EDU800

EDU800 Week 7 Annotation

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Mishra, P., & Koehler, M.J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for integrating technology in teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.

This article discusses TPCK, which involves 4 factors in teaching, in the context of professionally developing teachers. The TPCK framework is an attempt formalize the examination of teaching components for many purposes including understanding the common elements in all teaching. By breaking the teaching practice into these components. By modeling what Shulman originally formulated, the PCK construct, Mishra and Koehler have captured a way to fit teacher practices into a simple context by categorizing the interplay between content, pedagogy and technology. The article gives examples of learning technology by design such as through making movies, redesigning educational websites, and faculty development of online course design. The model shows us how the overlapping occurs so that we can adjust and tweak the course, curricula or program as needed. It can lend us the tools to evolve content and the ways we deliver it in a more agile fashion, since in the technological world we find today demands learning modules to adapt to new innovations, discoveries and accounts of a particular subject matter.

When integrating technology with the learning environments, the TPCK model gives us a theoretical way to approach the design and implementation of teaching and training for various levels of education, and for preparing teachers. With increasing use of digital technological tools, rather than just blackboard, chalk, paper and pencils, we need a way to model the complexities of the interaction among the factors. The article addresses how we can design learning environments, leveraging the practical experiences of seasoned teachers and giving us tools to create, test and implement compelling and effective lessons, modules, courses, sessions and even entire programs. Since teachers not only have to deliver content which they are expert at, using varied technology and pedagogy, they need to have a way to develop their skills beyond just being a practitioner and SME. Teachers are the best problem solvers for the challenges facing them in classrooms, so the TPCK model provides the framework for them to decouple the components involved in an instance of teaching. For example, since a teacher has volumes of content knowledge, they may not be as good at conveying the content, so they need to be trained in improving and enhancing their use of learning technology and develop better pedagogical skills. One particular approach that involved design was making videos. There are very powerful and capable technologies to enable teachers to design and develop video content, so the skills in doing so must be taught. So teachers need to develop production skills in authoring, editing, creating storyboards and implementing video for delivery online, through open repositories such as YouTube, but also for integrating it into local resources such as the LMS. Teachers have always had to be multidisciplinary in that even in a highly technical engineering or math course, they need to also reinforce knowledge of writing and reading, problem solving, even social skills. Now, we see that beyond the main content and the ancillary content, teachers need to be technologists and develop their technology skills in using devices such as video/still cameras, scanners, web authoring tools, software development, image editing, infrastructure issues such as technology in smart classrooms, file systems and servers, networks, databases and knowledge bases, data mining, big data analytics. These skills are becoming essential to design of learning environments, especially for online and blended courses. In addition, since digital technology content is very replicable, we can develop and design consistent content and leverage that to deliver and apply iterative revisions as new content emerges and old content is retired or replaced.

Since teachers are researchers for what works in their classroom, this article can help us find ways to design and build learning experiences and to integrate the content, technology and pedagogy. By finding where a particular instance of instruction fits into the framework of TPCK, through empirical research, we can see where it needs to be improved, where the components need to be integrated or disintegrated. We can use research methodologies to examine all of the combinations, intersections and integrations of the triad of components, as in the CK (Content Knowledge), PK (Pedagogical Knowledge), PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge), TK (Technology Knowledge), TCK (Technology Content Knowledge), TPK (Technology Pedagogical Knowledge), and the TPCK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge). Each of the three main components can be improved on a case-by-case basis for any teacher, through traditional professional development, but the added value of professionally developing the integration of the three is where applying the TPCK framework can have the most impact. In addition, we can further understand how changing or adding to one dynamically affects the overall balance and effectiveness of the learning experience. Finally, the TPCK framework gives us a usable scientific way to design, configure, apply, integrate, analyze, situate, contextualize, couple/decouple, improve the quality of, understand the relationships among, and transform our knowledge of the key components of technology, pedagogy and content.

EDU800 Week 6 Supplemental Annotation

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Using video in teacher education

Brophy, J. E. & Gamoran Sherin, M. (2004). Using video in teacher education. Chapter 1:  NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF VIDEO IN TEACHER EDUCATION, Amsterdam: JAI.

This article first gives a historical perspective over the past 40 years of the role that video has played in teacher education, and how video affords teacher training and education, examines the effectiveness of using video for teacher learning, with some mixed results.  It shows how video can be an innovative way to teach teachers to teach, and to develop teachers professionally.  The historical background shows the evolution of capability of analog video of the past, to digitized video currently, to deployment of it via the Internet in what the author calls video networks.  The author points out that as video costs continue to go down, it is more accessible and useful both in real and virtual classrooms and for use in teacher professional development.  It helps to provide an alternative to live environments and may contribute to teacher motivation. It also outlines various uses for video in teacher education such as using it to teach at a scaled-down, micro-level, or “Microteaching”  where the class size or duration was smaller and needed different instructional strategies.  Microteaching provides new opportunities for teachers to conduct whole-class discussions, and became a standard way to deliver teacher education.  Another technique used in teacher education is interaction analysis, or lesson analysis, where teachers used video to observe and analyze student-teacher interactions.   In addition, video can be used to model expert teaching, enabling developing teachers to examine how more experienced  teachers think instead of just observing their behavior.  In additon, the article provided a number of ways to leverage video for student learning.  Such things included video-based cases, including narratives, analysis and subsequent discussions which provided novice teachers with rich instances of problems to decipher and solve within the classroom environment.  In addition, the article refers to the integration of video into hypermedia, enabling the video to be delivered in a more intuitive manner, paralleling the ways in which people think.  Another key point is how the author states that video is an immutable/unchangeble, lasting and permanent record, which can be viewed and reviewed many times, relieving the teacher from having to remember everything which happened in a scenario

This chapter is an interesting account of how video, now predominantly digital, can be used not only to teach students, but to teach teachers.  Because of the flexibility of video embedded in hypermedia or delivered through the Internet, this technology has a far reaching effect.  Video is a powerful medium and now as it is carried on networks, captured in so many settings and environments, it is a key way to learn.  Video also can provide a clear account of the classroom environment for study, as well as content-based instruction.  It shows that video, by modeling expert teaching scenario’s to newer teachers, can be an effective way to empower teachers in training to emulate and replicate good teaching practices.  Novice teachers can learn new strategies to become better pedagogists.  The use of these video-based strategies could lead to innovative new techniques since they allow building off of rich examples, leveraging and scaffolding to higher value and more effective techniques.  And, the analysis and review of mentor teacher examples can give the novice teacher ways to become expert teachers, through reflection and discussion and through practical implementation of these strategies.  It can allow the developing teacher to observer and analyze student interactions and classroom practices.

Video can play a great role in educational research, learning science and the study of educational technology, and should be a key part of the suite of media and data sources we use for research.  Since researchers are by nature teachers, using video for teaching teachers is instructive for researchers to use video for research.  This article provides a perspective on seeing how video has been used, is now used and can be used in the future for teaching purposes to both teacher/learners and students.  Since video is a permanent record of events and occurrences of teaching and learning situations, researchers can use it as a focused study aid and tool for doing research.  It can be used for data gathering of the sort which defies just quantitative data and qualitative data through interviews and the like.  Through having a video record, new systems and approaches can be invented to perform research with video-based data.  In addition, since new technologies for searching image and video content are being developed by Google and others, this article will serve as a reminder of where we came from in terms of using video for basic training purposes, to video becoming a major source of research studies.

 

EDU800 Week 6 Annotation

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Schwartz, D. L., & Hartman, K. (2007). It is not television anymore: Designing digital video for learning and assessment. In Goldman, R., Pea, R., Barron, B., & Derry, S.J. (Eds.), Video research in learning science (pp. 349-366). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrance Erlbaum Associates.

This article explores how designed video technology can be a powerful factor in learning, and how it can be embedded in multimedia environments.   It also gives suggestions for educational researchers and instructional designers to use video for assessment.  It provides a framework for using video in multimedia contexts and describes how different genres of video can support different types of learning.   It outlines four common learning outcomes of utilizing video for learning:  (1) Seeing, in which video enables students to see things they haven’t seen in person, and gives opportunities to have the learner to leverage the visual medium to absorb large amounts of information without the logistical challenges and dilemmas that verbal only content presentation (i.e. text) provides.  (2) Engaging, in which the video can help to draw a learner in and keep them involved, providing a cognitive context leveraging the visual senses.  The authors also compare how video exploits the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to learn, emphasizing how learning is inherently intrinsic, but the extrinsic value of absorbing an engaging video event can contribute to engagement.  It also gives opportunities for learners to leverage prior knowledge, providing an anchor to build meaning from future learning experiences.  (3) Doing, in which models of skills and behaviors desired by the learner, can be visually rendered and/or simulated.  The student’s attitude is affected and skills can be acquired through viewing, emulating and practicing these models.  As the learner builds on previous knowledge through these models, how their knowledge, skills and capability matures can be assessed dynamically.  (4) Saying, in which students can verbalize what they’ve learned from the video, demonstrating the effectiveness of new knowledge acquisition.  The learner’s ability to verbalize facts and explain their newly acquired knowledge can be assessed from.  The effectiveness of the knowledge transfer is much more pronounced when the learner has prior knowledge to decipher and decode what the video presents.

Video can be a powerful tool for the learning sciences, when designed well while providing content for learning activities, and for assessing their effectiveness.  For example, practitioners can embed video to support learning, whether it is newly designed and created or video from archival sources.  Video can be a very useful assessment tool, requiring the student to look at something, and to find out what knowledge was gleaned from the video learning experience.  It also generates different motivations for learners to prepare for and to engage in learning opportunities.  Video content as a learning strategy enables students to scaffold on skills and knowledge modeled in the video, leading to intellectual growth.   It can be useful for project-based learning, be the basis for collaborative activities, and used to trigger other types of content absorption while being a catalyst to synthesize multiple sources of information for knowledge acquisition.  Visual media has evolved and improved, and now there is exponential growth of digitized old and new digital video, the acceleration of learning through utilizing visual media will continue.  The systems, networks and processes that enable today’s proliferation of video will fuel further innovation in video learning.

This article provides foundational literature for an area in need of scholarly articles on digital video for instructional purposes.  It also presents ideas for teachers to incorporate video into their pedagogical activities, including using it independently for student learning, incorporating and embedding it into LMS shells and other multimedia content, and other instructional resources.  As an educational technology, researchers can utilize instances of designed video within the suite of multimedia technologies delivered and utilized for instructional and experimental purposes, because it provides learning opportunities that involves seeing, engaging, doing, and saying which establishes, compels, reinforces and forms the basis for assessment.  In addition, by understanding how learning can be enhanced and affected by digital video, we can continue to analyze, design and build systems for learning that are comprehensively inclusive of a combination of media including text, hypertext, audio, computer simulations and digital video.   As learning science evolves, we may find that incorporating multiple media in the learning process will lead to better outcomes, especially given the digital nature of the learning environments that are emerging.

EDU800 Week 5 Annotation

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Shapiro, A., & Niederhauser, D. (2004). Learning from hypertext: Research issues and findings. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed), Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology (pp. 605-620). New York: Macmillan.

The article from Amy Shapiro discusses, compares and contrasts traditional text to hypertext.  She points out the dynamic, random, nonlinear structure and how learners/users of hypertext can retrieve text in their own order.  She examines how hypertext-assisted learning (HAL) shifts the cognitive burden to the learner.  However, in the studies she outlines, she points out that deep learning will occur more likely if the user has prior knowledge, and active learning is utilized, and how contradictory some of the research has been, where in some cases the findings are that hypertext is better, while other research findings show that it is worse than linear text.  The concept of cognitive flexibility theory (CFT), a constructivist theory, is also discussed.  Shapiro’s research on hypertext-based learning, while being either structured or ill-structured states that deep learning doesn’t always occur if the subject does not have prior knowledge.  She also examines how printed text differs from hypertext in that printed text formalizes the author role, whereas hypertext challenges assumptions about the roles of the author and the reader.   She characterizes hypertext as emancipatory and empowering because it forces readers to participate actively in creating meaning from the text.  Issues that arise with hypertext include scrolling, limited screen size, unusual color schemes and eye movement patterns that could lead to difficulty in reading.

When we compare the sequential, linear style of reading plain text, it is very evident that hypertext reading and navigation is a drastically different experience for the learner.  As Shapiro states, though, the learner can create their own path through hypertext, giving them more control over the mix of excerpts which are read.  However, when reading hypertext, one may skip over text that may be essential for understanding of primary concepts as compared with reading linear text.  Hypertext gives the reader a more self-guided experience through the reading.  There also can be a combination of other elements within the text such as navigational controls and use of the mouse, which may increase the cognitive burden, or requiring metacognitive functions that are not needed for plain text.  One benefit of hypertext traversal could be that it mimics the pathways in the human brain, with seemingly random connections, but the user of the text and/or brain forms these based upon how they construct their learning experience.

The kind of research that Shapiro has presented opens up more questions for current researchers with regard to utilizing hypertext for learning.  The hierarchically structured nature of good hypertext documents can contribute to deep learning, but can also have limited effect on the learning process as compared to linear text.  Shapiro has opened up the discussion so that as we get deeper into digital learning, and how it contributes and affects our understanding of learning science, we can use these foundational theories and studies to further learn about and develop new digital systems that can improve upon hypertext, perhaps by making it more adaptive to the learner.

 

 

EDU800 Week 4 Annotation

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Hoepfl, M. C. (1997). Choosing qualitative research: A primer for technology education researchers. Journal of Technology Education, 9, 47–63.

The Hoepfl article discusses qualitative inquiry and compares it to quantitative research. The author suggests that qualitative methodologies probe deeper into educational technology than quantitative methodologies. Using a naturalistic approach applied to specific contexts, qualitative research seeks a distinct type of knowledge generation. She states that qualitative research generates situational responses that can be very powerful in understanding learning science, using open-ended questions to derive information. She also explores the role of the researcher in qualitative research, sampling strategies contrasted with quantitative sampling (which usually involves statistical methods), data collection by interviewing and empirical observation, data analysis strategies for data generated by qualitative research, and how judgments of the data are made via a reader in the context of coherence, consensus and instrumental utility. However, the author also highlights how careful the researcher must be to ensure the reliability and dependability of this type of inquiry.

The author gives us great insights on qualitative methodologies for educational research, discussing the challenges of the qualitative paradigm, including humanistic and empirical examination of topics for research, and can be applied more dynamically than quantitative research. It can generate unique and valuable knowledge, that cannot be done with quantitative research. Qualitative research uses inductive data analysis, instead of generating numerical analyses, and results in highly valuable descriptive data. However, this type of data is harder to manage and categorize. It can be more challenging to design research involving qualitative data collection, usually involving collecting data by recording it. With the appropriate methodologies to analyze qualitative data, it can offer deeper insights in the research study of educational technology.

This article serves as a guide for researchers to approach data collection and analysis in a very humanistic manner for educational technology. Since the qualitative study of teacher and student/learner interactions involved in educational technology are much more complex than the responses to an objective survey, a more subjective approach has to be available to study learning science, than for such subjects as chemistry, physics or math. The similarities and complexities that educational research has to social sciences requires that we look at qualitative methods for research not as an afterthought, but perhaps as the primary choice to analyze learning science.

EDU800 Week 3 Annotation

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Salomon, G., & Perkins, D. (2005). Do technologies make us smarter? Intellectual amplification with, of and through technology. In R. J. Sternberg, & D. D. Preiss (Eds). Intelligence and technology: The impact of tools on the nature and development of human abilities (pp. 71-86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Solomon’s article discusses whether technology, in it’s various forms, makes us smarter. He explores everything from the mundane technologies and implements that we use as tools for our daily lives, to those that are used for learning, their effects with, of and through technology. He also discusses that how we use them, whether or not we are experts at the particular technology, and how we interact with them will determine whether they make use smarter. He concludes that technology can improve cognition if they are integrated into the activity to the point that they help organize the thought processes of the activity.

As an examination of the use of technology, Solomon helps to categorize how human beings can utilize technology to improve cognitive abilities. The article gives insight into how we have developed tools throughout human existence, to make our lives easier. But the real value of the tools that we create is to build on top of existing tools, techniques, and methods so that we can explore and discover new knowledge. By that token, technology is essential in making us smarter. The use of technology can allow us to tap into previously unused or underutilizied areas of the mind to effect better absorption and learning to enable us to iteratively create new tools and techniques which enable us to achieve higher levels of intellect.

The article provides a great foundation for exploring opportunities to discover new ways to use technology in learning science, create new learning tools and applications of emerging technology. Our cognitive abilities can be enhanced, not only by experiencing the evolutionary processes that improve human quality of life, but also the ability to accelerate learning, leading to revolutionary advancements in human knowledge and capability. So, this article provides incentive to research, develop and implement technology for new educational systems which can then collectively raise the intelligence of the human race.

EDU800 Week 2 Annotation

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Labaree, D. F. (2003). The Peculiar Problems of Preparing Educational Researchers, Educational Researchers 32(4), 13–22.

Labaree explores how the practice of teaching, and teaching skills translate, can be developed into skills for educational researchers and how there are similar characteristics, especially the academic skills, between teachers and educational researchers. He gives strategies for filling the gap between the two when doctoral students pursue their degree. He compares and contrasts the two, including the commonality of academic discipline, discussing the cultural divide between researchers and teachers, and specifically the need for researchers to expand greatly, their world view, whereas teachers alone are limited to the subject matter, modes of delivery, and level of students which they teach. The researcher is unbridled by these limitations. He also compares how researchers in areas of knowledge such the social sciences, medicine and engineering differ from how educational researchers have to approach their subject as they utilize their analytical, theoretical and intellectual skills.

Since researchers are responsible for constructing new knowledge, and teachers are focused on knowledge dissemination, we see the common threads and the overlap between the two, especially since many teachers, once having achieved their doctoral degrees, become researchers. Since the teachers are steeped in the business of education, they naturally can relate to the topic of educational research. Teachers, regardless of the level which they instruct, have to have intimate knowledge of the educational process, therefore they are researching every day that they teach. It almost becomes a instance of the chicken-or-the-egg problem, in which, teachers need to research their subject matter in order to effectively evolve, common knowledge and literacy of the student, and as a researcher, we must push the envelope of existing knowledge and break out new knowledge, of which will become that which is taught.

This article gives ammunition to the student of Educational Technology, in that it outlines various ways to transition from teacher to educational researcher. However, it may also help with forming a cyclical process of going from teacher to educational researcher to teacher, etc. It doesn’t matter what subject matter a doctoral student of educational technology will eventually be involved with, but the process of researching will be ingrained in the subject matter expert, such as Business, or Biology, or Computer Science. The information contained in this article will also help the student of learning science with strategies to both quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the field of education from within and without, in order to be a more effective instructor.

The New Science of Learning

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EDU800 Annotation Week 1

Sawyer, R. K. (2006). Chapter 1 introduction: The new science of learning. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences(p. 1-16). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter One from Sawyer’s book provides insight into how the established educational theories are now being questioned and some are considered flawed, and how learning science is emerging to help develop new models for teaching and learning in educational institutions. The newer theories emphasize the students learning to think, and the practice of externalizing and articulating their knowledge leads to more effective learning. The active, creative and deep learning findings from cognitive scientists, demonstrate that reflection (metacognition), scaffolding, problem solving and thinking to be more effective than the instructionist theory.

Sawyer provides a path and guide to implement Learning Science through Educational Technology. In addition, he provides compelling alternatives to instructionist approaches. The new learning science approach opens up a new way for educational scientists to experiment and test new learning theories, and for researchers to view and advance the science of teaching and learning.  This article raises the game for us to learn, scientifically, how to better teach.  With technology increasingly involved in education, the abstract aspects of active learning, reflection, articulation and learning can be implemented in a concrete way with software applications, Educational AI, providing a clearer path to deep learning than without technology.

For those in pursuit of an Doctorate in Educational Technology Doctorate (DET), this article breaks the ice, provides the first step on a journey to exploring the science of teaching and learning.  It establishes the framework to study Educational Technology techniques, approaches, models, and theories.  It also provides the foundation to build upon for research into developing and implementing technological solutions, leveraging emerging software and networked applications, to the problems faced in teaching in higher education, regardless of subject matter.  By breaking from the flawed approaches to teaching and learning of the past, and treating learning as a science, the future of learning in an increasingly technological society, can be advanced.