Designing Quality Topic 3
Selecting appropriate media & tools to promote quality learning environments
Vision for Quality Multimedia Learning Resources
Educational design should not start with the media. The question of identifying and promoting quality with media in education is not the right starting point. Describing design principles for genres of multimedia that are then universally applied is an unproductive design strategy — even though technology / course templates easily allow for it. It is equally problematic to select specific media and digital tools to work with as the point of departure in design.
Instead, the central issue of promoting educational quality with multimedia and digital tools centrally has to do with which learning experiences and trajectories are to be supported. The tools need to afford the desirable features of the culture of learning being cultivated – tools need to support the learning and application of specific practices that are desired in the educational experience. These learning goals include the domain knowledge and practices in question as well as metacognitive knowledge about learning how to learn.
We should build upon our existing, empirically grounded theoretical accounts of learning. Multimedia and tool design, use, and integration into learning environments needs to take the social, cultural and cognitive foundations into account — in order to support the engineering of learning. Research reviews and consensus reports (e.g., produced by the National Research Council) provide a foundation to relevant theoretical perspectives and research findings.
Crucially, educational designers need to adopt a specific theory of learning that fits our educational purposes since that will illuminate which tools and tool kits are available. From a situated learning perspective, specific tools that are already available at scale can be leveraged for specific purposes. This allows a focus on producing / consuming. The rote memorization mode of instruction should not be the primary pedagogical approach.
We cannot assume the users will know how to use our tools. People need to be in the communities of practice and support them in learning how to use the tools. Teachers should be able to mod these experiences.
Topic’s Importance to Online Course Quality
Design principles should focus on the goals of learning environments. Media and tools are secondary to the central learning objectives. Some multimedia can be a productive fit to specific cultures (e.g., creation tools that fit a maker community focus), however many educational supports and tools often reside outside of the digital experience.
Media use should highlight trajectories of learning that highlight subsequent resources for them to use. Media can help lead to further learning and offer depth for students who wish to go beyond the curricula.
In order to promote personal relevance and learner engagement, tools should be identified that can support deep learning in ways that are meaningful to learners and to consequential social pursuits / domains in the world. In this manner, the quality of the media rises when correctly applied (and falls when inappropriately used).
Media should be used in the midst of active knowledge construction and application.
Media and tools should also be suited to resource creativity. Users will always customize their tools in ways that fit the local purpose and their personal interests.
Overarching Principles of Quality (up to 5)
- Design the Learning Experience First, Then Select Media & Tools That Fit: Once a plan for is in place, then multimedia can be selected (if appropriate). Generally, media’s quality can be impacted by how it is used. However, certain factors make multimedia obtain higher quality.
- Situated and Embodied Meanings Matter. Educational design should focus on the situated and embodied meanings that are relevant to learners as they engage in sustained pursuits. There a leading focus on collaborative learning and differentiation in learning (e.g., in relation to interests).
- Lead with the practice and ensure ownership of the endeavor and then the selection and use of the tools with learners becomes possible. Tools need to fit initial and deepening uses. Educational experiences should focus on projects, challenges, and investigations.
- Cognitive mentoring is needed to persist past failure, problem solve, and check understanding. Technologies can be part of the solution (tutors, online mentoring), but the mentoring can also reside within the learning setting (e.g., co-viewing and mediation).
- Support youth in being positioned as experts as they consume and produce media as fixtures of their learning experiences.
- We should offer multiple communities of interest and support students in identifying their long-term passions.
- We do need to structure. Well structured supports are needed for sustained engagement and deepening participation.
- Resource extended learning pathways through data mining. Use data mining to resource learning across time over trajectories of growth.
- Focus on Production & Participation. The focus should be on production, not just consumption. And on participation, and not just spectating. For example, we should stop using video to tell, but use video to show. They should allow for transformation of the use of the tool should be possible. Select tools should be selected that fit professional and Pro-Am purposes that exist in the world.
- Media Convergence. Convergence of media is important when it can be achieved. Tools should integrate together. Convergence (a la Jenkins) should be a goal when it can be achieved.
- Universal Design. Accessibility of media is important and often resides within.
Major Challenges To Achieving This Vision
Technological determinism never works. Technicism is a major threat in the consideration of media and in e-learning generally. Technology has affordances, but the results are always the product of how the technology fits into the broader socio-technical system.
Technology design traditions often promote uniformity in educational experiences in ways that do not fit the purposes and goals of specific learning communities. The design process we have outlined attempts to highlight how this can be avoided.
Educational equity with learning technologies remain a crucial issue. Tools can be used to disrupt organizations and support new possibilities. Outside of education, technology starts at the periphery and then starts to take off. Educational equity efforts try to make technology central too early. We need to be realistic about the ability to provide media to communities.
Proprietary technologies can be a significant barrier.