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OIT Home > OIT Newsletter > April, 2006 Contents > Transforming education April, 2006 | Information Technology Newsletter |
DMC Spotlight IssueTransforming Education: Engaging Students with TechnologyEach month, the Digital Media Center (DMC) publishes a "Spotlight Issues" article on our web site about a current technology-enhanced learning (TEL) issue highlighted at sessions of the TEL Seminar Series, in our classes, or at our program or project meetings. This month's article is below. In a recent visit, Leah Savion, a professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Indiana University who provides faculty development workshops, reminded us that it is our job as instructors to motivate students because, without motivation, there is no learning. Digital teaching tools represent an opportunity to motivate students and facilitate learning, but too often these technologies are used simply to "recreate" face-to-face courses or portions of courses online. Course web sites are used as repositories for content. Tools such as e-mail and discussion boards are used for simple communication tasks. Electronic grade books are used to enable students to view their grades. Assignments and assessments are merely transferred to the online arena. Audio and video recordings are used to deliver lectures to distant learners or those who didn't make it in to class that day. These applications of technology to learning are not inherently bad; students and teachers are grateful for the efficiencies that technology creates and for easy access to class materials. But as Reeves, Herrington, and Oliver (2004) point out, there is a distinction between learning from technology and learning with technology. The "learning with" approach goes beyond information delivery to put digital cognitive tools into the hands of students: tools that enable them to create, explore, and innovate. May TEL SeminarPlease join us at the next TEL seminar. Wednesday, May 3, 2006 Moderators Lauren Marsh and Kim Wilcox from the DMC, Office of Information Technology, will moderate a discussion among this year's cohort of DMC faculty fellows:
They will discuss how they and others are using technology as a cognitive tool for engaging students in learning, including topics such as:
BibliographyThe following readings may help you prepare for the TEL seminar. Reeves, Thomas C., Jan Herrington, and Ron Oliver. "A Development Research Agenda for Online Collaborative Learning." Educational Technology Research & Development 52, no. 4 (2004): 53-65. The authors advocate using "development research" to generate design guidelines for improved collaborative online teaching and learning based on "authentic tasks." They also describe features of development research and authentic tasks. Savion, Leah. Home page. Indiana University, Bloomington (accessed 21 March 2006). http://mypage.iu.edu/~lsavion/sotlwork.html. On this page on her personal site, Savion includes abstracts of scholarship of teaching and learning workshops she's given and lists related publications and presentations. Svinicki, Marilla D. "Student Goal Orientation, Motivation, and Learning." Idea Paper 41 (February 2005). Manhattan, Kansas: Idea Center. Svinicki traces the development of student motivation theory, and offers suggestions on how instructors can increase student motivation. The paper can be accessed from the Idea Center home page at http://idea.ksu.edu by selecting the following links: Client Resources; Idea Papers; Student Goal Orientation, Motivation, and Learning. Campus resourcesThe following campus services and sources may help you further explore the seminar topic.
— Kim Wilcox and Lauren Marsh, Digital Media Center, http://dmc.umn.edu |
Page: http://www.umn.edu/oit/newsletter/06/0406_itn/dmc.html |