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  • The Purposes of Learning Technology

    By Joshua Kim December 15, 2009 8:38 pm EST

    --To challenge the status quo in teaching and learning.

    --To make big classes act and feel like seminars.

    --To help move courses towards an active learning model, where students construct their own learning.

    --To help the faculty teach to their strengths.

    --To allow our students to play to their strengths rather then worrying about correcting their weaknesses.

    --To move the development of courses to a team approach that combines subject matter, librarian, technical and pedagogical professionals.

    --To create learning environments that are appropriate for multiple intelligences and learning styles.

    --To funnel inputs directly into the learning and teaching process.

    --To provide mechanisms to evaluate and improve learning.

    --To increase educational transparency.

    --To develop mechanisms to share teaching materials with our communities and the world of life long learners.

    --To help make the curriculum and the method of teaching relevant to the lives of our students.

    --To move students from consumers to creators of knowledge.

    What would you add to this list?

    Note: Great response to the idea of an IHE book club. Thank you. It seems clear that folks may be interested in participating, that the idea of having the author run the club is a bad idea, that people like short books, and lead time is important. Hopefully we can figure out how to run an experiment in the future. In the meantime, please keep ideas for books coming. You can always comment on a blog, or e-mail directly at joshua.m.kim@dartmouth.edu.

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Comments on The Purposes of Learning Technology

  • Playing to strengths may be a weakness
  • Posted by Linda Aragoni at http://www.you-can-teach-writing.com on December 16, 2009 at 9:30am EST

  • I'm not sure that allowing "students to play to their strengths rather then worrying about correcting their weaknesses" is always desirable.

    For example, I see students calling in to a TV homework hotline for help with algebra and statistics. When the teacher talks them through the problem, it is obvious the student don't know basic addition facts, let alone higher math like multiplication tables.

    Do we do those students a service by providing technology so they don't need to memorize 5 x 7?

    Another example. We provide students with word processors that include spelling and grammar checking capabilities so they don't have to learn to spell or write grammatically. However, the tools are rarely sophisticated enough to handle distinctions between words like barely and barley or its and its. Unless required to correct weaknesses, students using technology may end up looking too stupid to work at Piggly Wiggly.

    In the world in which I live, students are expected to be able to make change and fill out a job application without a computer. I don't think we do them any favors by allowing them to avoid correcting weaknesses. In my book, that's not a way to make education relevant.

  • Posted by Dr. Pepper , Academic-in-training on December 16, 2009 at 10:15am EST

  • My addition here would be "to provide new avenues to test student retention and application of knowledge gained in class" (getting away from the bubble sheet test in into more applicable ways using what you know).
    One comment, as far as weaknesses go. I don't think that people should lose sleep over their weaknesses, however those weaknesses need to be addressed. If you've got an engineering student that can't do math, a calculator may help short term, but long term that student needs to work on that weakness to be able to do the math the old fashioned way (pencil, paper and lots of erasers). We should strive to have our students be able to excel and perform even when the tools that they are used to using (i.e. calculator) are not available.
    After all technology breaks, runs out of batteries, or you're out in the boonies with no cell or wifi coverage.

  • Posted by Adjunct George on December 16, 2009 at 11:30am EST

  • Tongue in cheek. I use clickers. Two major purposes: Encourage the students to come to class. Discourage the students in the back row from sleeping.

  • Purposes (yesterday; today)
  • Posted by Steve Ehrmann , Director, The Flashlight Program at The TLT Group on December 18, 2009 at 1:00pm EST

  • My beliefs on that subject have changed to some degree, as I've been describing in a series of blog posts summarized at http://bit.ly/ten_things_table (especially rows 1-5 of that table).

    For example, I used to think that, when using learning technology to improve access (e.g., distance learning), the measures of progress ought to be enrollment, graduation numbers, drop out rates, and perhaps cost per student. Meanwhile, in content and activities, the course should be as similar as possible to a course taught on campus: same staff, same text, same tests, etc.

    I now see the questions of "who learns," "what they learn", and "how they learn" as being intertwined. When planning to use learning technology (whether for 'distance', 'on campus,' 'hybrid' or some other frame), you ought to figure out how to make improvements in all three of those goals - who, what, and how - simultaneously. Using technology to redefine relationships across space and time is a good start on all three. The same technologies that can be used to expand the faculty member's access to students can be used to expand the student's access to resources, tools, people, and experiences.

  • Another reason for learning technologies...
  • Posted by Alex W , Professor/Spanish at U.S. Coast Guard Academy on January 6, 2010 at 4:30pm EST

  • Learning technologies extend the classroom outside its 20 foot by 20 foot, 50-75 minute dimensions.

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