1.3.4.1 Timing, Tasks and Roles in the Past
Behind the issues of what would be taught, and the types of technical decisions and
activities required to carry out those general goals, there were the people and the
activities that made the project a reality. Each approach to using computers in an
educational context becomes associated with characteristic development strategies
and processes. This is not surprising, but almost essential, because once an approach
to using computers in education moves beyond the point of being a homegrown prototype effort,
it needs to produce fairly clear cut explanations of both why and how others are to participate
in the effort. It is at this point that the particular tools used to carry out the endeavor
become intertwined with the approach in people's minds. Advice varies according to both academic
and technical commitments. Most descriptions of how to construct courseware tend to be based upon
the type of software used and the educational model which is to surround the software's use and delivery.
One of the most straightforward approaches to development advice has been to adopt theory and
practice directly from the traditional computer fields of computer programming or software design
and utilize them in the service of educational goals. This is the route that was taken by those
who first promoted traditional computer programming within the curriculum.
(Brown & Herbanek, 1984) provide one example of a typical model
of software design procedures. This model explicitly outlines a set of steps for the analysis
and planning of software, and it also prescribes the specific types of formal documentation
which should be associated with each step.
Table A Typical Model of Software Design Procedure
This type of approach is evident in the way many teachers have taught their students to use
structured programming, to avoid creating what is known as spaghetti code, and a top-down
approach such as flow charting to be sure that different modules of complex programs will
work well together even when developed by different programmers.
While software design and programming concepts may have helped early educators introducing
programming, there has been a wide spread belief that pedagogical knowledge is at least as
key as good programming for those who wish to introduce computers in educational settings.
Instructionally oriented production advice developed in the field of computer-based instruction
(CBI). For producers of CBI, traditional software production methods were an inadequate
description of how educational issues should be considered. In addition, a number of early
CBI proponents were instructional designers. Consequently, there were a number of cases
where instructional design models were integrated with software design methodology.
The table below shows an example of a model for educational courseware production for CBI.
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A 10-step process used to design, produce and evaluate CBI:
Step 1: Conduct environmental analysis
Step 2: Conduct knowledge engineering
Step 3: Establish goals and instructional objectives
Step 4: Sequence topics and tasks
Step 5: Write courseware
Step 6: Design each frame
Step 7: Program the computer
Step 8: Produce accompanying documents
Step 9: Evaluate and revise CBI
Step 10: Implement and follow-up
CBI design as a collaborative process
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Table A Typical Model of CBI Design, Production and Evaluation
(Criswell, 1989, p. 50)
Authors of computer based instruction differentiate between the software used
by the programmers who produced authoring languages or systems, the authors
who produced instruction, and the student who participated in the delivery of
instruction using delivery software. They also use traditional advice about
what is considered required instructional activities to guide the structure of
the software they produce:
Teaching consists of the teacher (human or computer) support
activities that cause a student to learn. These activities include presenting
new instructional challenges, providing enough practice, reviewing when necessary,
informing the student about the correctness of his or her responses, allowing the
student to discover for himself or herself when learning certain skills, and
keeping track of the student's progress. The understanding that learning progresses
as a function of teaching activities is fundamental to designing CBI.
(Criswell, 1989, p. 1)
Authors of intelligent tutoring systems not only differentiate between software for
authors and learners, but also engage in both a fine grained systematic analysis
of the content and student's errors. ICAI programs are designed to generate and
solve problems, store and retrieve data, diagnose student's misconceptions,
select appropriate teaching strategies, and carry on dialogs with students
throughout the entire instructional process, rather than just parts of it.
Production advice from those who construct microworlds tends to be associated
with constructivistic approaches, and also divides the skills of the producer
from the naive explorer or user, although not as sharply. Table shows sample
advice for microworld construction (Lawler, 1987).
Designers of microworld
problem-solving environments program a collection of manipulitable computational
objects whose interrelations and functions can be explored by user's self-directed actions (see Table).
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The essential task is one of engineering at a very high level of abstraction
on the domain of knowledge itself. After examining important fields of knowledge,
- Ask what candidates for transitional objects exist for that domain.
- Ask how to describe completely the state of the transitional object(s).
- Ask how there can be created an environment for those objects which will
provide students the opportunity to be creative.
- Ask how the knowledge developed through such experiences can be assimilated
to the systems of common sense knowledge which a student might be expected to
bring with him or her.
- For current curriculum: design an alternative curriculum based on multiple microworlds;
this is no small tasks for any area of study.
- Rethink the content and rationale of current curriculum. An extensive example is found
in Turtle Geometry by Abelson and DiSessa (Abelson & DiSessa, 1983).
A shorter example is sketched in Logo and Intelligent Videodisk Applications for Pre-Readers.
(Lawler & Papert, 1985). The point to observe here is the depth
at which curriculum should be examined.
- Increase the systematicity of domain analysis.
- Take guidance from children and your own taste. Can you make things that you enjoy?
That others enjoy? Creating microworlds is work as much for artists and toymakers as it is for teachers.
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Table Sample Advice for Microworld Construction
Advice for the producer returns to expecting them to combine traditional software development
knowledge and educational design advice, but also adds an the additional artistic element.
Despite the difference between the commitments of the designers of microworlds and those of ICAI,
they share a similar concern for analyzing and modeling the most important structures in a content
domain and appreciating the learner's conceptions of that domain. The similarities in these
commitments is not surprising because many of the designers of microworlds and intelligent
tutoring systems began as members of the artificial intelligence community, and have since
applied their knowledge to education.
Many producers of interactive video/multimedia have published advice about the production,
implementation, and research of these materials which only varies slightly from the traditional
objective-driven instructional design methodologies of CAI and ICAI advocates. The main
differences between the new production methodologies tend to be centered upon the need for
including roles, tasks and perhaps stages to accommodate the multiple forms of media such
as video or sound ((Bergman & Moore, 1990).
No matter what the source of the recommendations, or the philosophical underpinnings of
the educational software to be produced, there seems to be a consistent tendency to describe
the process as a series of steps or stages, which begins with a number of steps that revolve
around extensive planning. The actually development tends to take place rather late in the
process, and the fate of the project after the point of development is only dealt with through
cursory statements about planning for maintenance or evaluation and revision. In cases were a
cycle of some sort is implied, the steps or stages are still represented in a somewhat linear
format that may provide for some provisions of feedback.
There are also patterns in educational computing concerning the nature of those who lead
the efforts to introduce uses of computers into education, and their position relative to
the larger institutions of education. For example, when a person with a position in a
university setting perceives a way for a particular approach to using computers to help
them significantly improve or address a need they perceive in the educational process,
certain patterns follow Over the years, there have been distinct patterns of problems
associated with these efforts (Trollip, 1988).
In the following passage, one author describes how one basic pattern has been manifest
within university settings, and goes on to describe the ways in which it has led to a
more team oriented approach within those settings:
Production of original software has been a complex process. Typically,
enthusiastic faculty members who have undertaken creative software development projects
have found them to be unduly time-consuming. They have also discovered that software
development often requires technical and design skills beyond their capabilities.
At present, there are many more consumers than producers which has especially limited
the usefulness and availability of educational applications, since such programs often
need to be tailored to specialized needs. Furthermore, the limits of what could be
accomplished by a solitary faculty member have led to the proliferation of the so called
"team approach" to programming in which software is developed jointly be a group consisting,
at minimum, of an instructional designer, content specialist (usually the faculty member),
and one or more programmers. (Resmer, 1988)
In this case, the organizational setting in which projects began, and the people who began
them had an impact on the general make up of the development team, the roles within the team,
and the necessary tasks required by different members of the team. By means of a team,
projects gradually develop demonstrations and explanations of how their approach contributes
to the educational process within their own field and educational level, or more generally
across the educational spectrum. There are clearly particular skills and knowledge required
of those who develop materials, whether the developers are students, teachers, or authors of
commercial educational materials. Some tasks during computer software development or
implementation originate from the educational context and are generally carried out by
a content specialist. Other tasks come from technical demands such as software design,
programming, or even hardware setup for implementation and are carried out by programmers
or software designers.