FE, HE

Adapting technology to current practice

  1. In the light of the podcast and this week's work, consider how you might revise the way in which you are making notes on studies. Do the questions from Activity 1.4 need elaborating?

I think it is important to note the date of the research (which may not be the same as the date of publication) and relate that to the context of the time.

Before quoting something form the paper it is important to go back to the source if possible.

Looking at the author/journal to detect any influences and, if possible, relating this to the methodology/framework they have used.

 

  1. Look back at Reading 1 and consider the questions that were asked in that research. Do you think they represent a dominant 'paradigm' for research in any particular period? Are the research questions and methods still relevant today?

I think I may have partially answered this a little earlier this week so put it here as well so I don't lose it!

The Hiltz & Meinke paper was written in 1989 which correlates with the end of phase two, the stand alone systems, described by Conole et al. (2007). They suggest that stage two shows 'increased activity in terms of multimedia functionality but that it is still content driven and focused on the interactive tutorial paradigm'. Hiltz & Meinke describe methods of teaching that are mainly behaviourist and mainly transmissive with e-lectures although there are some indications of self-determination and learner presentations are assessed. Other parts of the paper suggest a more social and participatory approach. This mixture of methods would link in with the end of stage two and the start of stage three which is characterised by the shift away from the individual and a move to more situated learning as described by Conole et al.

Looking at the research questions:

1) Is the Virtual Classroom a viable option for educational delivery? (On the whole, are outcomes at least as good as those for traditional face-to-face courses?)

2) What variables are associated with especially good and especially poor outcomes in this new teaching and learning environment?

'educational delivery'- emphasising the transmission of information in a behaviourist manner with operant conditioning

Both questions infer that the outcome of teaching depends on the method of delivery and the features that it uses - behaviourist approach.

 

 

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