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White Paper
Working Document
The Next Generation of Teacher Online
Learning:
A Developmental
Continuum
Sue Doubler,
Thérèse Laferrière, Mary
Lamon, Raymond Rose with
Michael Jay, Nancy W. Hass, Linda Polin,
& Mark
Schlager
The past decade has established the
tremendous potential of
global communications to provide information,
enable empowerment
and raise productivity. At the same time, society as a
whole is
extending its educational expectations, and foresees a
brighter
future for the active, lifelong learner. To prepare for the
knowledge
age now upon us, schools need to integrate technological
innovation
and the reform movement in education which is based on a
view
that children construct their own understanding of the world
through
active engagement with topics and problems that are meaningful
to
them. Many educational researchers point to teachers as the
key component
(e.g., Darling-Hammond, 1997; Goodlad, 1994; Shulman,
1987). This paper
begins a discussion on how technology might
be used for creating and
sustaining effective teacher professional
development.
Teachers are
engaged in exploring how information and communication
technologies may
help them accomplish their complex professional
tasks. Educational
administrators are adopting electronic solutions
to respond to a growing
diversity of learning needs. Learning
activities, tools, and programs
increasingly offer a mixed variety:
face-to-face and/or online, synchronous
or asynchronous. The school
curriculum is being digitalized, and virtual
universities have
begun to compete on local universities' turf. The
traditional
textbook is evolving to become the e-book. Half of U.S.
households
now have a computer, and 41.5% have Net access (Silicon
Valley
News, October 17, 2000) affording the possibility of new
school-home
connections. All of these technological changes are
transforming
the social and intellectual roles of teachers.
The
challenge is knowledge building. Future, technology-enhanced
professional
development must contribute new depth and rigor to
professional development
as well as provide greater access. These
programs must not only support
adult learning pedagogy, but allow
teachers to identify their new role in
learning through a community
of practice (Seely Brown & Duguid, 2000).
Hopefully, such
a professional community is one in which some expert
teachers
are organizing and managing their classroom as a community
of
learners or as a knowledge-building community.
The new
dimensions of the roles of learners and teachers in
networked classrooms
are recognized in this White Paper which
uncovers the evolving nature of
professional development when
it comes to knowing about and knowing with
learning technologies.
Moving to reconceptualize the classroom as a
learning community,
one in which members may be, partly or totally,
physically or
virtually present, this paper presents 1) the new baseline
from
which it departs from, that of the learning context, content,
and
process addressing the needs of the majority of teachers;
2) the online
teaching and learning practices that early adopters
are finding useful, and
3) the advanced practices that teachers
are pioneering, with the support of
networked computers (desktop,
laptops, and Pocket PC).
The learning context, content, and process
addressing the
needs of the majority of teachers
Although there
are still classroom teachers who resist use
of computers, the majority of
them are responding to the social
expectations that call for classroom
learners' use of information
and communication technologies (ICTs), and for
the development
of the technical skills required to access online resources
for
learning purposes. Becker et al. found that 93% of teachers
in
grades 4-12 were using computers as a part of their professional
lives. A
majority of teachers now have a computer in their classroom
and nearly 80%
have one at home. Most teachers find computers
useful for preparing
handouts for lessons, recording student grades,
and doing other work of
knowledge professionals (Becker, Ravitz
& Wong, 1999). They know they
must be prepared to confront
technical issues, as well as classroom
organization/management,
and pedagogical issues.
Teachers have
heard about the new theory of learning (ASCD,
2000). However, when it comes
to ensuring that students achieve
specific learning outcomes, teachers tend
to rely on what they
know best(1)
, that is, teach-to-the-test. They face the
"doublebind"
they are confronted with, when they introduce
computer-supported
collaborative learning activities. This add-on strategy
reflects
a prudent attitude, but also a well-entrenched trust in the
transmission
model, in the relevance of presenting interesting lessons
using
the delivery mode they know well. Even when teachers are developing
a
capacity to access online resources (information, tools, and
people) that
suggest ways to enhance the learners' experience
and success, they tend to
use these resources for delivering information.
Using PowerPoint, a
Web page editor, or other software, some
become most resourceful in turning
their lectures into multi-media
events. Others are more inclined to
download from recommended
sites, lesson plans or learning scenarios, and
adapt them to fit
a specific learning context, activity, or curriculum.
Teachers
face different classroom planning and management issues when
they
choose to take the whole class on the Internet for a
particular
learning activity or project. Such issues may relate to
learners'
basic technical skills including information retrieval and
Web
page production to intellectual property and confidentiality
issues.
The danger is that we incorporate powerful tools without
rethinking
practice. Teachers tend to retrofit their traditional,
transmission
delivery curriculum with powerful computers.
In both
the technological and pedagogical realms, teachers
exhibit a certain
discomfort with radical new solutions. The tension
between social
reproduction and transformation reaches its crux
when they see governance
bodies becoming interested in emerging
"technology-based
solutions"(2) .
Market-driven forces want to enter education
systems, and a new round of
negotiation between private-public
interests is underway. What teachers
will do is of critical value.
It is troublesome to think that the majority
will integrate the
e-book (or any type of canned or pre-organized learning
materials)
in a way similar to how they use the textbook
(declarative/procedural/conditional
knowledge). The aspirations of the
knowledge society and of the
teaching profession itself call for a renewal
of the use of learning
technologies with current theories of learning in
mind.
Thus, individual-, school-, and network-based
professional
development is key. Teachers who are developing a capacity
to
access online resources (information, tools, and people) are
presented
with an increasingly broader range of learning resources for
themselves,
and the students they work with. When those resources
suggest
to them ways to enhance the learners' experience and success,
and
providing that connectivity or access is not an issue, they
are likely to
integrate some online materials into their teaching.
But the question
remains, will teachers' implementation efforts
incorporate new
understanding of learning afforded by technology.
As technology
becomes a greater resource and context for learning,
our view of learning
changes. At this dynamic juncture we must
continue to ask how the new
approaches and strategies we develop
add more depth and rigor to
professional and student learning.
Are we taking full advantage of this
opportunity to rethink teaching
and learning?
Given the above
considerations, this White Paper establishes,
as its baseline, the learning
needs(3) of the
majority of teachers. Traditional
workshops that provide formal,
face-to-face training optimally
followed by online and one-on-one support
and just-in-time training
may be what is needed for learning to use
technology within existing
school practices.
However, meeting
teacher professional development needs for
integrating technology more
deeply into classrooms requires more
than incentives based on seat time. As
an example, the majority
of teachers are more inclined to engage learners
in one task at
a time rather than use multi-task and activity rotation.
"But
real life learning is often characterized as playful,
recursive
and non-linear, engaging, self-directed, and meaningful from
the
learner's perspective. Motivation and learning look like the
natural
processes they are in real life learning" (McCombs,
2000).
The online teaching and learning practices
of early-adopter
teachers
Teachers are also pathfinders in
the fast growing world of
online learning resources. The combination of
face-to-face and/or
online social interaction for teaching and learning,
creates a
new learning environment here identified as the networked
(or
connected) classroom. Those teachers whose classrooms have high
access
to online resources and who work in an organization that
supports classroom
online activity (colleagues, administrators,
and parents), are organizing
and managing activities in such ways
as to engage students in a variety of
learning projects using
ICTs. They have intentions, and ideas, and they
move ahead. They
believe, as Fullan (2000) suggests, that the more powerful
technology
becomes, the more they are needed. Technology is changing
their
roles, but it is also requiring them to engage more powerful roles
-
using technology to open new pathways to learning, and finding
ways to
connect to communities outside the school building.
They also have
questions, and face issues. For support and
help, they go to their
colleagues, their students, parents, and
other members of their local, or
extended, community(4) or network(5) .
They find online communities of interest,
and engage in sharing
and support activities(6).
Some of them have
been introduced to electronic conferencing during
their pre-service
studies(7)
, or
through initiatives such as I*EARN (International Education
and Resource
Network), The Great Lakes Collaborative, a US national
initiative to
improve student achievement in K-9 mathematics and
science education, or
the ones sponsored by the European Union(8) .
The application of the
community-of-practice framework was
suggested)(9) in the
field
of teacher education only one year after it was introduced by
Lave
& Wenger (1991). Educational leaders, including
teachers-as-leaders,
that managed to assemble the basic conditions
(connectivity to
the Internet, teachers' awareness of the potential of
electronic
networks for their field of practice, teachers' mastery of
basic
technical skills and access to appropriate support systems or
tools,
and recognition of teachers' participation in online communities
as true
learning), have expertise of value to others(10) that can be accessed
by other adopters
through legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) in
communities
of practice.
Referring to the teacher professional
development model developed
by Laferrière (1997), one may
distinguish specific areas
of progressive expertise in the pedagogical
integration of information
and communication technologies (ICTs) in the
classroom. Teachers
who identified new learning possibilities with the use
of ICTs
and who renewed the routines of their classrooms have expertise
of
value to teachers within their proximal zone of development
and to teachers
that are mastering entry-level skills (awareness
of the network phenomenon
and access) in face-to-face or online
dialogue. Professional learning
communities (Dufour and Eaker,
1998) that combine these two modes of
interaction have an advantage.
At the early stage of their practice
of online interaction
for learning purposes, school teachers may devote
more time to
peer support than to collaborative knowledge building, but
they
qualify, nevertheless, as early adopters of learning technologies.
In
and of itself, teacher collaboration is a new way of doing
things for those
working in a team, a professional community,
a university-school
partnership(11) ,
and/or a network. Support tools such
as those in TAPPED IN developed at SRI
International (Schlager,
& Schank, 1997; Schlager, Fusco, & Schank,
1998) are designed
to scaffold the key processes of communities of practice
such
as engagement and negotiation of meaning.
The technology that
supports the community is a Web-based multi-user
virtual environment
designed to support large numbers of education
professionals in a single
virtual place. An integrated set of
communication mechanisms (speaking,
whispering, paging, nonverbal
actions) and support tools (e.g., virtual
whiteboards, sharable
text documents, Web page projection, transcript
recorders) enable
users to be more expressive than with other types of
online tools.
See http://www.tappedin.or
g/info/pap
ers.html
Through TAPPED IN, educators can attend activities
hosted by
education organizations, conduct their own activities, take
online
courses, bring their students online, experiment with new ways
to
teach, or expand their circle of colleagues by participating
in
community-wide events (Nystrom, 1998; Gray, 1999). Since the
virtual doors
of TAPPED IN opened in 1997, it has become the online
home to a rapidly
growing community of more than 9,000 K-12 teachers,
librarians, teacher
education faculty, professional development
staff, researchers, and other
education professionals.
TAPPED IN has also demonstrated a viable
model for partnering
with, and supporting the online activities of, a wide
range of
teacher professional development grant projects, nationally
recognized
content and service providers, university teacher education
programs,
and school districts. Seventeen organizations have become
TAPPED
IN tenants. Scores of other organizations use TAPPED IN
facilities
on an as-needed basis for special events, courses, and
workshops.
Several university faculty incorporate TAPPED IN into their
courses
or teach an entire course through TAPPED IN.
TAPPED IN also
provides critical services to the community.
Our staff and volunteers from
the community help organization
leaders quickly and effectively plan and
conduct online activities
using our technology, often in conjunction with
face-to-face activities
and other online technologies. We alleviate much of
the burden
of training project participants to interact effectively
online
through our live, real-time, online Help Desk service and
through
authentic small-group online activities that teachers attend
before
their online project begins, thereby enabling the teachers
and
TPD staff to focus on learning content, not learning to
communicate.
Finally, TAPPED IN helps to knit together and fill in
the gaps
between isolated TPD projects by offering TPD projects a
shared
online environment where each can engage in its own online
activities,
but share expertise, resources, and technical support.
Because
TAPPED IN does not shut down when a project ends, we can
provide
continuing support to teachers whose TPD project has come to
an
end. More importantly, because TAPPED IN is open to any
K-12
education professional, those who are not fortunate enough
to participate
in formal projects can interact with those who
have and with other
education professionals outside of their local
confines. They can learn
about new ideas and emerging technologies
as professionals in other
professions do-through informal networking
with colleagues (Schlager,
2000).
Currently, computer-supported collaborative learning may
be
considered as a new context in itself, one presenting
additional
challenges and issues. For instance, practical questions such
as
the following are emerging:
1. Which tools with
which affordances of online interaction
exist that support deep teacher
learning?
2. How can online discussions be organized and moderated to
further
deep professional conversation?
- How to
foster "dialogue" (see Freire's sense of
dialogue)(12)
as a potentially
transformational experience?
- What new pedagogical
strategies does online learning provide
opportunity for?
- How can pedagogical strategies that deepen student learning
be
developed in the online environment?
3. How does the best we know
about pedagogy play out in an online
context? e.g., the importance of
building on prior knowledge?
Constructing ideas individually and
collaboratively? Sustained
time? Application of
understanding?
4. How do we determine what effective online
professional development
looks like?
5. How do structures and
strategies for building content knowledge
and building skills differ in
the online environment?
6. How do we support and sustain the online
communities of practice
(CoPs)?
7. What human and technical
infrastructures are needed to support
teacher
CoPs?
The development of a knowledge base for the
networked (or connected)
classroom is a knowledge-management issue in and
of itself that
the teaching profession is bound to face. Participation in
online
communities of practice makes sense to early adopters;
through
give-and-take practices, they are developing the online side
of
their professional identity.
The group that worked on this paper
had its share of knowledge-building
moments. Here are specific creative
uses of concepts and tools:
- Use of the
construct "collegial-online-dialogue".
Linda suggested
"the Community of Practice or even the activity
theory perspective,
i.e., that speakers/writers/readers need
to engage around a task or
artifact of their practice. She pointed
to the fact that there is enough
research from the 80s showing
us that most classrooms are dominated by
I-R-E exchanges (teacher
initiated question - student response -teacher
evaluation), and
added: Surely an I-R-E kind of interaction belies any
efforts
at classroom constructionism. Perhaps if teachers could engage
in collegial online dialogue about their own practice, illustrated
by
digital snippets, they might be open to a revisiting of their
own
classroom interactions. Seems like a possible proximal/next
development
in technology and teacher ed, no? It's not that technically
far-fetched,
and yet it does push us further along than current
tools and practices.
(View on Critical Issues, Note 62). Issues
of trust building, openness as
characteristic of the communication
process, and the development of
shared and quite specific learning
goals were also identified for
effective multimedia-online discussions.
(View on Critical Issues,
Therese, Note 70).
- Use of video artefacts/scenarios. An
example that was
offered is sharing of and dialoguing about classroom
video --snippets
of teachers' work. Surely this is growing increasingly
manageable
on the 'Net every month, was it noted. Ricki Goldman Segall's
Points of Viewing web site was mentioned as an example. It was
noted that
even here there's not a clear collaborative purpose
(http://cgi.pointsofvi
ewing.com/
lasso.acgi)
(View on Critical Issues, Linda, Note 62). Mary built on
this
suggestion: "In our group we have been using videotape more
and more extensively to document classroom participant structures
that
augment children's interactions in Knowledge Forum®.
This year we
have begun to help children become classroom ethnographers
as well. One
version of KF permits the inclusion of Quick Time
movies. By making them
a part of the database they then become
objects for discussion among
teachers and researchers (http://kf.oise.utoront
o.ca/Virtu
alTours/).
Our problem is a technical one because most schools don't
have
the broad band required for much video or the computers
needed."
(View on Critical Issues, Mary, Note 67). Raymond informed
us
that: "We've just submitted a proposal to the US Dept of
Ed
that would use online video scenarios as the primary source
material for
a national mathematic professional development effort.
(View on Critical
Issues, Linda, Note 72)
- Building a taxonomy of
online-dialogue functions: Horizontal
and vertical functions were
distinguished: 1) horizontal functions
such as: extension of f2f
conversations and exploration of additional
topics, and 2) vertical
functions such as: ongoing support, deepening
understanding (of a part,
of the whole), building collective
intelligence in a specific domain.
(View on Critical Issues,
Therese, Note 66)
- Combining f2f
and on-line interaction, local and global
communities. Site-based
professional development is highly
recommended for change to really
happen in classrooms. So, I
suggest that we provide some space for
site-based f2f interaction
in the white paper we develop. (View on
Critical Issues, Therese,
Note 73). Nancy added: "I agree that the
site is the center
for the staff development programs, but I
suspect that
the process must ultimately move beyond these borders.
Teachers
will need to form site communities of learning and global
communities.
(View on Critical Issues, Nancy, Note 74). Nancy provided
the
following testimony:
The Pepperdine Masters
program was 90% on-line. We started
the program with a face-to-face meeting
in Los Angeles in July.
This camp lasted one week and allowed members to
develop social/human
connections within the cadre. After our initial f2f
meeting, all
projects, classes, discussions, planning, etc. were carried
on
via the Internet. We utilized synchronous and asynchronous venues
that
were affordable and accessible to professors and students.
Our next f2f was
a technology conference in Florida. This f2f
was an opportunity to plan for
an integrated case study project.
The final f2f was during the presentation
of action research projects.
Are developing online communities
of practice one goal for
teacher professional development? If the goal is
to collaborate
through sharing of what works and doesn't work in the
classroom
then it is. Technology can be used to extend the forms and
meanings
of teacher action research. But, how does participating
within
slowly evolving communities advance teacher knowledge? This is
the
question posed by Bereiter (1999) who argues that there is
a split between
the cultures of teaching and of educational research.
To make teaching a
progressive enterprise we need to form a hybrid
culture where the cultures
of theory and practice come together
to solve common problems that require
the knowledge and talents
of both.
The advanced
practices of pioneer teachers in networked
classrooms
The
networked classroom (elementary, secondary or post-secondary
classroom)
presents possibilities, issues and challenges for pioneer
teachers.
Koschmann et al. put forward (1994) the six following
learning
principles (multiplicity, activeness, authenticity,
articulation,
termlessness(13)
, and discussion) for university graduates to learn
the skills
now expected of them in many fields, including teaching.
Greening
pointed (1998) to the application of those principles on
instructional
design for higher education.
Laffey, Musser, and
Tupper (1998) documented the first implementation
year, of an
Internet-based Journal System designed to support
the development of a
learning community, and CILT 2000 program
features a number of initiatives
being taken to support learning
communities.
When it comes to
pedagogical integration of learning technologies,
elementary classrooms
have nothing to envy from the quasi-totality
of post-secondary classrooms
(namely, teacher-educators' classrooms)
as regards equipment, access, and
student engagement(14)
. Pioneer teachers working in K-12 classrooms,
and in collaboration with
researchers (Brown, 1997; CTGV, 1997;
Gomez, 1999; Laferrière, 2000;
Lamon et al., 1996;
Lamon, Reeves and Caswell, 1999; Pea, 1999;
Scardamalia &
Bereiter, 1996; Schofield, 1995; Derry et al.,
2000; and
others) have developed leading-edge practices which are guided
by
the metaphor of the learner as a researcher, and WHICH FOCUS
ON DEEP
UNDERSTANDING AND TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING RELYING ON
INQUIRY- AND
PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING. In those classrooms where
collaborative knowledge
building is valued and implemented, striking
performances may be
observed.
Classroom knowledge building
communities
As one example taken from the CSILE project
(Scardamalia, Bereiter
& Lamon, 1994), knowledge building classrooms
function in
much the same way as scientific research teams. Students
work
collaboratively to create theories that help them understand
the
world. There is learning of scientific, historical, or literary
domains
through solving problems of understanding and because
students have formed,
criticized and amended their theories they
are able to go well beyond a
mere recitation of facts. An added
advantage of knowledge building as an
educational approach is
that it has value for living and working in a
knowledge society.
In the best of these classrooms, we see students taking
off with
an idea or project that carries them into intellectual realms
that
even adults find exciting. Students approach problems from
multiple
perspectives, work individually or collaboratively to
advance their
knowledge and are proud of being in charge of their
own learning. Students
work both face-to-face in small and large
groups and asynchronously using
Knowledge Forum®. Knowledge
Forum® is a participant constructed
database where students
enter their ideas making them explicit and setting
them in a context
where they are built on, cited, refined, summarized,
analyzed,
and improved. All members have access to the notes of all
other
members, and in this way individual contributions are raised to
the
level of significant knowledge resources.
The following scenario is
another example that applies to teacher
education:
Mary Roberts
is a student teacher in a fourth grade classroom.
Her master teacher has
asked her to observe and videotape a group
of students as they carry out a
science investigation to determine
when and under what conditions
condensation forms on the side
of a glass. The video will provide a way for
Mary and her master
teacher to look more closely at what the students do
and how their
understandings develop.
After class the
student teacher and master teacher view
the video together and share
observations. They also review the
students' written explanations about the
investigation. One student,
Richard, thought that water came through the
glass.
How can Mary help Richard to move his understanding
forward
within the context of inquiry? What questions might she pose?
What
steps might she encourage Richard to take?
The master teacher suggests that they use the online community
to assist in thinking about
the question. Mary posts the video
clip and student explanation to an
online forum where practicing
and student teachers share and interpret
actual teaching events
in a problem-based community. As part of the case
study, Mary
and her master teacher present an overview of the classroom
event
and two questions: What is the student's understanding? What
intervention
on Mary's part will further both Richard's inquiry and
conceptual
understanding? As the online discussion takes shape,
suggestions
are weighed and new questions are raised.
Doubler
et al. (1994) commented:
Teachers are also learners -
learners of practice. If we are to
support their efforts to teach science
well, we need to provide
forums in which they can do science in new ways,
reflect on their
own learning and consider implications for their own
classrooms.
If current theory is to reach the classroom, teachers must
have
more than awareness of current ideas. They must have action
knowledge
that can only come from experiencing active learning
themselves.
(p. 3)
Online experiences can provide the time and
structure for learning
how to take the stance of a particular discipline.
For example,
in Lesley/TERC online master's degree program teachers
further
their understanding of key science concepts through
scientific
inquiry:
Participants engage in sustained investigation
at their home
study site. In their online discussions they share
predictions,
investigation results, and explanations based on data that
they
have gathered. They then compare their findings and explanations
with
each other. Discrepancies often result in re-testing or using
new
investigation designs.
The asynchronous environment ensures that
everyone's ideas
are heard and that each individual has enough time to
formulate
and rethink hypotheses and explanations, and then to respond
to
each other's ideas. The need to explain scientific ideas in writing
for
others contributes to explicit understanding.
Program courses are
co-taught by a scientist and science educator.
The scientist helps
participants to take a scientific stance as
they address questions through
investigation. While participants
are expected to learn through discussion
with their study group,
one-on-one coaching between the scientist and
participants also
occurs.
Participants reflect on their own science
experiences and consider
implications for practice. Their final challenge
is to implement
new strategies into their teaching. These efforts are
shared and
supported through online discussion with colleagues and the
science
education facilitator.
Online professional development can
involve in-depth, sustained
study that provides direct access to experts
and state-of-the-art
resources.
We would add to this perspective by
referring back to Bereiter's
comments that to create a researcher/teacher
culture and to the
scenario above that the online community needs to
include more
than educators. Scardamalia (2000) is engaged in a design
experiment,
the Knowledge Society Network (KSN), which takes
collaborative
knowledge building to a new level--to a network-of-networks
of
knowledge-building communities. The KSN is an international
virtual
institute. Its participants represent cross-sector
communities
(schools, small businesses, universities, hospitals,
research
scientists). Communities are joined through partnerships and
shared
commitment to break down traditional organizational isolation
and
barriers. By making use of talents within and between
communities,
knowledge building is built into the dynamics by which
participants
communicate and pursue organizational goals. For example,
elementary
school social-studies communities might work with high
school
social-studies communities, and they in turn with social
scientists
in various community organizations. There is no
predetermined
alignment; communities may find their cutting edge in
unanticipated
places. The process common to everyone is knowledge
advancement.
Their work to date suggests that it is better to think in
terms
of interleaved or nested communities, rather than one global
community,
and to support multiple and diverse forms of
interaction.
Wall-less schools and
classrooms
"During the past century, Americans
increasingly came
to associate learning with schooling and competence with
credentials
(Spady, 2000)". The common educational experience for
most
people is school. School is the institution that delivers the
formal
learning experiences. Students have traditionally gone
to school
meaning students travel physically to the school
building. Within school,
formal learning experiences are organized
as courses. Each course is a set
of structured activities arranged
in a linear sequence through which
students are expected to move
more or less together as a group.
The
term "school," brings with it the image of a
building where
students go to get their education. There
may be different physical
buildings for different types of education,
and there are different levels
of school, but generally people
"go to" school. And the learning
this system values
typically happen in courses and classes. Sometimes
learning takes
place in the informal learning environment of the school
institution
in the community-building activities that include a
variety of
social and less formal gatherings, however these are most
frequently
considered ancillary to the core curricular goals.
The
ubiquity of computers and the Internet is changing what
we think of as
learning activities, where they occur, and who
provides them. Technology
makes it possible to communicate rapidly
across great distances, and has
changed what it means to "go
to" school. Our understanding of how
individuals learn continues
to evolve as we develop technologies that make
use of this new
knowledge creating an upward spiral. Formal learning has
always
had time conditions on it courses had to take a
certain
(specified) length of time, and the effective rigor of the
course
is often as much a function of the time a student devotes to it
as
the content itself.
The next generation of online learning
tools
The next generation of online learning tools could move
away
from the constraints of the traditional concepts of school,
course,
and class, while at the same time providing a way to
accommodate
those metaphors. Learning can take place anywhere and any
time.
Technology can enable formal learning experiences to take
place
anywhere and any time. Present day schools have a problem now
in
classifying and capturing a range of learning experiences that
are not part
of courses or classes. But, it's clear, especially
in business training,
learning events are more commonly of shorter
duration.
Two
distinctly different tools are needed. The first is a modular
course
delivery platform. It needs to be fully cross-platform
at the desktop level
for both students and instructors -- and
must be designed to be compatible
with the accessibility tools
available today. It's clear that(15) the Americans With
Disability Act (ADA)
applies to access issues with online courses as it
supports learning
for all students.
"Feature wars" play a
large role in defining the
features of every product, however to deliver
all the features
of every other potential competitor and those unique to a
particular
platform places increasingly greater demands on learning
institutions
to upgrade hardware and infrastructure in what is
effectively
a losing battle. Modularity is important so the platform can
be
customized to meet particular course needs, and to maintain
flexibility,
and enable incremental upgrades to individual modules as the
technology
changes. At the same time, it's important to maintain the UI
(user
interface) across the modules.
Now platforms are primarily
synchronous or asynchronous, with
some minor support given to the other
approach. They must support
both approaches equally. Customization of the
modules is where
the platform can be directed to be more synchronous or
asynchronous.
The online text-based discussion is currently a
critical vehicle
for online courses, but it's not necessarily the strongest
element
of the current asynchronous products. The threaded
discussion
should support not just discussion between the participants,
it
also needs to support the community-building aspects of the
online
course. To this end the platform should provide thumb-nail
graphics
of the authors as an option, and should have a single-click
to
link to the information page about the author of each posting.
There
should be an easy way to change the filter for the sorting
messages which
can be done on the threads as well as navigational
aids. A graphical map
that shows the position of the current message
within a thread is
important, as is the ease of moving up and
down a thread. It should be able
to display the target message
that is being replied to when composing as
well as displaying
the target when reading a reply (e.g. VGroups in
Virtual-U).
One of our key learnings over the past years has been;
it doesn't
matter how the program is designed, or what use the
developer
had for the whole tool, or just a feature; someone will come
along
and use it in an unanticipated way. We know it's
unanticipated
because it always elicits a "why did you do that?"
response
from the developer.
The key is a delivery platform with
unlimited flexibility and
the ability of the instructor and ultimately the
system administrator
to control the feature set available for the learning
environment.
It should be possible to adapt the feature set, mid-course
not
just prior to building the learning events. There has to be control
at
the administrative level, in case there are organizational
absolutes that
either must be present, or shouldn't ever be used.
Experience with teachers
shows that even when there are clear
policies about procedures, they don't
always get followed. Administrative
control can't be overridden at the
instructor level and yet the
system should facilitate the communication of
instructor and learner
needs to the system administrator.
The
content delivery platform needs to fit within an institutional
context. As
such it needs to provide:
- large-scale automated
student registration,
- integration with institutional
record-keeping systems (e.g.
grading, transcripts)
- a link to all
the courses an individual student has registered
for,
-
organizational and personal calendar,
- institutional announcements,
and
- institutional community organizations and structures, and
- links and hooks for e-commerce billing.
The
management structure also needs to help manage the structure
of a formal
instructional program. The key to program management
would be to keep track
of a variety of different grain-sized learning
events. For management and
economic reasons, institutions tend
to organize events around a common
institutional schedule and
require the individual to fit into the
organization's schedule.
Technology provides more flexibility and those
institutions that
cater to individual needs will have a market advantage.
The "anywhere,
any place" metaphor will have a very different
meaning.
To describe the management system we need to create a
metaphor,
because the implementation can take a variety of different
forms.
Our metaphor is marbles. Every acceptable learning event that
could
make up a program would be assigned a value in marbles,
and/or a
pre-requisite learning activity. Marbles could have different
colors, to
designate specific learning strand categories. A formal
degree program
might require a total of 250 marbles, with a required
distribution between
five colors (black for basic or core activities,
blue for related
activities, red for content concentration, yellow
for personal enhancement,
and green for community building activities).
An individual learning event
might have a three different marbles
attached to it, two black and one red.
Another activity might
only have a single yellow marble. Activities that
required more
intense commitment could have more marbles than more casual
learning
events.
There would be nothing in this model that would
preclude a
mix of content delivery techniques, or granularities. On the
other
hand, this approach might encourage a change away from a set
of
courses that needed to fit into an organizational calendar.
Individuals
in a hurry might look for a path through the marbles that
would
have them collecting the "right" combination quickly,
while
someone else could meander through the learning events paying
more
attention to personal development than to program
completion.
Conclusion
The reconceptualization
of the classroom as a learning community
allows early adopters to engage in
innovative practices as they
combine face-to-face and online learning
activities for themselves
and for students. Pedagogical problems come to
the forefront,
and technology fades in the background; it has become a
support
tool for a more challenging teaching task.
This challenging
teaching task is knowledge building. Access
to online professional
development could provide teachers with
1) quick, just-in-time
information about a program they are using,
a topic of study, specific
pedagogical issues such as supporting
students with special needs,
2)
it can provide opportunity for colleague-to-colleague learning
in which
teachers share ideas and strategies and consider specific
classroom case
studies,
3) it can provide access to current data and resources of a
field,
e.g., up-to-the-minute scientific data and how to use this data
to
further student learning,
4) it can provide opportunities for deep,
sustained and rigorous
professional learning. For example, in the area of
science, teachers
who have not experienced scientific inquiry in their own
learning
can engage in sustained inquiry to develop new understandings
of
science concepts. This can be supported by experts-practicing
scientists
who coach teachers as they take a scientific stance
in their own learning
thus developing a new understanding of the
discipline, its questions, and
how the discipline goes about answering
its questions.
So online
professional development can serve multiple purposes.
But, in each case,
the mantra is serious knowledge building that
goes beyond what happens in
face-to-face experiences. If we are
not thinking in these terms, we are not
exploiting the opportunity
we have to rethinking and improve professional
learning.
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1 See
Donald
Schön's espoused theory and theory-in-use concepts
(1983).
2
Heather-Jane
Robertson, Canadian Teachers Federation, wrote the
following book:
No More Teachers, No More Books : The Commercialization
of Canada's
Schools, 1999.
3 Some
needs, likely not to be much related
to the new theory of learning,
are currently met through online learning
offered at virtual places
such as ICONnect
(http://www.ala.or
g/ICONN/ib
asicsschedule.html),
and Global Connections (http://www.nsglobalonline.com/);
the l
atter offers Web-based training program to K-12 teachers
to
effectively integrate the Internet into their existing
curriculums.
The Telecampus' database includes more than 250 online
courses
related to technology integration and the use of
information
and communication technologies (http://course
s.telecamp
us.edu/index.cfm?query=142).
Teachers' professional associations are
also developing online
learning activities. For instance, the
Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development's (ASCD) Web site
features interactive
lessons that have been specially designed for
Web-based training.
And networks may be joined: Fermilab
Leadership Institute is
creating a network of educational leaders who
pursue the integration
of Internet with instruction and curriculum
(http://www-ed.fnal.gov
/lincon/in
dex.html).
4 See
Dufour & Eaker (1998) on teachers'
professional communities.
5 Some
teacher networks have added an online
dimension to their professional
development activities; Lieberman &
Grolnick (1996) mentioned
electronic networking and conferences.
However, most teacher
networks devoted to the improvement of
teachers' knowledge, motivation,
and school reform are not primarily
computer-supported; see the
descriptive analysis provided by
Firestone and Pennell (1997)
of the two state-sponsored networks,
California and Vermont.
6 In
Canada, the Education Network of Ontario
(ENO, http://www.enoreo.on.ca
) has
developed online support activities, and formed communities
of interest. An
estimated number of 5 000-6 000 teachers are
considered to be
regular participants.
7 The
use of electronic networks in teacher
education goes back to Merseth
(1988, 1990), and Bull et al.
(1989).
8
Dobson (1996) reports on US tele-mentoring activities;
Ashton
& Levy (1998) on reference assistance and skill training in
the
EU.
9
Watts
& Castle (1992) suggested electronic networks as a means
of
constituting communities of practice in teacher education;
exploratory
research followed (Blanton et al., 1993,
1996).
10 See the OECD study
(in progress) on
the story of such schools which assembled conditions that
contributed
to their advancement in the successful integration of
ICTs.
11
In
their study of collaborative teacher research, Knight,
Wiseman,
& Cooner (2000) do not mention any significant use of
online
conversation for collaborative-knowledge-building
purposes.
12 Dialogue
rather than just
"conversation" or chat: "We have
seen researchers comment on
the failure of online interaction
in listservs or threaded news groups to
support or rise above
simple Q&A about procedural (rather
than conceptual) knowledge:
how do you show; where can I get;
etc."
13
In
rich domains, the emphasis is to be put on the learning
process
rather than on the product.
14 The
networked computers that are installed
in elementary classrooms
outgrow by far those installed in post-secondary
classrooms of
pioneered teachers. In one-computer classroom,
elementary students
are also more likely to access the computer
that post-secondary
students.
15 Congress's
1997 amendments to the
Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) a federal law passed in
1975 and reauthorized in 1990,
mandates that all children receive a free,
appropriate public
education regardless of the level or
severity of their disability.
Law
101-336. The Americans with
Disabilities Act, Public Law 336 of the
101st Congress, enacted
July 26, 1990. The ADA prohibits
discrimination and ensures equal
opportunity for persons with disabilities
in employment, State
and local government services, public
accommodations, commercial
facilities, and transportation. It also
mandates the establishment
of TDD/telephone relay
services.
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