Editorials since 1995 -

JCAL Vol. 19, No.3, September 2003

Guest editorial: Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education

H.U. Hoppe1, R. Joiner2, M. Milrad3 & M. Sharples4

1 University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, 2 University of Bath, UK.,
3 Växjö University, Sweden, 4 University of Birmingham, UK.

Email: r.joiner@bath.ac.uk

The use of information technology in education and training has undergone several paradigm shifts over the last three decades. Very recently the notions of e-learning (learning supported by digital electronic tools and media) and m-learning (e-learning using mobile devices and wireless transmission) have emerged. These terms are often associated with a simplistic understanding of facilitating learning by delivering learning content. Content delivery using mobile devices has had some successes, for example the BBC’s ‘Bitesized revision’ materials delivered via SMS to mobile phones. The learning was facilitated by delivering content to students — however, it was structured to encourage students to discuss the content. Other content-led m-learning possibilities include ‘just-in-time’ training in specific skills (such as how to operate a machine). So content delivery to mobile devices may well have a useful place in m-learning, however, there is an imperative to move from a view of e- and m-learning as solely delivery mechanisms for content. In this view, the learner is just a special type of customer and the learning content is another type of e-commerce product. This simplistic view ignores the fact that modern education and pedagogy, irrespective of different background theories and schools of thought, converge in their high valuation of active, productive, creative and collaborative learning methods much beyond the ‘absorption’ of codified information.

Handheld devices are emerging as one of the most promising technologies for supporting learning and particularly collaborative learning scenarios. These technologies offer the possibility of moving away from the stand-alone computer, thus allowing interaction with several devices and making information accessible through a wireless connection to a server. These technologies offer new opportunities for individuals who require mobile computer solutions that other devices cannot provide. Thus, many researchers, as well as academic and industrial practitioners, are currently exploring the potential of mobile and wireless devices for supporting learning. The challenges are manifold: adapting and appropriating the technology for learning in a way consistent with learning goals and principles; the setting up and testing of prototypical applications and scenarios; the development of specific software tools and architectures; among others.

The underlying understanding of the nature of learning and learning processes has a decisive impact also on expectations of the design and the use of new mobile and wireless technologies in education. For the reductionist, delivery-oriented view of m-learning, the goal is to optimise the quality of service, e.g. in terms of availability across time and space or in terms of multimedia support. Of course, improvements on these scales can also be of interest for using the technology with a distinct orientation.

If these new technologies are used to support active and/or collaborative forms of learning, the expected gain or added value is typically defined quite differently: handheld computing devices allow for exploratory activities not bound to a special location, for example field trips, without losing the potential of taking electronic notes and retrieving information of various types. Such notes, ranging from data collections and digital images to handwritten annotations, can be easily exchanged and downloaded. If combined with wireless transmission, these activities can be continuously monitored and coordinated between places. But even in classrooms and training settings with more or less fixed locations, the use of mobile and wireless technologies may lead to substantial changes as small handheld or embedded devices are no longer dominating the interaction in the way that an explicit computer does. This can help us to move the technology to the background and to set the focus more on interpersonal relations and on the task at hand.

Such an understanding of the role of technology differs significantly from earlier suggestions to conceive computers as dialogue partners. We see this new orientation as a consequence of lessons learned from the limited success of past technology-centred approaches. A criticism of such earlier approaches to learning does indeed not exclude the use of the newest technology in the most creative and innovative ways. The point is that the learning environment, including such aspects as the roles of learners and teachers, types of activities and physical settings, should not be adapted to the available technology but vice versa. The technology should be designed for and adapted to the learning needs with the hope that better technology should adapt and serve better.

This Special Issue of JCAL grew out of the first IEEE workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education (WMTE) that took place at Växjö University, Sweden in August 2002. This event was an effort to take up the challenges and to bring together an international community in the area. The best papers from this workshop were selected for publication in this Special Issue with the addition of a survey of the research area by Jeremy Roschelle. This survey reviews three examples of connected handheld computers in education: classroom response systems; participatory simulations and collaborative data gathering. He concludes that handheld educational applications have an overcomplicated view of technology and a simplistic view of the social practices surrounding these applications. Social practices that are critical to the success of the application. three examples of connected handheld computers in education: classroom response systems; participatory simulations and collaborative data gathering. He concludes that handheld educational applications take an overcomplicated view of technology and a simplistic view of the social practices surrounding these applications in particular the social practices that are critical to the success of the application. The papers in this Special Issue reinforce that conclusion

The remaining papers can be grouped roughly into three themes. The first set of papers deals with the nature of collaborative activity; how it supports or inhibits learning and the implications for the design of wireless mobile technology for learning. The second set reports studies of innovative uses of wireless and mobile technologies for learning. The final set of papers reports innovative developments in wireless and mobile technologies for learning.

In the first set of papers, Johan Lundin and Maria Magnusson discuss the move towards more communication-intense organisations and how to support work-based learning in a context where most workers are distributed and mobile. They report an observational study of a customer relations team. They distinguish four types of collaborative learning in this team: walking into collaborative learning; travelling to meetings; articulating practice and sharing without articulation. A second paper by Chris DiGiano and colleagues discusses the need, in designing wireless and mobile technology for learning, to better understand the patterns of classroom activity that support learning. They propose collaborative design patterns to describe common learning situations and use four classroom scenarios to describe eight patterns.

The second part of the Issue contains papers that report innovative uses of existing wireless and mobile technologies for learning. Sarah Davies draws on four years of observations of classes using two early prototypes of a classroom response system. She discusses how these prototype systems indicated to the students their level of understanding relative to their peers and how they had a dramatic impact on student engagement, increasing interaction between students and between the students and the teacher.

Sherry Hsi developed a mobile learning system for improving and transforming user experiences in a activity museum. She interviewed users of the electronic guidebook and several recurring themes emerged. The users reported that the handheld device contributed to a sense of isolation, both from less social interaction with others and from interference in playing with the exhibits. They also wanted to bridge real-place and virtual contexts by engaging the handheld as an integral part of the exhibit.

Ole Smørdal & Judith Gregory report on a project exploring how wireless and mobile technologies may be useful in medical education and clinical practice, particular in accessing web-based information when required. The students were given PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) which provided access to medical information both online and offline. The authors report that the students did not use the PDA for information gathering, but they did use it for communication, especially for social purposes. The authors conclude that the design and development of mobile and wireless technologies requires a socio-historical conceptualisation of the information and communication infrastructure in relation to the social and technical networks.

Pauliina Seppälä & Harri Alamäki report their experience of using wireless and mobile technology for teacher training. They carried out a pilot study with some trainee teachers who were lent some mobile communicators and some digital cameras. The idea was that the teachers and students could discuss their teaching through the mobile devices and use digital cameras as a means of supporting that discussion. They could also upload material using the mobile device and construct their own digital portfolio. The authors report that the students liked the convenience, immediacy and expediency of the mobile technology. The supervising teachers were all very positive about using the mobile technology and particularly liked the flexibility it brought to their work. The authors conclude that mobile technology enables students’ experience and the joy of learning.

The final set of papers reports innovative developments in wireless and mobile technologies for learning. The first paper, by Chih-Yuh Chang and colleagues, introduces four classes of mobile learning. They discuss the design, implementation and test trial of a mobile outdoor group learning model. The model outlines the tools provided for both the teacher and the student. Yuh-Shyan Chen and colleagues developed a mobile learning system that scaffolded students’ learning about bird watching. The bird watching system provided an outdoor mobile learning system which was one of four classes of mobile learning discussed by Chang and colleagues. Chen and colleagues conducted a formative evaluation comparing the bird watching system with a guide book. The results were very encouraging and they found that the students using the bird watching system gained more than those students who had only used the guide book.

Harri Ketamo developed xTask, an adaptive learning environment, and evaluated its usability. The system could be accessed by PCs or mobile devices. He studied workgroups, who were all given a mobile device for use during the course. The groups were asked to accomplish a number of tasks. After the course the students were interviewed about the usefulness of xTask. Ketamo reports that the students found the mobile devices useful when used for structuring documents and for providing comments on other students’ writing. The students all felt that the mobile devices they were equipped with were not ready to be the only platform for studying.

The final two papers discuss the use of new wireless mobile technology in the classroom context. Tzu-Chien Liu and colleagues built a Wireless technology Enhanced Classroom that supported everyday activities unobtrusively and seamlessly in a classroom context. They integrated a wireless LAN, wireless mobile learning devices, an electronic whiteboard, an interactive classroom server, a resource and class management server. Niels Pinkwart and colleagues report three applications and collaboration scenarios for extending co-constructive modelling and discussion environments with wireless mobile devices.

This combination of innovation and practical use coupled with evaluation is certainly the right blend for our new field. It is essential to remember that the introduction of new technological tools takes place in an existing social environment having their patterns of interaction, their own culture. Hence, these new tools should be interpreted and used accordingly, but they can also have a major impact in transforming those cultures and practices. The mediation of mobile and wireless technologies and applications challenges traditional distinctions made between ‘new learning environments’. They can take place anywhere/anytime and challenge the notion of learning only in the classroom. It has the potential to generate new learning and teaching activities and opportunities. With this Special Issue we hope to contribute to forming a productive and innovative, open and international community which does not only bring forth advancements in science and technology but also contributes to improving practice for better learning.

Editor’s note:

In view of the many new devices, terms and acronyms used in the papers of this Special Issue, it is hoped that the Glossary , which is an ‘appendix’ to this Guest Editorial, and the technical review of mobile computational devices (pp. 392-395) will help readers in accessing the innovative potential offered by the leading edge technologies outlined in these papers. I would like to thank the Guest Editors, Jeremy Roschelle, Tak-Wai Chan and Kinshuk for their various roles in bringing this Special Issue of JCAL to fruition in a very short time. Bob Lewis

Glossary of terms and acronyms

[This glossary was complied by Mike Sharples, Educational Technology Research Group, University of Birmingham, UK]

802.11b The most widely used standard from WLAN, providing a data rate of up to 11 Megabits/ s. Uses a transmission frequency that does not require a radio operators licence, but is the same frequency as used by microwave ovens and other consumer devices, which could interfere with the signal and lower the data rate.

802.11a A new standard for WLAN communication, providing a data rate of up to 54 megabits/ s. Uses a higher frequency for the transmission than 802.11a, which means that, for a given power, the range is shorter.

802.11g A new standard for WLAN communication with data rates up to 54 megabits/ s. Uses the same transmission frequency as 802.11b.

Bluetooth A data communication system increasingly provided in PDAs and mobile phones, giving reasonably high speed communication (up to 720 kilobits/ s) over short distances (up to 10 m). Uses the same transmission frequency as WLAN, so Bluetooth and WLAN used in the same location could cause interference and lower data rates. Bluetooth offers features such as automatic discovery of other Bluetooth-enabled devices.

Clamshell The standard design of laptop computer with a screen that folds over a keyboard base.

GPS A system using satellites to provide positioning information, now with an accuracy of 5–10 m. Can be used to provide Location Based Services (LBS), such as showing where the user is located on a map, providing directions, or to sending information relevant to the location (such as a tourist guide). An extension of GPS, called Differential GPS (DGPS), can give an accuracy of about 2 m.

GPRS A method of sending data to and from mobile phones, by producing ‘packets’ of data that are transmitted via the GSM system. The differences from GSM are that data can be sent about 10 times faster, and that the user only pays for each packet sent or received rather than for the time spent connected.

GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) The digital voice telephony system used for mobile phones in more than 100 countries and the de facto standard in Europe and Asia. Designed for voice communications, it can also be used for slow speed (9.6 kilobits/ s) data connections.

Handheld (see PDA)

IrDA A standard defined by the Infrared Data Association to transfer data between computers without cables, via infrared light. The data rate can be up to 16 megabits/s but the devices must be within clear line of sight and less than about 2 m apart. Can also be used to remote control devices.

LAN (Local area network) An interconnection of computers within a restricted area such as a campus or school, usually with high speed connections of 10 or 100 megabits/ s. Usually requires cables between each computer, though wireless LANs are becoming more common.

PDA (Personal Digital Assistant - sometimes called Handheld). A handheld computer, originally focused on supporting mobile office needs such as finding contacts or managing a diary, now with a broader range of personal tools. Some provide communication through GPRS or WLAN. Its data can be synchronised with a desktop computer or network.

SMS (Short Message Service) The system used for sending text messages between mobile phones. The message length is limited to 160 characters.

MMS Multimedia Messaging Service. An extension of SMS for sending multimedia messages, such as pictures and graphics.

Tablet PC It has the power and functionality of a conventional laptop computer, coupled with a fold-flat or detachable touch-sensitive screen. Has the ability to record handwritten notes and diagrams.

UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone Service) A third generation (3G) system for mobile communication at speeds up to 2 Megabits/ s, enabling video phones and streaming of video to handheld devices.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) A method for delivering worldwide web information to mobile phones. It uses a version of the HTML web description language, WML, designed to describe pages of content for delivery over slow speed connections and display on devices with small screens and one-hand navigation without a keyboard. The need for WAP is now reduced, with new handheld devices able to display normal HTML web pages.

WLAN Wireless LAN. A system for high speed wireless communication over medium distances (currently up to about 100 m outdoors and around 10–20 m indoors). Becoming used in schools and workplaces to extend or replace a LAN, giving users with portable computers access to the Web.

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JCAL Vol. 19, No.2, June 2003

Guest editorial: Children and new technology

R. Joiner, D. Stanton & R. Luckin, Universities of Bath, Nottingham and Sussex

Email: r.joiner@bath.ac.uk

Until recently desktop computers were the only computational technology for supporting learning and teaching and traditional computer software and hardware was designed with only one user in mind, multiple users had to share a mouse and control over one cursor on the screen. However, in HCI research there has been a general move towards, and much support for, the development of tangible and mobile interfaces to facilitate computer use. Many of these new technologies are being used to support children’s learning. There are digital toys, specialised computational devices and a wide variety of new interaction modes. These new computational devices are part of a larger movement based on Norman’s (1998) ideas on invisible computing, ubiquitous computing (Weiser, 1991) and tangible interfaces (Ishii & Ullmer, 1997), in which the technology blends into the environment and is not necessarily visible. Funding agencies have not been slow to see this change and a number of European and USA funding programmes have been initiated to investigate the use and design of this new digital technology for supporting learning. For example the European Commission funded a number of the projects reported here under the Experimental School Environment theme, which focussed on early learning, typically children aged 4-8 years. Themes included toys and games for learning, learning through story-telling and drama and augmented learning environments. This Special Issue of JCAL brings together a selection of papers by leading researchers in the field

The first two papers investigate young (age 6 years and under) children’s interactions with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) from the standard desktop PC to digital toys. Plowman & Stephen review the literature about the ways in which computational technologies are used in both formal and informal pre-school settings. The review addresses the debate over the value and desirability of using computers for young children. They investigate the relationship of these technologies to a media environment that also includes variety other formats including television and books and stress the complexities of the quality evaluation process that faces parents and teachers seeking to select the most appropriate resource for particular contexts and/or learners. This paper also highlights the problems that ensue from the inadequate or absent pedagogical models used in the design of pre-school computer resources.

Luckin et al. report a study that investigates young children’s use of an interactive digital toy technology. The toys are cuddly cartoon characters with embedded sensors that can be squeezed to invoke spoken feedback. The toys can be played with on their own or connected to a computer. When connected to a PC running compatible educational software the cuddly toys interact with the on-screen cartoon characters and offer children hints and tips about how to use the software successfully. Luckin et al., conclude that these toys, as they stand, are not very effective collaborative partners because of their limited repertoire. However the technology has potential. The children can master multiple interfaces of the toy and the screen and the presence of the toy can increase the amount of verbal communication that occurs between child and peer, child and parent or child and teacher/researcher. The cuddly interface can offer an advantage and the potential for fun interfaces might address both the affective and the effective dimensions of learners’ interaction.

Four papers examine the use of tangible interfaces in schools. Fusai et al. in their paper investigate the use of POGO. POGO (funded by the European ESE research programme) is a set of distributed tools that allow children to create stories by connecting the physical and the virtual worlds. Fusai et al. evaluated POGO and found that the tools supported the social nature of narrative construction and transformed the activity into a creative, productive and stimulating experience. Creating a rich sensorial interaction where the physical and affective elements of children’s realities were explored, analysed, decomposed and recombined in new and exciting ways.

Under the same European initiative, Lingnau et al. report an study of a Computer-integrated-Classroom (CiC) which is a classroom that is equipped with specialist software and hardware. Lingnua et al. describe a study where the children in the CiC use a WACOM interactive tablet to interact around a shared workspace using a specific software tool. This tool introduces a new method of teaching reading and writing. Lingnua et al., report that the children quickly became familiar with the system and working co-operatively with it. They also report findings that show that children who used this system improved their spelling.

Ryokai et al. report a study with an embodied conversational agent called ‘Sam’. Sam is presented to children invited to play at a toy castle though a projection screen. It appears as though Sam is also playing with the toy castle and taking turns to move toy characters and tell stories about their adventures. Sam was designed to tell stories collaboratively with children. Sam tells stories that are developmentally more advanced than the child’s stories and in doing so models narrative skills important for development. At the start, Sam greets the child and starts to tell the story by moving a virtual figurine around the castle. Sam then asks the child to tell a story and the child tells a story by moving the real figurine around the castle. Sam watches the child and prompts and asks questions such as what happened next. Rykoai et al. found that children who played with the virtual peer told stories that more closely resembled the stories narrated by Sam. Children used more quoted speech and temporal and spatial expression. Also they listened carefully to Sam assisting him and suggesting improvements.

Think tags are an example of wearable computing. They are small computational devices about the size of a name badge that have been used to involve people in participatory simulations (Collella, 2001). Andrews et al. report a study evaluating a dental hygiene participatory simulation. Teeth decay caused by the accumulation of sugar is a very difficult process for young children to understand. Participating in the dental hygiene simulation allows children to work with digital manipulatives that provide rich personal experience and rapid feedback. They can experience improving or decaying dental health without any of the adverse effects. Andrews et al. found that the program was effective and the children engaged with the task very enthusiastically.

The final three papers report studies that have investigated the use of single display groupware which allows two or more co-located users to interact with a computer system simultaneously whilst feedback is provided via a single display screen. Scott et al. in their paper report two studies evaluating a single display groupware game. In their first study they compared a paper-based version, a computer version with a single shared mouse and a computer version with multiple mice. Children exhibited more off-task behaviour in the one mouse setting whereas they behaved concurrently and preferred the two mouse version. In the second study, Scott et al. compared a shared display, side by side display and separated displays. Children with separate displays sometimes found it hard to reach an agreement. Children rated the game easier in the shared display Scott et al. conclude that children appreciate technology that supports concurrent activity. Forcing children to share one input device contributes to off-task behaviour and boredom.

In a classroom-based study Stanton & Neale investigated the process of collaboration when pairs of children were asked to recreate a poem in pictorial format using either one mouse or two mice. An in-depth qualitative examination of interaction highlighted differences in working styles between conditions. When children shared a mouse they demonstrated varied behaviours ranging from highly collaboratively work to extreme domination by one partner. Pairs in the two-mouse condition would often divide the task up and work in parallel with little reciprocity and little co-elaboration. Having multiple mice changed the interaction. There was little co-construction of ideas, but equally there was less opportunity to dominate. Stanton & Neale conclude by discussing classroom-based decisions about computer use based on their findings.

Druin et al. report a similar finding in their paper. They introduced a digital library interface where two children could navigate with multiple mice to access multimedia information concerning animals. The paper describes the differences in children's collaborative behaviour and dialogue when using two different versions of single display groupware to search for animals in the digital library. Half the children used a structured condition where they had to ‘confirm’ their collaborative activities. The other half used the condition that allowed ‘independent’ collaboration. Druin et al. found that there was no clear condition that best supported collaboration. The structured condition supported more focussed and accurate search results. It also led to more discussion of shared goal. Children in the independent condition talked more about strategy and more discussion of the search process. Druin et al. conclude that there is no clear cut better interface. Each interface had its strengths, which educators can use to support the appropriate learning objectives.

All the papers in the special issue report research that shows the potential of new digital technology in supporting children’s learning both in formal and informal settings. However, there is clear evidence within them that the fulfilment of this potential is no easy matter. Success requires careful attention to the pedagogical framework that can underpin the design of such technologies and sensitivity to the affordances of the particular learning context of use and the requirements of the tasks.

References

Collella, V. (2001) Participatory Stimulations: building collaborative understanding through interactive dynamic modelling. In Carrying forward the conversation(CSCL2) (eds. T. Koschmann, R. Hall & N. Miyake) pp. 357-391. Lawrence Erlbaum, London.

Ishii, H. & Ullmer, B. (1997) Tangible Bits: towards seamless interfaces between people bits and atoms. In Proceedings of CHI’97. (ed. S. Pemberton). pp. 234-241. ACM Press, New York.

Norman, D. (1998) The invisible Computing. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Weiser, M. (1991) The computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American, (Sept. 1991), pp. 94-104.

JCAL Vol. 19, No. 1, March 2003

Guest editorial: JCAL access to support teaching research methods

Nancy Law, University of Hong Kong

Email: nlaw@hkusua.hku.hk

Teaching research methods courses to postgraduate students in education is always a challenge. Students generally see the problem of research design to be one of locating the best method and instrument to use to answer their research question. One of the most difficult points to drive home is that given a research question, one may still be framing it rather differently based on different theoretical perspectives and the kind of outcomes of interest. One way to tackle this problem is to precede the introduction of detail research design issues for different methodology by getting students to examine a number of high quality and yet different papers addressing similar issues from different perspectives, arriving at different and useful outcomes.

My recent attempt to use this approach in my research methods course was very much facilitated by online access to JCAL through Synergy. The value of JCAL is that it does not subscribe or confine itself to only one type of theoretical orientation. so it was easy for me to locate pairs of papers addressing similar problems from different perspectives and thus using different methods. My students are all full time education professionals and would not have the opportunity to visit the library on a day-to-day basis. Without the online access, it would be difficult to require them to complete the discussion and critique of the papers within a short period of time that the course timetable allows.

One example of a pair of papers that I used from JCAL is the following:

• Virtual reality and hypermedia in learning to use a turning lathe (17, 142-155)

• Visualisation and animation in a CAL package (17, 206-216)

The questions that I asked students to consider for each paper were:

• what is the purpose of the research?

• what are the research questions addressed by this research?

• what kinds of literature would need to be reviewed and for what purpose?

• what method(s) of research should be employed?

• what kind of research would you categorise this to be?

The first paper asks whether novices & experts benefit from using a virtual lathe and what may be the best arrangement. It uses a positivistic and quantitative approach to the research with pre- and post-tests to address the questions.

The second paper explores the role of visual representation and issues of instructional design and uses phenomenographic case studies with multimethod data collection to address the questions.

Both papers research effective ways of using multimedia in education. Access to papers through Synergy made this approach to learning practicable for my students.

Editor’s note: In our annual review of JCAL Synergy accesses for 2002, I noticed that the University of Hong Kong had three times more accesses than any other institution. Why was this? I thought that it was my own short course, but Nancy Law has provided the real answer.

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JCAL Vol. 18, No. 2, December 2002

Guest editorial: international studies of innovative uses of ICT in schools

R.E. Anderson, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

This Special Issue of JCAL presents major descriptive and analytic findings from in-depth case studies of innovative, ICT-supported pedagogical practices conducted during the 2000–2001 school year in 11 countries spread across five continents. As explained in the following paper by Robert Kozma and associates, parallel case studies were conducted in 28 countries under the coordination of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in a project called the Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES), Module 2. In each country an official national panel selected exemplary school sites with innovative pedagogical practices using ICT. While international criteria were specified for the selection of cases, the national panels in each country were asked to modify them to better represent their conceptions of ‘innovative’ learning activities using ICT’. This Special Issue features reports from selected countries in order to provide an initial, preliminary portrayal of the approaches and findings of the study. The papers analyse the results country by country. An international report with extensive comparative results is planned for 2003.

This study is unique among international comparative studies. It combines the best of ‘area studies’, which tend to be culturally in-depth but limited to one or two countries, and international assessments, that tend to be very cursory but involve 20–40 countries. The study design emerged within IEA because traditional international assessments are not well matched to educational topics that are changing rapidly and are not highly institutionalised. In the case of ICT, the content of the field is changing rapidly and, partly because of that, there is little consensus among educators about how it should be integrated into schools and their curricula.

The findings from these case studies illustrate how contemporary information and communication technology is pushing the boundaries of education conceptually and methodologically. Leading-edge ICT pushes education by expanding where and when learning can take place and raises questions about best teaching practice (Means et al., 2001). Questions of appropriate teaching roles and learning modes emerge as many students have more ICT knowledge and skill than their teachers and parents. Given the growing importance of knowledge acquisition, and information handling in the global economy, decision-makers are reconsidering educational goals and pedagogical priorities. Most disconcerting is the discriminatory implications of the high cost of contemporary ICT, making it nearly impossible in some societies for lower income parents and schools to benefit as much as those with higher incomes.

Research on educational innovations identifies innovative characteristics and contexts critical to the adoption and sustainability of implementations (cf. Huberman & Miles, 1984). To explore the extent to which these models apply to contemporary ICT across diverse cultures, a case study methodology was designed and applied in 28 countries. In addition to serving research objectives, these case studies were intended to provide policy analysts and teachers with examples of ‘model’ classroom practices and offer policy makers findings regarding the contextual factors that are critical to successful implementation and sustainability of these exemplary teaching practices using ICT.

Data sources and methods

Twenty-eight countries conducted in-depth, qualitative case studies during the last half of 2000 and the first half of 2001 for the IEA SITES Module 2 project. As each country conducted between 4 and 12 case studies, the total number of cases for analysis added up to 174. To accomplish this investigation, each case study describes and analyses classroom-based processes and their contexts.

The case studies in this project are primary and/or secondary schools (serving students of about 6 to 18 years old), selected to be exemplary because they had classrooms with innovative pedagogical practices using technology (IPPUT). Additionally these practices at the sites had to: show evidence of significant changes in roles of teachers and students; show evidence of measurable positive student outcomes and to be potentially sustainable and transferable.

International guidelines, instruments, protocols and procedures provided commonality across research sites allowing for local deviations as appropriate. At each site the research procedure included interviewing teachers, the Principal, the ICT coordinator(s), students and parents. Classrooms were observed and site documents collected. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Along with the field notes and site documents, these were analysed with codes derived from the study’s conceptual framework. Additional codes emerged that were grounded in the data.

The papers in this Special Issue were adapted from presentations at a 3-hour symposium at the annual meetings of the American Educational Research Association, April 4, 2002 in New Orleans. In writing up their preliminary findings, the national research coordinators chose to emphasise different aspects of their projects. They have been divided into three groups according to their emphasis on: characterising innovations that use ICT; impacts or outcomes of ICT-based innovations and implementation and sustainability factors. They are discussed below in this order.

Characterising innovations that use ICT

Using the Australian cases Ainley and associates analysed the ICT-based learning and teaching processes along three dimensions: a taxonomy of the type of ICT resource used; the complexity of the knowledge sought for the student outcomes and the complexity of the cognitive processing required by the student activities. Their approach is particularly powerful for those concerned with designing or analysing assessments for student learning with ICT tools. It also provides analytical categories that help to clarify the demands or expectations associated with the higher levels of knowledge toward which many ICT-based instructional innovations are oriented.

Mioduser, Nachmias, Tubin, & Forkosh-Baruch, in analysing 10 Israeli cases, were challenged by how to characterise differences in innovativeness across their cases. They produced a conceptualisation and rubric called the ‘innovations analysis schema’, that can be used to operationalise levels of innovativeness based upon the degree to which ICT and associated pedagogies have transformed the school and the number of domains (time and space utilisation, student roles, teacher roles, curriculum content and assessment) impacted. It is my judgement that their pioneering framework will be used extensively in the years ahead by other researchers. In their paper in this Special Issue, they not only describe their framework but analyse several exemplary cases in Israel.

Impacts or outcomes of ICT-based innovations

A number of the researchers focused upon the impact or outcomes of the ICT-based innovations they studied. Some concentrated upon micro-level processes in the classroom while others communities outside the classroom. The papers as a whole provide a perspective revealing the wide range of outcomes, many of which are complex and difficult to measure, from exemplary use of ICT in classrooms.

Nancy Law and associates from the University of Hong Kong evaluated their cases asking whether or not innovative teaching practices would lead to the development of learning outcomes essential for preparing the younger generation for the challenges of life in the knowledge society of the 21st century. They found that associated with significant learning gains were the following characteristics of learning activities: extended learning tasks; personal meaning and relevance of the learning tasks; involvement of significant others outside of the classroom in the learning process; and availability of suitable facilitation. They concluded that the most significant outcome of innovative learning activities involving ICT was empowerment, particularly of students. To evaluate the degree to which students and teachers felt empowered, they focused upon affective and socio-cognitive outcomes such as learning to learn from a variety of others; learning to create and to contribute to a learning community, and appreciation of different viewpoints. Furthermore, they found that all of these outcomes, which tend to be difficult to measure, were associated with higher performance teaching roles. In these roles teachers were engaged interactively with the students and responding flexibly to their cognitive needs. In brief, they were implementing student-centred pedagogies using ICT.

In his analysis of the cases from Norway, Ola Erstad took a slightly different approach. While he also focused upon learning communities, he concentrated upon more cognitive and cultural domains. For instance, he examined how digital artefacts supported knowledge construction. He argued that ICT utilisation fosters new frameworks for the students. The cases support his argument that some learning environments using ICT are much more effective than others.

Renate Schulz-Zander led the German research team and from their 12 cases they concluded that ‘new media’, which refers to ICT with an emphasis upon interactive content, promotes a learning culture that engenders problem oriented learning. They also concluded that problem oriented learning in conjunction with new media promotes cooperation among students. They give examples of cooperation in terms of students teaching each other, functioning as a learning community and collaborating in joint partnerships with other schools. They note a number of other types of collaboration, all of which were facilitated by ICT learning activities.

Sue Harris directed the case studies research in England and her analysis yielded two main ways in which ICT had been a major force in redefining the classroom: changing interactions within the classroom as a direct or indirect result of using ICT to support teaching and learning; and the involvement of others (non-teachers) outside the physical classroom in students’ learning activities. For instance, they observed how the innovative practices led to a greater emphasis upon students taking responsibility for their own progress, including self-imposed deadlines, and in other ways improving their study skills and work skills. They also noted evidence that the innovations fostered students’ ongoing reflection about their own work.

In their paper Hinostroza, Guzmán and Isaacs describe the case studies in Chile. Implementation of ICT in Chile is faced with a major challenge given geographically large rural areas, some of which have poor economies. However, a large, impressive national government project called Enlaces is coordinating the introduction and support of ICT in multiple waves of technology. The study found several factors that appeared to contribute to successful reform including reform coordination and the presence of leader teachers empowered with ICT. The researchers analysis emphasises challenges of teaching in large-scale, centralised reform especially assessment issues and focus on learning outcomes.

The Danish paper by Inge Bryderup and Krystyna Kowalsky primarily addresses the policy issue of the impact of their national policy, the ‘Act on the Folkeskole’, which has shifted most of the responsibility of school financing to municipalities. Concurrently schools are required by national policy to ‘integrate ICT into all subjects.’ Using details from two of their six cases, they showed how difficult it is for some local authorities to focus upon educational objectives, such as pedagogies and teacher education, rather than ICT resource acquisition alone. They found that schools were severely challenged to focus on pedagogical projects, facilitate teacher-innovators, provide adequate support and teacher education in terms of instructional ICT requirements and issues. National decision makers who are considering transitions to greater decentralisation in their educational systems should find their analysis of special interest.

Implementation and sustainability factors

Two research teams, those of Canada and the USA, went beyond descriptions of innovative practices and the outcomes of those practices to ask what school-level conditions influenced how effectively educational ICT was implemented. Among the conditions examined were formal staff development practices, on-going support for teachers’ ICT use, school-wide decision-making practices and policies related to ICT, individual teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and instructional practices, as well as professional community. Each of these contextual factors affects how ICT is used. Results were interpreted within the frameworks of ongoing research on educational technology and technology support, school change and reform, constructivist pedagogy, professional community (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001), and organisational learning (Senge et al., 2001).

Granger and colleagues describe several schools in Canada and focus upon prediction of successful integration. Data from four of 12 qualitative case studies of Canadian schools made it possible to address the question of what teachers perceive as the factors that contribute most to their successful implementation of ICT in the classroom. Teacher interview data were coded for environmental factors, individual characteristics and ways of learning. Findings suggest that formal training has little direct impact on teaching practice, whereas informal training (e.g. on the job with colleagues) was most influential. Little relationship was found between successful use of ICT and teaching experience or experience using ICT. Among the contextual attributes that they found associated with sustainable implementation were commitment to a learning community and personal investments by teachers and staff in ICT-supported innovation.

In the final case study paper, Dexter, Seashore and Anderson analysed the first six of their 11 cases. They discovered that the metaphor of the learning organisation made a lot of sense in their schools because of their apparent educational vision, their emphasis upon a learning culture among the staff and teachers, and their emphasis upon student projects solved in learning communities. Most of their analysis focuses upon ‘professional community’, which is defined in terms of collective purpose and shared activity in their instructional mission, deprivatised practice, and teachers engaged in reflective dialogue, all of which tends to be linked to their view of themselves as professionals working together in a community. The concluded that there is a ‘powerful reciprocal interaction’ between professional community and effective use of technology.

Overall analysis

It is premature to do much generalisation across these studies because the cases presented here are limited to the initial cases and the cross-case analysis has only just begun. However, some common themes in these papers will be noted as a sample of what may be forthcoming.

Table 1 gives a sense of the breadth of countries that have at least some schools engaged in each of five activities characterised as themes. Each of these themes has been discussed in the educational literature as an approach needed to improve education. Furthermore, each theme is often associated with ICT in that ICT is touted as a useful way to accomplish the associated learning outcomes. Of course there are other themes than these five that are associated with innovation and technology, but this analysis is intended to be exemplary rather than definitive.

The first three themes are sometimes defined as the central elements of constructivism, although all three are promoted quite independent of the constructivist philosophy as well. Table 1 shows that all three themes, learning communities, student-directed projects, and real-world projects all were found in innovative cases in a large majority of the countries. As the constructivist literature has largely come from English-speaking countries, it is noteworthy to find interest and commitment to these approaches in other countries as well.

The terminology of ‘knowledge management’ is less well known and understood in education. Hence, it is not surprising to see fewer instances of this theme across countries. Life-long learning, and its conceptual ally, ‘learning to learn’, have been promoted extensively by numerous reports for several decades. Yet the relative absence of this rhetoric in these case reports suggests that school educators have little excitement for these educational concepts, perhaps because there is little agreement on how to define and measure them.

Conclusions

One consequence of the selection criteria used across the country projects was that none of the sites required the latest or leading-edge technology. In most, if not all, of the cases, the hardware and software used had been available ‘off of the shelf’ for a number of years. This in itself is an important finding because it means that the innovative practices under investigation can be implemented in a much larger segment of the schools than those with ‘innovative technology.’

Keeping in mind that the criteria for selecting cases varied slightly in each country, the cases selected were considered the most exemplary or representative of those learning and teaching activities considered innovative (and using ICT) in each country, respectively. Consequently the results of this research provide glimpses of what the future holds with respect to pedagogy that uses ICT in teaching and learning. Leading-edge innovations do not necessarily lead to widespread adoptions, especially with such a rapidly evolving resource as ICT, but some of the teaching methods mentioned here are likely to become much more common place in schools, especially as education becomes even more globalised. What we can say with greater certainty is that the organisational processes noted in these papers as most effective are likely to be given greater and greater attention in the future.

In her paper Harris summarised the case results in England, she captured an apropos conclusion for a majority (if not all) of the cases described in these 10 reports. She said: ‘The clear message . . . is not the importance of ICTs in their own right, but the benefits to be gained when confident teachers are willing to explore new opportunities for changing their classroom practices by using ICT.’

References

Huberman, A.M. & Miles, M.B. (1984) Innovation Up Close: a Field Study in 12 School Settings. Plenum, New York.

McLaughlin, M.W. & Talbert, J.E. (2001) Professional Communities and the Work of High School Teaching. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Means, B., Penuel, W.R. & Padilla, C. (2001) The Connected School – Technology and Learning in High School. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Senge, P., Cambron-McCabe, N., Lucas, T., Smith, B., Dutton, J., & Kleiner, A. (2001) Schools That Learn. Doubleday, New York.

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JCAL Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2002

Editorial: E-learning together

For many years, the value of learning in groups has been widely recognised. The introduction of computers into schools and colleges further stimulated this trend but often for reasons of limited resources rather than to meet planned pedagogical goals.

. . . while pupils frequently work with computers in groups, the purpose is usually to maximise access to a limited number of terminals. Hence, the potential of groupwork is rarely exploited and collaborative learning in such groups happens more by chance than design. (Eraut & Hoyles, 1989)

As a result of earlier work, a well balanced note of warning was sounded:

Nobody should suppose on the basis of (existing) studies that truly collaborative work is going to provide a panacea for education. . . . However, it seems likely that a better understanding of the mechanisms at work in such interactions may make it possible to improve significantly upon this aspect of educational practice and the potential benefits are considerable. (Light & Glachan, 1985)

 

However, in this issue of JCAL, Chiu reports on a detailed study which failed to demonstrate the value of learning in teams when compared to individual learning. It still seems that there is much to be learnt about working in groups even when the members are in face-to-face contact.

These studies of the 1970s and 80’s were based on standalone terminals or computers as the technology for communication at a distance was not sufficiently established or reliable. For this reason, distance learning organisations were unable to make early use of the new technologies. The extent to which the situation has changed is well illustrated by the review of European open and distance learning projects by Hodgson in this issue of JCAL. The community dimension of sharing and creating knowledge is a major incentive in such work.

This relatively new opportunity for group learning has now taken on increased importance and opens up a wide range of research issues which include:

• peer assessment requiring careful consideration as the competitive element present in current assessment is questioned (Lin et al., 2001);

• assessment of both group products and the contribution of individuals leads to the need to analyse group interaction, now visible through email and conference exchanges (Chen et al., 2001);

• the nature and value of feedback given to a group (Buchanan, 2000) and incomplete feedback as a stimulus to learners’ involvement (Crook, 2002)

References

Buchanan, T. (2000) The efficacy of a World-wide Web mediated formative assessment. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 16, 3, 193–200.

Chen, G.D., Ou, K.L., Liu, C.C. & Liu, B.J. (2001) Intervention and strategy ananlysis for web group-learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 17, 1, 58–71.

Crook, C. (2002) Deferring to resources: collaborations around traditional vs. computer-based notes. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18, 1, 64–76.

Eraut, M. & Hoyles, C. (1989) Groupwork with computers. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 5, 1, 12–24.

Light, P. & Glachan, M. (1985) Facilitation of Individual Problem Solving through Peer Interaction. Educational Psychology, 5, 3&4, 217–225.

Lin, S.S.J., Liu, E.Z.F. & Yuan, S.M. (2001) Web-based peer assessment: feedback for students with various thinking styles. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 17, 4, 420–432.

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JCAL Vol. 18, No. 2, June 2002

Editorial: resources for research & learning

The opportunity for access to resources for research and learning has never had the potential that it has today. However, navigation in the enormous space of data available is a major research issue as witnessed by the richness of papers on this topic in this journal and others.

The recent DNER (Distributed National Electronic Resources) initiative in the UK is making enormous strides in its basic vision, the way it capitalises upon the existing electronic infrastructures and its concern for the needs of specific communities of users. The DNER documents make me optimistic that a substantive national programme is at last underway. The website is well designed and offers a full range of views about the programme: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner

After many years of government initiatives which appeared that they were starting with a blank page — no lessons learned from the past — DNER is building on existing networks, both technical and social. It is first and foremost modest; the introduction to the Discussion Document accessed from the URL above says that:

This document presents some issues about the DNER for discussion. It has two main purposes. The first is to briefly raise some general issues relating to the definition, planning and operationalising of the DNER. The second is to outline a strategy and planning framework within which these will be addressed and taken forward. It is labelled a ‘discussion document’ because issues need to be clarified or worked through within the DNER planning framework.

This modesty continues shortly afterwards in the ‘policy context — vision’:

We need a better sense of purpose and rationale to guide activity. The current framework supports opportunistic and incremental development at the expense of strategic insight.

What is refreshing is the self-reflection of the DNER team; its view of basing its work on current opportunities but with a real need to plan for the future. This is evident from the following paragraph on goals:

DNER development has grown quickly in an opportunistic way, building on previous successes. This has been effective, but needs to be planned as the volume and variety of activity grows, or as a growing number of services need to be sustained alongside an accelerating development agenda. Activity needs to proceed within which goals and directions are widely understood.

There are many more distinctive and welcomed statements in the section on Initial Issues, the definition of what DNER is and hopes to be, and in ‘Moving forward’.

The website is well organised and informative and so I will not draw more from it other than to mention one aspect that relates specifically to teaching and learning:

It has been recognised that DNER resources are more oriented towards research support than learning support. This has been corroborated by recent JCALT work which shows overall ‘low’ levels of use of DNER resources by students (though it is interesting to question what levels of use there should be). This is how the services have been set and continued for some time. We need to ensure that the DNER is an effective tool for learning and teaching.

In the past I have often been critical of national ‘initiatives/programmes’. I hope that DNER will be the programme that changes my view. I suggest that readers in the UK and worldwide will find value in visiting the website and interpreting (and implementing) the strategy to suit local needs.

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JCAL Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2002

Editorial: the impact of ICT on learning

The recent publication of the ‘emerging’ findings of the ImpaCT2 project (http://www.becta.org.uk/impact2) is a welcome addition to the debate on the role and value of ICT in classrooms. ImpaCT2 started in 1998 and will finish later this year. This makes it just 10 years after the earlier ImpacT study based at King’s College London (see: Johnson, D.C., Cox, M.J. & Watson, D.M. (1994) Evaluating the impact of IT on pupils’ achievement. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 10, 3, 138-156)

The scale of the two studies is similar (though one suspects that the current one is rather better financed) with over 2000 pupils studied in a range of schools. A similar distinction is made between the IT provision in the schools studied with ‘high’ and ‘low’ used in the ImpacT study and ‘high’ and ‘average’ in ImpaCT2. This seems to be a dubious distinction to have been made in both projects.

The data gathering approach of ImpaCT2 is innovative and should be fruitful so long as the analysis is undertaken cautiously. Data sources are teacher researchers, pupil researchers (including log books, interviewing peers), link researchers (from the universities running the study), a pupil questionnaire and a concept mapping task (to explore pupils’ perceptions of networked computers).

An interesting dimension of the study is the inclusion of data on home use of computers and communications functions. The emerging findings indicate that as national school leaving examinations approach, the use of computers in school time is reduced but by that stage pupils are skilled enough to use computers on their own at home and parents respond by making home computers available. The analysis also looks at socio-economic factors and finds that, in the highest ranking groups, the differential in terms of computer access becomes significant as the children get older (although mobile phones are owned equally by pupils in all social groups!).

Findings concerning the teacher data reveals that little has changed in the past 15 years: many teachers are not confident about using technology in their classrooms; training makes high demands on personal time; little IT integration into subject teaching; and so on. There is a small indication that teachers are starting to consider taking on a new role but classroom approaches are far from being significantly influenced by the use of ICT. The positive factors are also identified as in the past: having a computer at home is a great help; allowance of school time helps familiarisation with software; ‘leadership by example’ from senior staff is an important motivating factor.

There are a number of mentions about lack of bandwidth and/or slow Internet connectivity (sometimes faster at home than in school!) and so worries still remain about national policy being overdependant on the so-called ¢National Grid for Learning’, with part of the evaluation being undertaken by ImpaCT2.

The study is likely to produce the results that many researchers in the field would expect but it is being well-conducted by all accounts and benefits greatly from having a consortia of universities involved, each taking specific lines of research. The final report later this year should have interesting data about ICT richness in schools and the way that this impacts on national examination results — assuming that that remains an overriding priority.

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JCAL Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2002

Guest Editorial: Context, collaboration, computers and learning

Erica Morris (The Open University) and Richard Joiner (University of Bath)

In October 2000, the Computers and Learning Research Group (CALRG) at the Open University held a Symposium on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). The CALRG aims to support interdisciplinary research by holding symposia and an annual conference to encourage discussion and debate, and the exchange of information on current research work.

The rationale for the symposium was that much work in the area of CSCL had been done by members of the Group and there was a need to look at current projects and activities involving members at the OU and researchers from other institutions. Previous research work involved both adults and children in schools and investigated computer-supported collaborative learning in the area of science education (Scanlon, 1995). In recent years, CALRG had a programme of work with an interrelated set of projects that had the common aim of describing how ICT can provide learners with productive experiences of collaborative learning using a variety of computer systems. For example, a Gameshow project looked at collaboration in the context of adults working on a shared simulation of a statistics problem which was implemented in a distributed classroom environment (Joiner et al., 2001).

The papers in this Special Issue are the outcome of the symposium and provide a stimulating picture of current work in the area of CSCL. Initially, research in this area was concerned with the preconditions and consequences of computer-based collaborative activity on individuals’ cognitive behaviour. Collaboration was viewed as the ‘mutual engagement of participants in a co-ordinated effort to solve the problem together’ (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995). Research now tends to focus on the context of collaborative activity, uses broader definitions of collaboration and investigates it in a wider range of settings. The following papers address these issues.

The first two papers report studies that concern how the social setting alters the nature of collaborative activity. Hammond and Bennett explore how academic disci-plines differ in their use of ICT to support small group activities in higher education. They present a framework for examining discipline differences and present evidence from surveys and case studies conducted by the ASTER project. The authors use a framework as a means of describing and identifying those differences and use this to examine the use of ICT to support small group learning in three disciplines: physics, psychology and humanities. The most striking difference they found was that between the physical sciences and the other disciplines. Humanities and psychology used ICT to support discussion, whereas there were no instances of this use of ICT in physics. All ICT use in physics focussed on task-based activities. This difference, the authors argue, reflects a difference in underlying concepts and representations between the disciplines and/or a difference in discipline beliefs and assumptions. The authors argue that it is vital that such differences are considered when advising on the take-up of innovative teaching and learning methods.

Crook’s paper describes a study which involved observing students engaged in an authentic form of normal study practice: revising for a course in preparation for an examination. Collaboration has typically been defined as ‘mutual engagement of participants solving a problem together’, but Crook adopts a slightly different definition, which is the co-ordination of effort to build common knowledge. One of the implications of this change in definition is that it changes the outcome of collaboration from an answer or product to consolidation, elaboration or refreshing understanding of some shared interest. Crook has two parts to his study. In the first part he conducted a study sociogram where he compared students’ nominations of social friends with their nominations of work partners. He found that students meeting to engage in work activities are rare, whereas there is considerable meeting for social reasons. The second part of the study compared pairs of students revising from their own notes compared with pairs of students revising from computer-based notes. The computer-based documents led to less on-task collaborative talk and led to conversation that was more fragmented and focussed around successive short topics. Crook argues that discussion is more readily afforded when revision talk is mediated by a less singular, authorised and directive form of document.

The following two papers use activity theory to describe the changes and difficulties in collaborative activities. Although they investigate very different domains (higher education and organisational knowledge) they both conclude that Activity Theory is a framework for describing these activities which provides insights that can inform the design of educational activities in different settings.

Issroff and Scanlon present a paper that describes the application of activity theory to enhancing learning through the use of technology in higher education. They present a review of the theory, apply it to analyse the use of technology in context and consider two case studies of teaching and learning in higher education. The first case study examines the use of ICT in the studies in science strand of an OU MSc science programme. The second case study concerns a history course, which uses the web to provide a range of resources and communication facilities for students. They show how ‘inconsistencies’ were found and were then used to inform the design of the learning activities. Activity theory provides a language for describing and understanding the changes, difficulties and development of the web site and the practice surrounding the activity.

Mwanza reports an investigation into the design requirements for a computer-assisted learning system for supporting knowledge sharing. The design of such systems is difficult because of the need to accommodate local social and cultural habits of the user. There can be formal and informal methods of knowledge sharing. Companies need to implement new systems quickly to remain competitive, which requires conceptualising human activity. This conceptualisation helps identify the mechanisms by which users introduce tools to mediate their work activity. An activity theory framework is used to conceptualise work practices in two organisations. These organisations used formalisation of work procedures as a means for encouraging knowledge sharing amongst workers. Workers in both organisations had established practices for sharing knowledge which were informal and unstructured. Formalisation misrepresented these practices. The activity theory analysis revealed certain common themes with regards to knowledge sharing: the need to be sensitive to social and cultural aspects of the intended user, and to understand the context of the tool and the influence of established local patterns of collaboration.

The final two papers focus on the process of collaborative learning and in particular on the dialogue processes involved. The first paper argues that CSCL could be designed using developments in our understanding of dialogue. Ravenscroft and Matheson argue that there is a need to develop methodologies which transform informal models of educational dialogue into cognitive tools that are suitable for students. They present a methodology for designing e-learning, called ‘investigation by design’ and use this methodology to design computer-based dialogue games for supporting conceptual change in science. In this paper, they describe a study where they evaluated two dialogue games for collaborative interaction: a facilitating game and an elicit-inform game. They found that both these games produced significant gains in students’ understanding compared to conventional teaching. However, the findings indicated that they affected students’ learning in different ways. The facilitating dialogue game was more useful in addressing alternative conceptions about the context, whereas the eliciting dialogue game was more effective in addressing the incompleteness of the students’ models.

The final paper analyses the discourse between friends and acquaintances. Vass reports a case study investigating the nature of paired talk and the role of friendship in collaborative creative writing activities. The joint poem writing episodes of four 8 year-old girls, one friendship and one acquaintanceship pair, were observed on a number of occasions during a two-week long literacy project. The pairs were compared using a functional model of discourse and this analysis revealed important differences in the discourse of the two pairs. The friendship pair’s discourse was described as reflecting more ‘collective thinking’ (a key feature differentiating the pairs), which was regarded as an advanced form of mutual engagement and the possible key to productive collaboration in the context of creative writing. Vass explains this finding in terms of differences in the shared histories and collaborative experience of the two pairs. Finally, it is suggested that differences between individualised and collective thinking — influenced by the nature of the relationship between partners — may determine the productivity of collaboration in the context of paired creative writing.

In conclusion, this special issue brings together papers which have extended the study of computer-supported collaborative learning in significant ways. The processes of constructive joint activity are examined both observationally and experimentally. Moreover, learning activities are examined in a broad range of contexts, which to date have not been considered in the literature.

References

Joiner, R., Scanlon, E., O’Shea, T. & Smith, R.B. (2001) Technological mediation for supporting synchronous collaboration in science and statistics. In Euro CSCL 2001. European Perspectives on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (eds. P. Dillenbourg, A. Eurelings & K. Hakkarainen), pp. 332–339. Maastricht McLuhan Institute, Maastricht.

Roschelle, J. & Teasley, S. (1995) The construction of shared knowledge in collaborative problem solving. In Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ed. C. O’Malley) pp. 69–97. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg.

Scanlon, E. (1995) Collaboration and problem solving in science using information technology. British Journal of Educational Technology, 26, 3, 227–228.

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JCAL Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2001

Editorial: current research

It would be unwise to infer too much by looking at the Keywords which authors use to represent the core aspects of their papers. However, a glance at the Index pages in this issue of JCAL and a comparison with the previous year does suggest an enormous growth in the maturity of research in two areas: one of them is the use of the Internet and the other is group and community learning. These topics appear, not through an special issues, but in the course of normal paper submissions.

Fortunately, there is a growing body of theoretical knowledge to support the empirical approach being taken by many researchers. Many of the theories are not new but they are now being applied to some practical questions of interest and importance to all tutors and teachers. These questions include:

the design of tasks for groups of learners working face-to-face or at a distance;

what is the nature of tasks that promote peer interaction on tasks that learners perceive as authentic?

what is the difference between learners working face-to-face and remotely?

how do tutors’ roles change in those two situations?

the composition of effective peer groups for solving problems:

how should factors such as gender and ability differences be treated?

how can equality of opportunity, contribution and responsibility be assured?

assessment of group working:

what changes are needed in assessment approaches?

what should/can be assessed?

how can both individual contribution and overall group achievement be assessed?

tutors’ professional development:

how to build on existing skills?

can tutors be considered as professional learners?

what is the relationship between university and school tutors?

can school tutors become researchers?

In addition, there is a methodological shift towards exploring learner and tutor perspectives through the use of questionnaire data. This may seem a very ‘soft’ approach but is clearly one which provides a way of coming to understand the attitudes of learners and hence the learning processes involved. Even the solicited papers for the last issue of JCAL on ‘assessing learning with ICT’ illustrated that quantitative methods are not seen as appropriate by most researchers.

However, there is a growing mania for ‘numbers’ and research publication does not escape. A recent document from Blackwell Science makes this explicit.

The Impact Factor of a journal is probably the only quantitative way of assessing its worth and relevance to the academic community it serves. This has perhaps never been more true than at the present time where libraries are forced to contain their costs and are looking to cut their serial collections rather than grow them. Many librarians see the Impact Factor as a suitable yardstick by which to measure the value of their collections. In addition, the research assessment exercises which, in many countries, are now being carried out on a more formal basis mean that authors submitting original research must publish it in a journal with the highest perceived worth possible in order to secure future funding, job promotions and peer recognition.

If the Impact Factor matters to you, think of publishing in JCAL.

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JCAL Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2001

Guest editorial: assessing learning with ICT

A. McDougall, The University of Melbourne

Email: a.mcdougall@edfac.unimelb.edu.au

This Special Issue of JCAL was prompted initially by a question sent to the Editor by a colleague who, ‘after listening to a lot of presentations where people simply describe their experiences and conclude that the computer somehow helped’, sought a good evaluation strategy to enable him to describe precisely how and why (if at all) students learned differently with the computer model he was using. Throughout the development of computer-assisted learning, extensive work has been undertaken on formative evaluation of software and of innovative projects, but no similar range of effective and reliable ways of assessing any real learning gains attributable to the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has so far been developed. It is crucial that relationships between ICT use and learning be investigated, given the major developments and growing investment in ICT resources for education.

This is not to say that no work at all has been done on this problem. Johnson et al. (1994) reported on the ImpacT study, which addressed the question of the contri-bution of IT to pupils’ learning. The study showed that in particular circumstances IT had a highly positive impact on children’s achievements; it also illustrated the complexities involved in a large-scale longitudinal study of this kind. Evaluation studies with similar aims have revealed problems such as a tendency to ask ‘technocentric’ questions (Papert, 1985), limitations of measuring techniques such as traditional forms of testing, the variety of evaluation strategies needed for different types of computer use and the necessary dependence of evaluations on context, setting, teaching approaches, etc.

Comparisons with non-ICT strategies are sought but controlled experimental approaches can prove problematic due to: interrelationships among key variables resulting in an inability to control only selected ones; ethical and political questions arising with non-ICT groups; attitudes to computer use in contexts where exams are still conducted using pen and paper; and inherent assumptions that curriculum will remain unchanged despite the introduction of ICT. Is it correct to assume that the tasks undertaken with innovative uses of ICT are the same as those done previously? If a task can be done without ICT by a control group, how much better does an experimental group need to perform to justify the use of expensive technologies?

Despite the difficulties, it is important, perhaps now more than ever, to address the question: Can learning be improved with use of ICT, and if so in what ways? And if success in answering that question is limited, there is a need to explain why.

This Special Issue of JCAL is a collection of papers that show what can be done and, as appropriate, to provide good arguments to illustrate what cannot. It was not intended to include formative or summative evaluation of software environments as such, neither was it to be limited to an examination of computer-based simulation and modelling activities — although the initial query that stimulated the development of the issue did concern modelling.

The issue is titled Assessing learning with ICT, with deliberate intent to exploit the ambiguity in that title. Depending on how these words are grouped, the issues are examined from two rather different, though related, viewpoints. Questions such as whether ICT has enabled improvements in learning environments and facilitated learning processes, and whether the large investment in learning technologies has been, or will be, worthwhile look at the matter from the viewpoint of assessing learning with ICT. However answers to such questions depend, at least in part, on the development of appropriate strategies and methods for assessing students’ learning in technology-rich environments — assessing learning with ICT.

The first two papers provide a valuable introduction to the issue, suggesting frameworks for thinking about the problem and drawing particular attention to the importance of context in the description and assessment of learning with ICT. Next a group of six papers describe empirical research studies that address the question of assessing learning with ICT in a range of learning contexts. The final three papers address issues in and strategies for assessing learning of students in environments where ICT is extensively and increasingly used.

Perspectives on the relationships between ICT and assessment, outlines roles for ICT in schools: a set of skills; a vehicle for teaching and learning of school subjects; an agent of change. The paper raises issues about teaching and testing of skills, and argues for assessment of ICT skills through context dependent use of technology, not simple testing of techniques. McFarlane outlines findings reported from attempts to investigate effects on learning resulting from use of ICT. She describes difficulties inherent in this endeavour, including the lack of theoretical models for the work and problems with interpreting findings when little evidence of context is provided. Drawing attention to the variety of functionality and application of ICT, she argues strongly against treating the term as an aggregation of all its forms, as a ‘homogeneous description of a set of possible interventions’. She asserts that a more developed discourse is required if the relationship between a form of ICT, a model of use, and any impact on the user is to be appropriately examined. The importance of context is further considered in the paper, Examining learning in relation to the contexts of use of ICT. Tolmie emphasises that the same technology or software may have unexpectedly diverse effects, according to the specific setting in which it is employed, and argues for a ‘context-sensitive approach to both the introduction and the evaluation of ICT in education’. He provides examples from primary, secondary and university levels of education to illustrate this, and to indicate the types of issues to be examined when considering the fit between technology, the context of its use and the effects on learning. He draws attention to the difficulty of using information from context-sensitive evaluations suggesting that management effort must be located more within the process of implementation than within design. This implies that evaluation findings should be planned for and disseminated to users, in contrast to the present focus on evaluation for developers.

The next two papers, the first in the group on assessing learning with ICT, present contrasting findings from two Australian studies. These papers clearly demonstrate the importance of describing the specific application of ICT being examined and the learning context, as argued by McFarlane and Tolmie.

The role of visually rich technology in facilitating children’s writing describes work with a case study group of five upper primary aged students, previously very low achievers in writing, with strongly preferred visual learning styles. The investigation showed that student use of the visual and animation features of the MicroWorlds multimedia programming environment, concurrent with engagement in narrative writing tasks, mediated a substantial improvement in the fluency and the quality of writing of these students. Vincent argues that the far greater complexities in structures, observed in the students’ written work in the multimedia development environment, suggested that those structures were inherent in the minds of the students and were triggered by the application of the software.

A contrasting result from a somewhat similar study is reported in The computer as a Trojan Horse. Boyle worked in a relatively similar school environment, with students only slightly older than those in Vincent’s study, but Boyle’s study concerned a class of boys considered low performers in formal school mathematics. He investigated the efficacy of the use of scaffolded multimedia software development as a vehicle for incidental learning of mathematical techniques. The researcher’s records showed that all but one of the students used a broad range of the essential mathematical concepts and skills and peer reviews of their software judged that all but one project adequately covered the mathematical material required and were worthy of use for teaching students in the following year. However regular school testing gave no evidence to suggest that the intervention had any effect on the performance of any of these students in normal school mathematics. Boyle uses Minsky’s idea of a devil demon frame to explain the apparently insurmountable gap between these students’ successful experience in the mathematical software design activity and their unsuccessful experience in formal school mathematics.

The next two papers describe studies involving comparisons between technology-rich teaching strategies and more traditional approaches. A problem-solving based computer-assisted tutorial for the earth sciences, by Chang compares the use of a problem-solving based computer-assisted tutorial system with a lecture-internet-discussion teaching approach, for Taiwanese high school students. The problem-solving approach was associated with some valuable learning activities; however, gains in student achievement were not found to be significant, and no significant changes were found in attitudes towards earth sciences. ICT in higher education: evaluating outcomes for health education, by Lockyer and colleagues, describes an examination of collaborative tutorial activities carried out in web-based and face-to-face environments at an Australian university. The effectiveness of each approach was measured in terms of observed learning outcomes, analysis of learner interactions and reports of learner perceptions of the experience. Many of the comparative findings did not provide significant differences; however, the study showed that web-based environments with embedded collaborative activities can effectively foster rich learning experiences and positive learning outcomes. The major disadvantage of the web-based approach, as perceived by the students, was the reduced level of contact with lecturers. While both Chang’s and this paper provide useful information about the technologically-rich environments they describe, the lack of significant results in both reports appears to substantiate the problematic nature of comparative experimental studies in this area.

The final two papers in this group, while still focusing on assessing learning with ICT provide a transition toward the next group, as these two are also concerned with strategies for assessing learning of the students in the technology-rich environments being investigated. Discovery simulations and the assessment of intuitive knowledge, by Swaak and DeJong, examines relations between the features of discovery simulations, the learning processes elicited, the knowledge that results and the methods used to measure this knowledge. They conclude that assignments associated with the technology-based tasks contribute to the effectiveness of simulations, and that tests of intuitive knowledge appear to be able to measure the results of learning with discovery simulations. In ‘Bridging Tools’ for change: evaluating a collaborative learning network, Bonamy and colleagues discuss the development and evaluation of a collaborative learning environment in which higher education students in five European countries worked together on team-based academic activities. The students are supported by tutors from any of the participating institutions. Analysis of the logbooks and reflection reports of students using the environment showed learning mostly of ICT skills, followed by methodological skills and finally metacognitive skills. Unanticipated effects of implementing this form of collaborative distance learning in traditional institutions were noted, and the authors provide lists of enabling and disincentive factors from the experience.

The final three papers focus particularly on strategies for and approaches to the assessment of students’ learning in technology-rich situations. Collis and colleagues in Feedback for web-based assignments identify types of web-based tools that might be used for feedback. They illustrate these with examples of feedback strategies supported by a web-based course management system, discussing instructor support in this environment and suggesting that new forms of feedback supported by web-based environments can enable the provision of enriched learning for students. In Experiences of assessment: using phenomenography for evaluation, Jones reports on interviews with academics from five universities in the UK, all of whom had used computer conferencing systems on the web for delivery of courses, and with 10 students using computer conferencing for study and assessment in an Open University course. The academics raised issues of difficulty of designing online activities and courses, and drew attention to assessment criteria as a key feature of course design. The students revealed important variation in their interpretations of assessment guidelines; many of them were concerned, far more than the course designer had intended, with the collaborative aspects of the assessment activities, with commensurately less emphasis on the content of the course. Jones argues that a phenomenographic approach to such variation could have implications for the design of networked learning environments.

The necessary linking between new learning approaches associated with developments in ICT and methods for formal assessment of learning are the focus of What have examinations got to do with computers in education? Harding describes several projects exploring the impact of new technologies on learning and assessment, based at the Interactive Technologies in Assessment and Learning Unit in the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

Finally I want to thank all the contributors to this Special Issue for their submissions and for their co-operation in meeting deadlines. I have appreciated enormously the support, patience and wisdom of Bob Lewis throughout the development of the issue.

References

Johnson, D.C., Cox, M.J. & Watson, D.M. (1994) Evaluating the impact of IT on pupils’ achievements. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 10, 138–156.

Papert, S. (1985) Computer criticism versus technocentric thinking. Logo 85 Theoretical Papers. (pp. 53–67). Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

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JCAL Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2001

Editorial: Collective forgetting

Any change to established processes inevitably finds resistance and there is probably no global strategy for overcoming the hurdles for change, as cultural diversity is the primary factor. Attempts to bring about change often originate from the top. In the UK and in many other countries, governments launch initiatives with mostly good intentions, but these in themselves do not guarantee innovation as the vision for the anticipated changes is not owned by the principle change agents.

It is enlightening to be an observer in a few different countries. It is hard to imagine the impact of an ‘electronic government’ in the UK and harder to see that e-goverance will be welcomed and effective in Russia. Whilst the technology might be put in place it will take decades to change the practices embedded in the old system, let alone the attitude and behaviour of administrators. Meanwhile, the cyber-cities, cyber-villages and cyber-communities in Taiwan are based on a need of all citizens — to obtain necessary forms to complete over the web rather than have to queue for some hours at a counter. The example is not a trivial one; that personal experience and frustration exists to some degree in every country.

The main issue in capitalising on the richness that technology now offers is to encapsulate the real needs of (potential) users. It is interesting that in Saudi Arabia the government has talked about a ‘national plan’ for some years and has still to find the core need and strategy which will unleash vast resources.

In all the countries mentioned, and in most others, there is the possibility that the national technology infrastructure created will provide better opportunities to support education (and in some cases that is planned). It is high on the agenda in many countries and it is well appreciated that economic and social welfare will be enhanced by better, appropriate resources for learning, lifelong learning in particular.

BUT, it is not clear that administrators/governments appreciate the basis of change. The management research literature is clear: if change is needed, then most resources MUST be targeted at the point of change. In other words, support must be focused on those actors who are in a position to make change happen. Top-down policies (as they exist in most countries — the UK is a prime example) fail dramatically in this respect.

However, relatively recent changes have provided us with easily transferable lessons. A recent UK Channel 4 TV series (The Day the World Took Off) has an internationally well researched, associated book (Dugan, S & Dugan, D. (2000) The Day the World Took Off - the roots of the Industrial Revolution. Channel 4 Books/Macmillan, Oxford.)

I need only take one of many quotable instances:

‘The initiatives that I have just talked about [concerning industrial initiatives] are from Paris, they come from the government, from the Board of Trade, from the Bureau of Commerce, they are imposed on the great French provincial centres by the capital. What you see is a rational, planned absolutely sensible and in the end rather ineffective system of automation and industrial change.

In eighteenth-century England, by contrast, many initiatives came from local response to local demand, and succeeded because of the business talent of individual entrepreneurs.’ (p. 42)

In implementing new technologies for learning, is it possible learn from the past?

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JCAL Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2001

Regional editorial: IT programmes and policies in the Asia-Pacific region

C.K. Looi, National University of Singapore and President of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the AACE

Email: cheekit@iss.nus.edu.sg

This Special Issue of JCAL with its range of refereed, research papers is but one indication of the growing community of educational technology researchers and scholars in the Asia-Pacific region. The papers represent a cultural focus on the technological and human-interaction dimensions of this complex, fast changing domain. A major contributing factor in stimulating much high quality research is the dynamism and enthusiasm of the various countries in the planning and deployment of information technology (IT) in schools and tertiary institutions. I would like to take the opportunity of providing an overview of the region’s efforts to initiate and drive the use of information technology in education. Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have initiated policies and strategies for the infusion of information technology into their schools. Like many other countries, they share the belief that a critical factor in the nation’s economic success is how well their citizens can adapt and thrive in a global IT environment. The countries’ education authorities, the schools and the tertiary institutions have the role and responsibility of preparing the school population to live in and create a future in which IT will be pervasive in all walks of life. Basic research has an important part to play in this endeavour. The actions in a number of countries will be reviewed starting with Hong Kong.

In 1998, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government announced its five-year strategy plan of integrating IT into teaching and learning in the schools. In this plan, students are expected to develop a global insight of the knowledge society and be capable of using the large volume of information resources on the Internet. Teachers are expected to participate in staff development programmes to contribute to the paradigm shift from teacher-centred teaching to learner-centred learning. Their government has taken on the leadership and co-ordination role by providing a range of support mechanisms. This includes adequate IT facilities such as the network infrastructure, computers and peripherals, teacher training, and other necessary support such as IT coordinators and centralised technical staff to support the schools. The goal is to foster a community-wide culture on the use of IT. Many IT-related projects have been conducted by schools in the past three years. Formally established on 2nd January 1998 with an allocation of HK$5 billion, the Quality Education Fund (QEF) of the Education and Manpower Bureau of the HKSAR government provides an effective channel for the support of worthwhile project applications from the school education sector.

Based on proposals for educational reform made in 1996 by the Ministry of Education in Japan, policies for a new standard curriculum in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) education were formulated and reported in 1998, and they are to be implemented in all schools from 2002. Briefly, the scheme is for ICT to be studied as a subject and also used to assist in learning other subjects. The infusion of ICT into the curriculum varies from ‘across the curriculum’ to ‘subject-centred’ approaches. In elementary school, ICT will be mainly used as an instructional aid though the practical uses of ICT are viewed as important skills. In secondary school, a new compulsory subject, Information Study, will be introduced for all high school students. It consists of three major components: practical skills in using ICT applications, the scientific understanding of information processing and the understanding of ICT’s role in society. In order to implement ICT education, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of International Trade and Industry and Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, together with other organisations and societies, have conducted a variety of projects. For example, in the 100-school networking project which began in 1993, schools participated in various activities, such as a collab-orative learning project on acid rain, a study involving the weather bureau in which students compared weather charts with pictures produced by weather satellites, and cross-cultural education using real time video exchanges with overseas schools.

In Korea, the concept of adapting education to the Information Age or ‘educational informatisation’ was popularised after the announcement by the Ministry of Education in May 1995 of Education Reform Measures and then the Comprehensive Education Information Plan. Adapting education to the information age aims to construct a social basis for open education and self-directed learning. In 1997 a three-year Plan for Building an Educational Information Base was implemented. This plan aims to provide an environment in which the customers of education, including teachers and students, have the capacity to use various educational resources. It seeks to enhance the efficiency of all educational processes and administration using information technology and also initiates and nurtures various programmes for reform-oriented voluntary forces that are eager to apply information technology to educational activities. The main tasks of adapting education to the information age include providing technical infrastructure for all classrooms, the development and dissemination of educational resources, teacher training, and adapting educational administration to the Information Age. All teachers should already have participated in training programmes so that they have the skills for using educational software and information network management.

In Taiwan, the Information Education Infrastructure Program launched by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 1997, has endeavoured to carve out an information education blueprint for students and teachers in all schools. Through this plan, the MOE has set-up computer classrooms in every elementary and middle school (with one PC for each student), provided Internet access to elementary and middle schools and provided on-campus training programmes for teachers in basic computing techniques. Two hundred and twenty thousand teachers have completed training in various IT workshops. The MOE has also established software and resource centres in elementary, middle, junior high and vocational schools, and provide subject-based network materials for elementary and middle schools. By providing teaching materials and assessments, university researchers support elementary and middle schools in experimenting with in-class computer instruction. Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, apart from making efforts to get every school connected on the Internet, will continue to focus on the following tasks along with its information promotion initiatives: Internet access for each classroom; development of a new nine-year coherent curriculum for elementary and middle schools; integration of IT with other educational fields and the development of a uniform instructional guide; support and increase of teachers’ ability in IT applications and the development of subject-based digitised teaching materials.

In Singapore, the Masterplan for IT in Education was launched in 1997 as a blueprint for the integration of IT in education as a strategy to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The underlying philosophy is that education should continually anticipate the future needs of society, and work towards fulfilling those needs. The skills required for the future will centre on thinking skills, learning skills and communication skills. IT-based teaching and learning will be one of the key strategies for equipping the young with these skills. The Masterplan also seeks to provide a broader base of access to IT among the young so as to achieve a levelling up in learning opportunities so that all children will be able to enhance their learning through an IT-enriched curriculum and school environment. The Masterplan is governed by four overarching goals: to enhance linkages between the school and the world around it, so as to expand and enrich the learning environment; to encourage creative thinking, life-long learning and social responsibility; to generate innovative processes in education and to promote administrative and management excellence in the education system.

In Australia, in the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the 21st Century, IT is stated as one of the eight national goals (learning areas) students should achieve. The plans for achieving the national goal for IT are largely left to individual states and territories. The coordinating and advisory body, Education Network Australia (EdNA), has provided a wealth of information on how each state or territory is pursuing its plans for incorporating IT into schools.

In New Zealand, the ICT Strategy for Schools document envisaged that by 2002, schools will be demonstrating that they are improving learning outcomes for students by using ICT to support the aims and objectives of the curriculum. To achieve this, they should be providing ICT professional development for teachers and principals. Schools should also demonstrate that they are using ICT to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of educational administration, and be developing partnerships with their communities to enhance access to learning through ICT.

In this brief account of the IT in Education initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region, I have certainly not been able to do justice to all the various viewpoints, strategies, plans, initiatives and efforts in the countries mentioned and have been unable to cover other countries such as China and Malaysia.

The community of educational technology researchers in the Asia-Pacific region has an annual conference series called the International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE). ICCE has been held regularly for several years, and attracts a substantial number of good quality papers each year. Each ICCE features a different group of distinguished people in the field as keynote and invited speakers. Researchers and scholars from the region do not have to travel far to attend a quality conference with a distinctive Asia-Pacific focus. Please contribute to the next ICCE.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help of Kanji Akahori, Tak-Wai Chan, Shamin Han, Siu-Cheung Kong, Kwok-Wing Lai, and Tae-Wuk Lee, for providing me with information on the various activities in their countries.

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JCAL Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2000

Guest Editorial: approaches to the design of software training

M. Bannert & P. Reimann, University of Kobelenz-Landau and University of Heidelberg

Email: bannert@rhrk.uni-kl.de

According to software producers, modern computer application programs are not only becoming more and more user-friendly but also easier to learn to use. However, the complexity of applications’ software is increasing dramatically and frequent updates of products often require the (re-)learning of program usage. Consequently, for the majority of computer users, a minimum of training is an indispensable prerequisite for the effective use of software

But how should users be supported when learning to use a software product and how should instructions be designed in order to achieve effective software training? To date, only a few psychological studies have investigated these research questions in any systematic fashion. However, various fields of psychology can and should make contributions to this issue, which will not only allow the formulation of recommendations and guidelines for instructional approaches to software training, but also provide significant knowledge concerning theoretical and educational issues beyond software training.

Hence, the objective of this Special Issue is to discuss this new topic of psychological research from a theoretical and methodological perspective based on empirical studies. The focus lies on the learning of application programs, the design of adequate instructional support and the implications for software training practice. The acquisition of programming languages is not considered.

Most papers emerged from the Symposium ‘Instructional Approaches and Design of Software Training’ which was organised at the EARLI Conference 1999 in Gothenburg, and from the poster session about software training held at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie Conference 1998 in Germany. The selection of original reports covers a broad spectrum of issues, in which each contribution views the topic from the perspective of computer-based learning and instruction.

Martin-Michiellot and Mendelsohn investigate design recommendations for computer manuals based on Cognitive Load Theory. In particular, they analyse whether different instruction formats affect learning time and performance due to induced cognitive load. The main result of their study is that learning to use a CAD-package with a so-called juxtaposed or an integrated manual — both presented without a computer — takes about half the time when compared to a conventional manual — presented with a computer –— without any loss in learning performance.

A similar topic is treated by Van der Meij who focuses on captured screen images in software documentation. In his experimental study, which also addressed Cognitive Load Theory, problems related to splitting attention between manual, screen, and input device were investigated when learning the use of software with manuals. As expected, the inclusion of screen images in the software documentation for Windows 95 influenced learning time and learning outcome. Van der Meij proposes a taxonomy for screen images with four crucial design dimensions in order to help designers of software manuals to improve upon the use of screen images and in order to guide further research on this issue.

Dutke and Reimer analyse the design of on-line help-systems to support task-based system-exploration for which two distinct cognitive phases are assumed: schema acquisition and mental model building. The aim of their study was to assess the effects of on-line help formats on learning performance. In two studies using graphics software similar to ‘Paint Brush’ they varied the help format: Operative help, which includes a list of actions which have to be carried out in order to reach the goal, should be best suited for schema acquisition; function-oriented help, which gives the explanation about how the specific function works, should be especially appropriate for mental model building. Experimental results confirmed that learning performance was better when using operative help in the context of solving similar tasks. However, when the type of task changes, users exploring the system with function-oriented help were better.

Reimann and Neubert present an exploratory study in which the use of a variety of information resources (i.e. the user interface and program itself, manuals, on-line help, or examples provided in the manuals) by novice learners was investigated. In particular, they asked how novices make use of the worked-out examples often provided in manuals and during training. Based on earlier research on the self-explanation effect, thinking aloud data from novices obtained when learning to use a spreadsheet program were analysed with respect to examples elaboration and utilisation during problem solving. Important effects of self-explaining comparable to findings in other domains were found.

The aim of Lazonder’s paper is to identify users’ needs for learning web-based information seeking. Searching in the Web is described by a process model including the stages: goal formation, strategy selection, strategy execution, and monitoring. Information search processes of novice and expert users were analysed in a qualitative case study. In particular, their actions and verbalisations were recorded when performing three Web search tasks. Minimal performance differences between novices and experts were identified. The results indicate that users should be instructed in monitoring skills and system knowledge when learning information searching.

Bannert reports on an investigation into the effectiveness and feasibility of individual learners’ support in software training. Text-processing courses in real classroom settings were analysed in a quasi-experimental study using two kinds of user interface. Half of the courses used a conventional software interface, whereas the other half used a training wheels interface in which all irrelevant functions were blocked. In half of the courses all instruction was given by a human tutor whereas the participants in the other half learned with printed self-learning material. Results indicate that participants using the ‘training wheels’ learned significantly faster than those using the ‘standard interface’. However, they did not have better learning outcomes. Students in the ‘self-learning material’ condition learned significantly faster and achieved significantly better learning outcomes than students in the ‘human tutor’ group. No group differences in learner satisfaction occurred.

The training wheels approach was also investigated in Leutner’s study and the paper presents the so-called double-fading support approach (DFS) to software training. Two types of user support when learning a complex software system were faded out gradually during the course: locking software’s functionality and detailed guidance. Two experiments investigated if both fading-out support measures do lead to increased problem solving achievement when practice problems with a CAD system were solved. Results indicate the effectiveness of the DFS-Approach for an deeply structured CAD-menu. As expected, participants working with the initially reduced software outperformed participants from the full functionality software group; additionally, participants of the slowly faded guidance group outperformed participants from the other fading guidance-groups. However, less effectiveness of the DFS-approach was obtained for an icon-based CAD-system. Here, it seems that the two factors of user support over-compensated each other.

Wiedenbeck, Zavala and Nawyn analyse the effects of different practice methods in exploration-based software training. The aim of their study is to understand the effects of different hands-on practice methods by analysing the activities undertaken during training. Three practice methods were varied by using an exercise, an exploration, and a combined training approach for learning Hypercard. Effects of these methods were analysed with respect to learning time and learning activities. The outcomes of the study indicate that participants of the exploration-based method failed to practice and to repeat the basics of the materials and failed to extend their knowledge. The lack of systematic repetition and going beyond the information given may have led to subsequent difficulties in skill acquisition of entirely exploration-based training approaches. The study points out the necessity of conducting process analysis which is often ignored in training studies. In addition, and more important for the topic of this Special Issue, the study demonstrates the limits of entirely exploration-based learning. Most learners were not able to explore the software totally on their own in such a way that they were able to use it effectively. Thus, instructional approaches to software training are nevertheless important measures for software users — despite the increasing usability of modern software products.

This issue concludes with comments by Van Merrienboer who classifies the papers on the basis of a general Instructional Design Approach. His review distinguishes papers mainly concerned with task and content analysis (‘What to teach’) from papers focusing on design and selection of instructional methods (‘How to teach’) and from papers dealing with instructional message design (‘How to present what is taught’). Based on this classification Van Merrienboer points out three recent trends in software training: from narrow function-oriented learning tasks to rich task-oriented learning problems in real-life contexts; from purely procedural description to scaffolding for deep system understanding; and from low-load instruction formats to instructions that induce and support deep information elaboration. Finally, he concludes that software training should no longer be treated as a separate field of instructional research and design, but rather should be integrated in training measures of professional skills.

Finally, we want to thank all our contributors for their co-operation when working on this Special Issue and meeting its deadlines. Also, Jeroen van Merrienboer helped us considerably in the editorial pr