Courseware projects in advanced educational computing environments
Mary E. Hopper, Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Abstract
This study explored how issues from older educational computing projects became
intertwined with new problems during courseware projects in advanced computing
environments. Interviews with 19 key participants and information from major
documents were used to construct a model describing the relationships between
educational goals, technical characteristics, and organizational structures.
The following projects, organizations and participants were the focus of this study:
Project: ESCAPE (HyperCard and HyperNews)
Organizations: Educational Research and Information Systems (ERIS, Purdue)
Participants:
Hopper,
Lawler,
LeBold,
Putnam,
Rehwinkel,
Tillotson,
Ward
Project: TODOR (BLOX) &
Mechanics 2.01 (cT, Athena)
Organizations: Athena and Academic Computing (AC, MIT)
Participants:
Bucciarelli,
Daly,
Jackson,
Lavin,
Schmidt
Project: Physical Geology Tutor (AthenaMuse)
Organizations: Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI, MIT)
Participants:
Davis,
Kinnicutt,
Lerman,
Schlusselberg
Project: Context32 (Intermedia, StorySpace)
Organizations: Institute for Research and Information Scholarship (IRIS, Brown)
Participants:
Kahn,
Landow,
Yankelovich
[See the Switchboard for further information.]
Successful projects began with goals for providing both improved representations
of the discipline and increased learner involvement. Critical technical
characteristics of software included appropriate functionality,
usability for interaction and creation, and adaptability for availability
or the change inherent in distributed computing environments. The courseware
that was created consisted of complex learning environments that required
regular use and maintenance to survive.
The authors who developed the learning
environments needed to maintain them and acquire the resources upon which regular
delivery depended. Three different organizational structures were found
which provided for the continuation of informational, technical, human,
and financial resources. Within these organizational structures, learners
sometimes became authors, while authors became the managers of ongoing
production projects where major educational, technical and organizational
factors needed to be continuously balanced. Future courseware projects
should be viewed as experiments and treated as opportunities to further
define the framework of concepts developed in this study.