Module 5 – Techno-pedagogical content knowledge 204

Module 5 – Techno-pedagogical content knowledge (15hrs)

5.1. Ways to link technology to pedagogical content knowledge

5.2.Innovative ways of teaching – web based learning, virtual classroom, blog creation, use of smart boards

5.1. WAYS TO LINK TECHNOLOGY TO PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE       

Teacher knowledge for technology integration is  called technological pedagogical content knowledge (originally TPCK, now known as TPACK, or technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge). This framework builds on Lee Shulman’s construct of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to include technology knowledge. The development of TPACK by teachers is critical to effective teaching with technology.

The TPACK framework for teacher knowledge is described in detail, as a complex interaction among three bodies of knowledge: Content, pedagogy, and technology. The interaction of these bodies of knowledge, both theoretically and in practice, produces the types of flexible knowledge needed to successfully integrate technology use into teaching.

 Relevance       

  As educators know, teaching is a complicated practice that requires an interweaving of many kinds of specialized knowledge. Effective teaching depends on flexible access to rich, well-organized and integrated knowledge from different domains, including knowledge of student thinking and learning, knowledge of subject matter, and increasingly, knowledge of technology.

The Challenges of Teaching With Technology

Teaching with technology is complicated further considering the challenges newer technologies present to teachers. In our work, the word technology applies equally to analog and digital, as well as new and old, technologies. As a matter of practical significance, however, most of the technologies under consideration in current literature are newer and digital and have some inherent properties that make applying them in straightforward ways difficult.

Most traditional pedagogical technologies are characterized by specificity (a pencil is for writing, while a microscope is for viewing small objects); stability (pencils, pendulums, and chalkboards have not changed a great deal over time); and transparency of function (the inner workings of the pencil or the pendulum are simple and directly related to their function) (Simon, 1969). Over time, these technologies achieve a transparency of perception (Bruce & Hogan, 1998); they become commonplace and, in most cases, are not even considered to be technologies. Digital technologies—such as computers, handheld devices, and software applications—by contrast, are protean (usable in many different ways; Papert, 1980); unstable (rapidly changing); and opaque (the inner workings are hidden from users; Turkle, 1995).On an academic level, it is easy to argue that a pencil and a software simulation are both technologies. The latter, however, is qualitatively different in that its functioning is more opaque to teachers and offers fundamentally less stability than more traditional technologies. By their very nature, newer digital technologies, which are protean, unstable, and opaque, present new challenges to teachers who are struggling to use more technology in their teaching.

Also complicating teaching with technology is an understanding that technologies are neither neutral nor unbiased. Rather, particular technologies have their own propensities, potentials, affordances, and constraints that make them more suitable for certain tasks than others (Bromley, 1998; Bruce, 1993; Koehler & Mishra, 2008). Using email to communicate, for example, affords (makes possible and supports) asynchronous communication and easy storage of exchanges. Email does not afford synchronous communication in the way that a phone call, a face-to-face conversation, or instant messaging does. Nor does email afford the conveyance of subtleties of tone, intent, or mood possible with face-to-face communication. Understanding how these affordances and constraints of specific technologies influence what teachers do in their classrooms is not straightforward and may require rethinking teacher education and teacher professional development. 

Social and contextual factors also complicate the relationships between teaching and technology. Social and institutional contexts are often unsupportive of teachers’ efforts to integrate technology use into their work. Teachers often have inadequate (or  inappropriate) experience with using digital technologies for teaching and learning. Many teachers earned degrees at a time when educational technology was at a very different stage of development than it is today. It is, thus, not surprising that they do not consider themselves sufficiently prepared to use technology in the classroom and often do not appreciate its value or relevance to teaching and learning. Acquiring a new knowledge base and skill set can be challenging, particularly if it is a time-intensive activity that must fit into a busy schedule. Moreover, this knowledge is unlikely to be used unless teachers can conceive of technology uses that are consistent with their existing pedagogical beliefs (Ertmer, 2005). Furthermore, teachers have often been provided with inadequate training for this task. Many approaches to teachers’ professional development offer a onesize-fits-all approach to technology integration when, in fact, teachers operate in diverse contexts of teaching and learning. 

An Approach to Thinking About Technology Integration

Faced with these challenges, how can teachers integrate technology into their teaching? An approach is needed that treats teaching as an interaction between what teachers know and how they apply what they know in the unique circumstances or contexts within their classrooms. There is no “one best way” to integrate technology into curriculum. Rather, integration efforts should be creatively designed or structured for particular subject matter ideas in specific classroom contexts. Honoring the idea that teaching with technology is a complex, ill-structured task, we propose that understanding approaches to successful technology integration requires educators to develop new ways of comprehending and accommodating this complexity. 

At the heart of good teaching with technology are three core components: content, pedagogy, and technology, plus the relationships among and between them. The interactions between and among the three components, playing out differently across diverse contexts, account for the wide variations seen in the extent and quality of educational technology integration. These three knowledge bases (content, pedagogy, and technology) form the core of the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework. An overview of the framework is provided in the following section, though more detailed descriptions may be found elsewhere (e.g., Koehler & 2008; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). This perspective is consistent with that of other researchers and approaches that have attempted to extend Shulman’s idea of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to include educational technology. (A comprehensive list of such approaches can be found at http://www.tpck.org/.)

The TPACK Framework

The TPACK framework builds on Shulman’s (1987, 1986) descriptions of PCK to describe how teachers’ understanding of educational technologies and PCK interact with one another to produce effective teaching with technology. Other authors have discussed similar ideas, though often using different labeling schemes. The conception of TPACK described here has developed over time and through a series of publications, with the most complete descriptions of the framework found in Mishra and Koehler (2006) and Koehler and Mishra (2008). 

In this model (see Figure 1), there are three main components of teachers’ knowledge: content, pedagogy, and technology. Equally important to the model are the interactions between and among these bodies of knowledge, represented as PCK, TCK (technological content knowledge), TPK (technological pedagogicalknowledge), and TPACK. 

The TPACK framework and its knowledge components.

i)Content Knowledge 

Content knowledge (CK) is teachers’ knowledge about the subject matter to be learned or taught. The content to be covered in middle school science or history is different from the content to be covered in an undergraduate course on art appreciation or a graduate seminar on astrophysics. Knowledge of content is of critical importance for teachers. As Shulman (1986) noted, this knowledge would include knowledge of concepts, theories, ideas, organizational frameworks, knowledge of evidence and proof, as well as established practices and approaches toward developing such knowledge. Knowledge and the nature of inquiry differ greatly between fields, and teachers should understand the deeper knowledge fundamentals of the disciplines in which they teach. In the case of science, for example, this would include knowledge of scientific facts and theories, the scientific method, and evidence-based reasoning. In the case of art appreciation, such knowledge would include knowledge of art history, famous paintings, sculptures, artists and their historical contexts, as well as knowledge of aesthetic and psychological theories for evaluating art. 

The cost of not having a comprehensive base of content knowledge can be prohibitive; for example, students can receive incorrect information and develop misconceptions about the content area (National Research Council, 2000; Pfundt, & Duit, 2000). Yet content knowledge, in and of itself, is an ill-structured domain, and as the culture wars (Zimmerman, 2002), the Great Books controversies (Bloom, 1987; Casement, 1997; Levine, 1996), and court battles over the teaching of evolution (Pennock, 2001) demonstrate, issues relating to curriculum content can be areas of significant contention and disagreement. 

ii)Pedagogical Knowledge 

Pedagogical knowledge (PK) is teachers’ deep knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching and learning. They encompass, among other things, overall educational purposes, values, and aims. This generic form of knowledge applies to understanding how students learn, general classroom management skills, lesson planning, and student assessment. It includes knowledge about techniques or methods used in the classroom; the nature of the target audience; and strategies for evaluating student understanding. A teacher with deep pedagogical knowledge understands how students construct knowledge and acquire skills and how they develop habits of mind and positive dispositions toward learning. As such, pedagogical knowledge requires an understanding of cognitive, social, and developmental theories of learning and how they apply to students in the classroom.

iii)Pedagogical Content Knowledge 

PCK is consistent with and similar to Shulman’s idea of knowledge of pedagogy that is applicable to the teaching of specific content. Central to Shulman’s conceptualization of PCK is the notion of the transformation of the subject matter for teaching. Specifically, according to Shulman (1986), this transformation occurs as the teacher interprets the subject matter, finds multiple ways to represent it, and adapts and tailors the instructional materials to alternative conceptions and students’ prior knowledge. PCK covers the core business of teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment and reporting, such as the conditions that promote learning and the links among curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy. An awareness of common misconceptions and ways of looking at them, the importance of forging connections among different content-based ideas, students’ prior knowledge, alternative teaching strategies, and the flexibility that comes from exploring alternative ways of looking at the same idea or problem are all essential for effective teaching. 

iv)Technology Knowledge 

Technology knowledge (TK) is always in a state of flux—more so than the other two core knowledge domains in the TPACK framework (pedagogy and content). Thus, defining it is notoriously difficult. Any definition of technology knowledge is in danger of becoming outdated by the time this text has been published. That said, certain ways of thinking about and working with technology can apply to all technology tools and resources. 

The definition of TK used in the TPACK framework is close to that of Fluency of Information Technology (FITness), as proposed by the Committee of Information Technology Literacy of the National Research Council (NRC, 1999). They argue that FITness goes beyond traditional notions of computer literacy to require that persons understand information technology broadly enough to apply it productively at work and in their everyday lives, to recognize when information technology can assist or impede the achievement of a goal, and to continually adapt to changes in information technology. FITness, therefore, requires a deeper, more essential understanding and mastery of information technology for information processing, communication, and problem solving than does the traditional definition of computer literacy. Acquiring TK in this manner enables a person to accomplish a variety of different tasks using information technology and to develop different ways of accomplishing a given task. This conceptualization of TK does not posit an “end state,” but rather sees it developmentally, as evolving over a lifetime of generative, open-ended interaction with technology.

Technological Content Knowledge 

Technology and content knowledge have a deep historical relationship. Progress in fields as diverse as medicine, history, archeology, and physics have coincided with the development of new technologies that afford the representation and manipulation of data in new and fruitful ways. Consider Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays or the technique of carbon-14 dating and the influence of these technologies in the fields of medicine and archeology. Consider also how the advent of the digital computer changed the nature of physics and mathematics and placed a greater emphasis on the role of simulation in understanding phenomena. Technological changes have also offered new metaphors for understanding the world. Viewing the heart as a pump, or the brain as an informationprocessing machine are just some of the ways in which technologies have provided new perspectives for understanding phenomena. These representational and metaphorical connections are not superficial. They often have led to fundamental changes in the natures of the disciplines. 

Understanding the impact of technology on the practices and knowledge of a given discipline is critical to developing appropriate technological tools for educational purposes. The choice of technologies affords and constrains the types of content ideas that can be taught. Likewise, certain content decisions can limit the types of technologies that can be used. Technology can constrain the types of possible representations, but also can afford the construction of newer and more varied representations. Furthermore, technological tools can provide a greater degree of flexibility in navigating across these representations. 

TCK, then, is an understanding of the manner in which technology and content influence and constrain one another. Teachers need to master more than the subject matter they teach; they must also have a deep understanding of the manner in which the subject matter (or the kinds of representations that can be constructed) can be changed by the application of particular technologies. Teachers need to understand which specific technologies are best suited for addressing subject-matter learning in their domains and how the content dictates or perhaps even changes the technology—or vice versa. 

Technological Pedagogical Knowledge 

TPK is an understanding of how teaching and learning can change when particular technologies are used in particular ways. This includes knowing the pedagogical affordances and constraints of a range of technological tools as they relate to disciplinarily and developmentally appropriate pedagogical designs and strategies. To build TPK, a deeper understanding of the constraints and affordances of technologies and the disciplinary contexts within which they function is needed. 

For example, consider how whiteboards may be used in classrooms. Because a whiteboard is typically immobile, visible to many, and easily editable, its uses in classrooms are presupposed. Thus, the whiteboard is usually placed at the front of the classroom and is controlled by the teacher. This location imposes a particular physical order in the classroom by determining the placement of tables and chairs and framing the nature of student-teacher interaction, since students often can use it only when called upon by the teacher. However, it would be incorrect to say that there is only one way in which whiteboards can be used. One has only to compare the use of a whiteboard in a brainstorming meeting in an advertising agency setting to see a rather different use of this technology. In such a setting, the whiteboard is not under the purview of a single individual. It can be used by anybody in the group, and it becomes the focal point around which discussion and the negotiation/construction of meaning occurs. An understanding of the affordances of technology and how they can be leveraged differently according to changes in context and purposes is an important part of understanding TPK. 

TPK becomes particularly important because most popular software programs are not designed for educational purposes. Software programs such as the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Entourage, and MSN Messenger) are usually designed for business environments. Web-based technologies such as blogs or podcasts are designed for purposes of entertainment, communication, and social networking. Teachers need to reject functional fixedness (Duncker, 1945) and develop skills to look beyond most common uses for technologies, reconfiguring them for customized pedagogical purposes. Thus, TPK requires a forward-looking, creative, and open-minded seeking of technology use, not for its own sake but for the sake of advancing student learning and understanding. 

Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge

TPACK is an emergent form of knowledge that goes beyond all three “core” components (content, pedagogy, and technology). Technological pedagogical content knowledge is an understanding that emerges from interactions among content, pedagogy, and technology knowledge. Underlying truly meaningful and deeply skilled teaching with technology, TPACK is different from knowledge of all three concepts individually. Instead, TPACK is the basis of effective teaching with technology, requiring an understanding of the representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face; knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones. 

By simultaneously integrating knowledge of technology, pedagogy and content, expert teachers bring TPACK into play any time they teach. Each situation presented to teachers is a unique combination of these three factors, and accordingly, there is no single technological solution that applies for every teacher, every course, or every view of teaching. Rather, solutions lie in the ability of a teacher to flexibly navigate the spaces defined by the three elements of content, pedagogy, and technology and the complex interactions among these elements in specific contexts. Ignoring the complexity inherent in each knowledge component or the complexities of the relationships among the components can lead to oversimplified solutions or failure. Thus, teachers need to develop fluency and cognitive flexibility not just in each of the key domains (T, P, and C), but also in the manner in which these domains and contextual parameters interrelate, so that they can construct effective solutions. This is the kind of deep, flexible, pragmatic, and nuanced understanding of teaching with technology we involved in considering TPACK as a professional knowledge construct. 

The act of seeing technology, pedagogy, and content as three interrelated knowledge bases is not straightforward. As said before,

… separating the three components (content, pedagogy, and technology) … is an analytic act and one that is difficult to tease out in practice. In actuality, these components exist in a state of dynamic equilibrium or, as the philosopher Kuhn (1977) said in a different context, in a state of ‘‘essential tension’’…. Viewing any of these components in isolation from the others represents a real disservice to good teaching. Teaching and learning with technology exist in a dynamic transactional relationship (Bruce, 1997;

Dewey & Bentley, 1949; Rosenblatt, 1978) between the three components in our framework; a change in any one of the factors has to be ‘‘compensated’’ by changes in the other two. (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, p. 1029) 

This compensation is most evident whenever using a new educational technology suddenly forces teachers to confront basic educational issues and reconstruct the dynamic equilibrium among all three elements. This view inverts the conventional perspective that pedagogical goals and technologies are derived from content area curricula. Things are rarely that simple, particularly when newer technologies are employed. The introduction of the Internet, for example – particularly the rise of online learning – is an example of the arrival of a technology that forced educators to think about core pedagogical issues, such as how to represent content on the Web and how to connect students with subject matter and with one another (Peruski & Mishra, 2004). 

Teaching with technology is a difficult thing to do well. The TPACK framework suggests that content, pedagogy, technology, and teaching/learning contexts have roles to play individually and together. Teaching successfully with technology requires continually creating, maintaining, and re-establishing a dynamic equilibrium among all components. It is worth noting that a range of factors influences how this equilibrium is reached. 

Implications of the TPACK Framework

We have argued that teaching is a complex, ill-structured domain. Underlying this complexity, however, are three key components of teacher knowledge: understanding of content, understanding of teaching, and understanding of technology. The complexity of technology integration comes from an appreciation of the rich connections of knowledge among these three components and the complex ways in which these are applied in multifaceted and dynamic classroom contexts.

Since the late 1960’s a strand of educational research has aimed at understanding and explaining “how and why the observable activities of teachers’ professional lives take on the forms and functions they do” (Clark & Petersen, 1986, p. 255; Jackson, 1968). A primary goal of this research is to understand the relationships between two key domains: (a) teacher thought processes and knowledge and (b) teachers’ actions and their observable effects. The current work on the TPACK framework seeks to extend this tradition of research and scholarship by bringing technology integration into the kinds of knowledge that teachers need to consider when teaching. The TPACK framework seeks to assist the development of better techniques for discovering and describing how technology-related professional knowledge is implemented and instantiated in practice. By better describing the types of knowledge teachers need (in the form of content, pedagogy, technology, contexts and their interactions), educators are in a better position to understand the variance in levels of technology integration occurring.

In addition, the TPACK framework offers several possibilities for promoting research in teacher education, teacher professional development, and teachers’ use of technology. It offers options for looking at a complex phenomenon like technology integration in ways that are now amenable to analysis and development. Moreover, it allows teachers, researchers, and teacher educators to move beyond oversimplified approaches that treat technology as an “add-on” instead to focus again, and in a more ecological way, upon the connections among technology, content, and pedagogy as they play out in classroom contexts. 

References:

 Matthew J. Koehler and Punya Mishra Michigan State University,  Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1)

WEB-BASED EDUCATION {WBE)

WBE is an important and fast growing segment of educational technology. It largely overlaps with the field of e-Learning, but it must be noted that learning represents only one aspect of education. WBE covers many other educational services, such as teaching, authoring, assessment, collaboration, and so on. Nowadays, most of distance education is implemented as WBE and use of virtual classrooms. There is a lot of technological issues involved there, but it must be never forgotten that the ultimate goal of WBE is increasing the learning opportunities and efficiency, not the technology itself. In learner-centered design of WBE, educational workflows determine desired functionalities of WBE systems and quality of service provided to the learners is crucial to success or failure of any such a system. Two important ways of increasing the quality of service of WBE systems and thus the likelihood of their success are to make them intelligent and adaptive. Intelligent tutoring systems already have a long tradition and recently often make a synergy with WBE. Adaptive educational hypermedia systems use many different techniques to adapt content delivery to individual learners according to their learning characteristics, preferences, styles, and goals. However, there are several problems with WBE that both teachers and learners face (Devedzic, 2003a). Educational material on the Web is still highly unstructured, heterogeneous, and distributed as everything else on the Web, and current learning and authoring tools offer limited support for accessing and processing such material. The main burden of organizing and linking the learning contents on the Web, as well as extracting and interpreting them, is on the human user. Next-generation WBE applications should exhibit more theory- and content-oriented intelligence and adaptivity, pay more attention to interoperability, reusability, and knowledge sharing issues, and look more closely to general trends in Web development. New fields of research and development, such as Semantic Web and Web intelligence, provide means for representing, organizing, and interconnecting knowledge of human educators in a machine-understandable and machine-processable form, as well as for creating intelligent Web-based services for teachers and learners. The following chapters discuss extensively how to use the results and technology of these other fields to make WBE more effective and more appealing to learners, teachers, and authors alike. Specifically, the chapters that follow introduce Semantic Web technologies and explain common prerequisites for creating intelligent WBE systems and applications. They also describe the kinds of intelligent WBE services that such systems should support and how to ensure for such support. They attempt to answer many practical questions of both engineering and instructional importance. For example, how can a search engine from the sea of educational Web pages select automatically those of most value to the authors, teachers, and learners in pursuing their educational goals?

Informally, Web-based education {WBE) encompasses all aspects and processes of education that use World Wide Web as a communication medium and supporting technology. There are many other terms for WBE; some of them are online education, virtual education, Internet-based education, and education via computer-mediated communication (Paulsen, 2003). Adapting from (Keegan, 1995) and (Paulsen, 2003), it can be said that WBE is characterized by: • the separation of teachers and learners (which distinguishes it from faceto-face education); • the influence of an educational organization (which distinguishes it from self-study and private tutoring); • the use of Web technologies to present and/or distribute some educational content; • the provision of two-way communication via the Internet, so that students may benefit from communication with each other, teachers, and staff. Since 1990s, Web-based education has become a very important branch of educational technology. For learners, it provides access to information and knowledge sources that are practically unlimited, enabling a number of opportunities for personalized learning, tele-learning, distance-learning, and collaboration, with clear advantages of classroom independence and platform independence (Brusilovsky, 1999). On the other hand, teachers and authors of educational material can use numerous possibilities for Web based course offering and tele-teaching, availability of authoring tools for developing Web-based courseware, and cheap and efficient storage and distribution of course materials, hyperlinks to suggested readings, digital libraries, and other sources of references relevant for the course (Devedzic, 2003a, 2003b). There is a number of important concepts related to Web-based education, such as e-Learning, distance education, and adaptive learning.

E-learning is defined as any use of technology for learning outside the boundaries of the physical classroom The growth of the Internet is bringing online education to people in corporations, institutes of higher learning, the government and other sectors [Hall, Brandon.20001]. The challenge of technology today is capturing information and building useful and meaningful databases whose contents are retrievable when and where needed. Both information technology and telecommunications are driving the need for e-learning and at the same time creating the means to accomplish it..

The Corporate University. In the knowledge economy, corporate universities and learning organizations are playing mission-critical roles within the organization. While some learning organizations may take traditional classroom approaches, others are using the benefits of e-learning to meet corporate objectives. Examples of other elearning implementations within the enterprise include using technology to train technology, new product introductions, tracking regulatory compliance, on-demand task or skill references, degree programs from online universities and IT certifications.

Depending on the complexity of the topic and the individual skill level, some students learn faster or slower than others. E-learning allows students to learn at their own pace. The slower student can review course material as often as necessary, redoing exercises or simulations until the information converts to knowledge. An average of 50% time savings has been found when comparing time-to-learn in a classroom versus on a computer.

The scalability of e-learning allows one course to train thousands of students, as opposed to the ratios of 1 to 20 in the more traditional classes.

Computer-based training reduces the total cost of training when compared with instructor-led training. The total cost of training includes the cost of development and the cost of delivery. Interactive training has a higher cost of development and a lower cost of delivery, while traditional training has a lower cost of development and a higher cost of delivery. The lower delivery cost for interactive training results primarily from a reduction in training time and the elimination of travel. A positive return on investment requires a training population large enough for the savings in delivery to offset the development cost.

There is very strong evidence that computer-based training results in an equal or higher quality of learning over traditional instruction. A number of scientific studies have investigated this issue. The settings for the studies have included business and industry, the military, higher education institutions and elementary schools.

The Learning Management System

The most important foundation for e-learning in your organization is a learning management system (LMS). A learning management system provides the infrastructure and database from which employees may quickly tap e-learning courses, registration and needs assessment, as well as receive just-in-time training.

The infrastructure for e-learning gives managers the ability to track usage and scores, enable online registration, deliver courses and update calendars as needed. Learning management systems also can incorporate e-commerce to track payments from customers. Courses can be created once, then distributed to thousands of students simultaneously using LANs, WANs or the Internet.

Training has play an integral role in overall organizational strategy. E-culture is the synergy among e-learning, knowledge management, and performance support and management practices. To implement e-learning effectively, organization has first develop or adapt a clear vision of optimising learning, knowledge and performance and how current technology can activate this vision. The vision increases company’s openness to change. Change is the reason and the fuel for e-learning.

 Successful e-learning implementations confirm the need to combine the impact of standard enterprise-wide activities with flexible and quick local innovations and efforts. The best-practice organizations are using e-learning in all topic areas -- new product training, management development, leadership, sales, service, manufacturing.• Packaged courseware providers • Custom developers • Own internal development.

                   E-learning is not about using the latest technology to replace the classroom. Nor is it about posting content on the Web to be downloaded or read. E-learning provides a new set of tools that can add value to all of the traditional learning modes - from classroom experiences to learning from books.

As learning moves closer to the job, blended instruction addresses the need for more just-in-time and project-based learning, performance support, open and distance learning, expert assistance and a generally greater variety of events and experiences.

It is important to say, that classroom-based training will continue to play an important role for a few reasons: 1. It is the best delivery approach for certain types of high-level learning, 2. It is the way some people prefer to learn and it is still the way many trainers prefer to teach.

In the issue • Understand the challenges of e-learning for your department. • An e-learning implementation can be difficult. It is necessary to invest significantly in planning and strategy development. Each organization's elearning plan is very specific to its own context. • Use templates and "learning objects" which allow for reuse of content in various courses with the aim to save money and time. • Interactive training has a higher cost of development and a lower cost of delivery, while traditional training has a lower cost of development and a higher cost of delivery. • Learning portals are Web sites that create a learning community and provide access to content and learning resources.

Note: Read more about learning in new economy in case studies and Internet resources. Carry out the activity “Learning place in the new economy” described in the course HTML format.

Use of Educational Technologies

To identify appropriate use of new information technologies (IT) and clarify the kind of educational opportunities they support helps a layered approach [Recker, M. 1997]. The layered framework integrates a bottom-up view of information technology usage and a top-down view of education. The Figure1.1. in slide 4 shows the layers comprising the framework: 1. Delivery of material 2. Media 3. Computational activities within educational technologies 4. Modes of communication 5. The learning phase

Delivery of material

The delivery is the transmission of educational materials between learners, teachers and providers. The technologies supported delivery of material is: CD-ROMs, computer networking, Internet. The most popular is Internet now. The only thing keeping the Internet from becoming the dominant technology based education delivery environment is current bandwidth and speed limitations. The access to digital libraries and information is an important potential of the Internet. But information access is only one aspect. More pertinent to education is that networking supports the formation of new learning communities. Distribute groups of students, teachers, mentors; experts can be involved in knowledge-building activities with new forms of communication and information media.

Media

Information technology supports these types of physical media: text, 2-D, 3-D graphics, animation, digital audio, digital video, virtual reality.

Many factors affect the learning: students' background knowledge, their motivation and interests, their learning strategies and goals, and overall learning context. Therefore designers should focus on the cognitive and learning goals of particular educational contexts and seek to support those with educationally meaningful activities. The most important form of media is dynamic interactive representations, which learners can manipulate, that support a particular activity within discipline.

Computational Activities

These are computational activities that support learning: simulations, games, information browsing, and design environments.

Simulations-Computer simulations provide environments where learners can interact in a simulated world and engage in activities otherwise not possible in the real world. For example, the haircutting simulation might enable a student to manipulate with the shapes of the coiffure, to suit it to the face. Or in astronomy simulation, the student can manipulate the force of gravitational attraction between the bodies and see the resulting effect on planets. These activities obviously can't be performed in the real world.

Computer games- From the pedagogical standpoint, the challenge becomes embedding content within similarly motivating environments.

Information browsing- Access to information requires teachers and learners to learn new skills of finding, evaluating and filtering the huge amount of information. This skills is called information literacy.

Design environments-These are environments where students can design and built manipulatable artifacts. Through hands-on-design activity students train themselves in, for example, software development, testing.

Computer based learning is interactive. There is no only mouse to click or button to push. Activities on the web must be educationally meaningful. Inventor of the WWW, Tim Berners-Lee (1996), proposes that designers must focus on supporting "inter-creativity" in computational activities. Learning environments must support both individual and collaborative abilities to build knowledge and to create.

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VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

           A virtual classroom is a combined set of tools for conducting classroom-like sessions live over the Internet. We intend to use the virtual classroom as a replacement for face-to-face (f2f) tutoring sessions, which are normally organised in our study centres located across the country. The virtual classroom is a valuable addition to our educational offerings.

 What is a virtual classroom?

A virtual classroom is an instrument for conducting live classroom-like sessions over the internet. In it, students and tutor(s) can communicate using voice, video, chat and whiteboard tools. They also have facilities like application sharing, polling, breakout sessions and quizzes. It allows the tutor and students to participate in real time lessons and discussions. Students can ask questions, draw on the whiteboard, and participate in breakout sessions. (Almost) everything that can be done in a real classroom, can be done in a virtual classroom. Moreover, the whole classroom session can be recorded and made available for review afterwards. 

Features

Some of the virtual classroom instruments,  indicating some interaction functions 

 are:  Participants, Chat, Give feedback/Vote, Whiteboard (+controls), Send chat message, Start/stop microphone, Raise hand, forum, Wiki,  Announcement etc.

Students study independently, in their own time and at their own place and pace, using course materials specifically developed to  support self-directed learning. Contacts with tutors are limited and in most cases take place through e-mail or in discussion groups. Certain courses organize face to face meetings in study centres for most introductory courses, but to a far lesser extent for regular courses to  offer the students a sense of connectedness: they get to know each other and their tutor and get immediate feedback on questions and problems. 

Selection of the virtual class instrument

 In order to select a virtual classroom instrument we developed a list of specifications based on the needs of tutors, students and educational experts: we scored potential candidates on educational use, user friendliness, features and administration. For educational use we looked at the way different teaching activities were supported, such as discussion, workshops, group work, assessments etc. User friendliness was assessed by examining the installation procedures, the features of the integration into our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and the availability of training materials for students and teachers. For features tutor   should  look at the availability of Voice over Internet (VoIP), presentation tools, whiteboard tools, application sharing, public and private chat, feedback tools, document sharing, polling and quizzes. We also looked at how the system should be installed/administered, the way students and tutors were authorised for use and the licence fees.

Organization  and use of  the virtual classroom

The virtual classroom is technically well suited for lectures, but teachers have to be aware of the fact that boring lectures become even more boring when you listen to them on the computer. When bored, the temptation to grab a quick cup of coffee or to check your email becomes hard to resist. As Niall Sclater (2008) says on his weblog: ‘Online synchronous teaching is not about lecturing at people - it’s about involving your class continuously in a whole host of different ways’.  

Group size should not be to big, certainly not in the beginning when tutors and students are not used to the tool. We worked with groups of 8 to 15 students and that seems a manageable size. A virtual class session should also be fairly short. One and a half hour is an absolute maximum, otherwise attendance is too exhausting for both the tutor and the students.

Preparations to make The first teaching session in a virtual classroom feels the same as first-time teaching in a real classroom. Tutors feel insecure and therefore it is important that they are well acquainted with the software and are well trained. A virtual classroom session requires good preparation. Tutors should have a scenario of their lesson available and upload all the required materials to the classroom before the students enter the session. It is a bit more complicated to improvise during a virtual classroom session than it is in a real classroom, especially for the inexperienced tutor. One should also be aware that everything proceeds at a bit slower pace then in a normal classroom setting.  

Furthermore, the students who participate in the virtual classroom should be well prepared and instructed. Not only technical preparation is important, students should also be aware of the basic ‘etiquette’ to adhere to in a virtual classroom. They should know how to ask a question, how to let the tutor know you have left for a minute to go to the bathroom, how to avoid interruptions from family members who enter their study or from their telephones. And what policy is used for students coming in late. It’s better for New groups to first organize an informal session to discuss ‘rules and regulations’. Training and support for tutors and students  are essential.

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BLOG-CREATION

BLOG

What is a "blog"?

Blog is an abbreviated version of "weblog," which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, home staging, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all types of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author's daily life and thoughts.

Generally speaking (although there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:

1.A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.

2.An archive of older articles.

3.A way for people to leave comments about the articles.

4.A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a "blogroll".

5.One or more "feeds" like RSS, Atom or RDF files.

Some blogs may have additional features beyond these. Watch this short video for a simple explanation for what a blog is.

The Blog Content

Content is the raison d'être for any web site. Retail sites feature a catalog of products. University sites contain information about their campuses, curriculum, and faculty. News sites show the latest news stories. For a personal blog, you might have a bunch of observations, or reviews. Without some sort of updated content, there is little reason to visit a web site more than once.

On a blog, the content consists of articles (also sometimes called "posts" or "entries") that the author(s) writes. Yes, some blogs have multiple authors, each writing his/her own articles. Typically, blog authors compose their articles in a web-based interface, built into the blogging system itself. Some blogging systems also support the ability to use stand-alone "weblog client" software, which allows authors to write articles offline and upload them at a later time.

Comments

Want an interactive website? Wouldn't it be nice if the readers of a website could leave comments, tips or impressions about the site or a specific article? With blogs, they can! Posting comments is one of the most exciting features of blogs.

Most blogs have a method to allow visitors to leave comments. There are also nifty ways for authors of other blogs to leave comments without even visiting the blog! Called "pingbacks" or "trackbacks", they can inform other bloggers whenever they cite an article from another site in their own articles. All this ensures that online conversations can be maintained painlessly among various site users and websites.

Things Bloggers Need to Know

In addition to understanding how your specific blogging software works, such as WordPress, there are some terms and concepts you need to know.

Archives

A blog is also a good way to keep track of articles on a site. A lot of blogs feature an archive based on dates (like a monthly or yearly archive). The front page of a blog may feature a calendar of dates linked to daily archives. Archives can also be based on categories featuring all the articles related to a specific category.

It does not stop there; you can also archive your posts by author or alphabetically. The possibilities are endless. This ability to organize and present articles in a composed fashion is much of what makes blogging a popular personal publishing tool.

Feeds

A Feed is a function of special software that allows "Feedreaders" to access a site automatically looking for new content and then post updates about that new content to another site. This provides a way for users to keep up with the latest and hottest information posted on different blogging sites. Some Feeds include RSS (alternately defined as "Rich Site Summary" or "Really Simple Syndication"), Atom or RDF files. Dave Shea, author of the web design weblog Mezzoblue has written a comprehensive summary of feeds.

Blogrolls

A blogroll is a list, sometimes categorized, of links to webpages the author of a blog finds worthwhile or interesting. The links in a blogroll are usually to other blogs with similar interests. The blogroll is often in a "sidebar" on the page or featured as a dedicated separate web page. WordPress has a built-in Link Manager so users do not have to depend on a third party for creating and managing their blogroll.

Syndication

A feed is a machine readable (usually XML) content publication that is updated regularly. Many weblogs publish a feed (usually RSS, but also possibly Atom and RDF and so on, as described above). There are tools out there that call themselves "feedreaders". What they do is they keep checking specified blogs to see if they have been updated, and when the blogs are updated, they display the new post, and a link to it, with an excerpt (or the whole contents) of the post.

Managing Comments

One of the most exciting features of blogging tools are the comments. This highly interactive feature allows users to comment upon article posts, link to your posts, and comment on and recommend them. These are known as trackbacks and pingbacks. The blogger should know  to moderate and manage comments and how to deal with the annoying trend in "comment spam", when unwanted comments are posted to the  blog.