Contemporary Perspectives in E-Learning Research

Themes, Methods and Impact on Practice

Gráinne Conole, Martin Oliver

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134161591
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

E-learning is at an exciting point in its development; its potential in terms of research is great and its impact on institutional practices is fully recognised. This book defines e-learning as a field of research, highlighting the complex issues, activities and tensions that characterise the area.

Written by a team of experienced researchers and commented upon by internationally recognised experts, this book engages researchers and practitioners in critical discussion and debate about the findings emerging from the field and the associated impact on practice. Key topics examined include:

• access and inclusion
• the social-cultural contexts of e-learning
• organisational structures, processes and identities
• technical aspects of learning research – using tools and resources
• approaches to learning and teaching practices and associated learning theories
• designing for e-learning and the management of educational resources
• professional roles and identities
• the evolution of e-assessment
• collaboration, motivation and educational evaluation.

Contemporary Perspectives in E-Learning Research provides a synthesis of research, giving readers a grounding in contemporary e-learning scholarship whilst identifying the debates that make it such a lively and fast-moving area. A landmark text in an evolving field, this book will prove invaluable for all researchers, practitioners, policy makers and students who engage with e-learning.

Part 1: Macro dimensions of e-learning

Chapter 1: Introduction

Gráinne Conole and Martin Oliver

The impact of learning technology on education has expanded rapidly, especially in the last 15 years. This book provides an overview of these developments, identifies associated issues and reflects upon the multiple perspectives and different discourses that have come to constitute this diverse area of research and development.

E-learning technology is a multi-faceted and complex area. This book reflects this by reviewing the area from a number of different perspectives and through different theoretical lenses, highlighting different schools of thought and tensions in the area.

As a research area, e-learning is both multi- and inter-disciplinary, covers a vast range of research topics, from those that focus on technologies through to wider socio-cultural research questions, and addresses issues concerned with the impact of technologies on learning and teaching, professional roles and identities, organisational structures and associated strategy and policy. Given this diversity, the book presents a reflective and critical review of this spectrum of activity. Examples and experiences are drawn primarily from UK higher education, though reference will be made to the wider context in terms of comparison throughout the book.

Six specific themes have been woven throughout the book. These are used to frame discussion across the chapters and to bring out the creative tensions and debates in different aspects of the field:

1. Interdisciplinarity. The interdisciplinarity of the area will be explored both in terms of how different research perspectives influence the area and how disciplines differ in the adoption and use of learning technologies.
2. Access and inclusion. This will include issues around the widening participation agenda, barriers to access, equity and inclusion, and issues around the nature and extent of the digital divide.
3. Change. This concerns understanding the dynamics of change and its relationship to learning technologies. This theme will also explore the motivational factors associated with the use of technologies, along with the drivers and rationale for change and the subsequent consequences and impact. Finally, strategies for managing and enabling change will be considered.
4. Commodification. Issues of the commodification of knowledge and of technologies will be discussed, including the increase in convergence towards integrated and interoperable institutional systems and underpinning international standards.
5. Interactivity and social interaction. New opportunities for these will be explored, along with their impact on individual roles and identities and organisational structures.
6. Political aspects. The political dimensions of technologies will be considered, as well as the relationship between strategy and practice.

These themes have been drawn out as they help to define the character of e-learning as a research area and form common threads across the different topics covered here. These themes shape, not just describe, e-learning research – for example change is inherent across all aspects of research in this area. The themes are returned to in the conclusion of the book, which provides a summary of issues arising from the preceding chapters.

It is worth providing a brief note on terminology. Perhaps not surprisingly given that this is a new and emerging field, terminology is in a constant state of flux – changing according to current trends, fads and political drives and as new understanding emerges from the research findings. Even the overarching term for the area is contested. It has been referred to as educational technology, learning technology, communication and information technologies (C&IT), information and communication technologies (ICT), and e-learning, amongst other terms. In the last few weeks before submitting this manuscript, funding initiatives in the UK have attempted to introduce yet another term: technology-enhanced learning. This evolution is clearly not over.

For the purpose of this book we will use the following terms specifically.

• E-learning is the term most commonly used to represent the broader domain of development and research activities on the application of technologies to education.
• Information and communication technologies (ICT) refers to the broad range of technologies that are used in education.

When these are used with reference to their use in learning and teaching we tend to use the term ‘learning technologies’.

A dialogic approach

Throughout the remainder of the chapters, the heart of the text is written in the conventional manner, presented as if by a single, authoritative voice. However, all of these central narratives have been co-written, so that different voices and perspectives are woven into them. In addition, each narrative has been contested by offering it up for peer review and critique. Rather than hide this process of production, dissent and re-production, the notion of separate voices, each with its own potentially productive tale to tell, is celebrated. We have attempted to follow the example of innovations in publishing academic discourse such as that of the Journal of Interactive Media in Education, where the dialogues that underlie the production of each published (and thus ‘legitimated’) article are left visible through hyperlinked discussion areas full of comment, development and asides (Buckingham, Shum and Sunner, 2001).

So, accompanying the central narrative, other researchers have been invited to comment on the text – represented as call-out boxes alongside the text. We envisaged these as marginalia, and wish them to be seen as an invitation to readers to disagree, take their own positions and then inscribe these into this text too.

We have adopted this approach as we think it the best way of encapsulating the current status of research in this area: its complexity, its multi-disciplinarity and its impact across pedagogical, technical and organisational boundaries.

Structure of the book

The book is divided into two parts. Part I – Macro dimensions of e-learning – consists of a series of chapters describing the contextual dimensions of learning technologies. Part II – Micro dimensions of e-learning – goes on to consider the use of learning technologies across different dimensions of learning and teaching, and critiques their impact on practice (Figure 1.1).

Part I – macro dimensions of e-learning

Part I contextualises the area and looks at the macro dimensions of e-learning. This chapter provides a rationale for the book and an overview of the content, introduces the cross-cutting themes in e-learning research and discusses the factors influencing the emergence of this as a research area.

The last few decades have seen a number of important changes both in the way in which society views knowledge and in universities’ relationships with society. Chapter 2 provides a theoretical context for the book by considering the philosophy of knowledge in relation to e-learning, new modes of learning and the sociology of knowledge (ways of knowing, literacies, representations and knowledge engineering). The multiple perspectives and discourses are discussed in depth, providing an overview of different theoretical and methodological approaches adopted in the area and the strengths and weaknesses these different dimensions bring to the area. The chapter also provides a wider socio-cultural perspective illustrating how this new research area aligns to other related research disciplines in the social sciences and beyond. This is included because we believe that, before attempting to make sense of the relationship between the different traditions that contribute to the field of e-learning, it is worth taking a broader view of the context in which this work takes place.

Figure 1.1 Structure of the book and cross-cutting themes

The highly political nature of e-learning research is one of its defining characteristics and has a major impact on both shaping and directing the area. This is in part because it is so inextricably tied up with practice, but also relates to the way in which policy influences and directs the area. In addition, the rhetoric that has always surrounded the area is discussed. This has raised (often unrealistic) expectations of what technologies can do, at both practitioner and senior management level. Chapter 3 gives an historical perspective on the key policies and initiatives that have influenced the emergence of this area. It provides a review of policy directives in relation to learning technologies over the past 40 years and considers their impact on practice. In particular the chapter highlights the close synergy between developments in learning technology and policy at local, national and international level. The chapter begins with a survey of some of the key areas of ICT development and provides a contextualising framework for the arena in terms of external agendas and policy drivers.

Chapter 4 is entitled ‘The design of learning technologies’ and focuses on the technical aspects of e-learning research. It provides an overview of tools and resources and considers the ways in which these can be organised and used to support learning and teaching. It describes different tool types and environments that have emerged in recent years, along with related standards development. The chapter considers current types of structured learning environments and resources, such as Managed and Virtual Learning Environments (MLEs and VLEs), information gateways and portals, and argues that these predefined structured environments are unlikely to be sufficient to meet the future information needs of users. Technology is not used in this chapter, or in this book, as simply meaning ‘software’ or ‘hardware’. Rather ‘technologies for learning’ can be understood as the human-centred use of technology, where a priority is given to the embedding of learning into specific contexts or designing technologies that are adaptive to specific contextual behaviours of learners. The reason for putting ‘technology’, in this sense, at the centre of this aspect of learning technology research is twofold: first, to enable us to draw upon the theoretical resources that have become available for understanding these practices; second, to contribute to research that explores the human-centred use of technology for learning. Of course, there is a danger of being technologically driven; consequently, the chapter tries to tease out the main issues surrounding the human-centred use of learning technology. The relationship between technology and physical spaces is also questioned, looking in particular at the role of mobile devices for learning and ubiquitous mobile devices to support ‘everyday learning’ opportunities.

Chapter 5 considers organisational issues and the impact of e-learning on organisational structures, processes and identities. It explores the changing nature of roles and identities and the emergence of new professional groups associated with technology adoption and considers how learning technologies are beginning to have an impact on organisational structures in institutions, outlining some of the research work in the area that is concerned with the development of an integrated infrastructure, both at intra- and inter-institutional levels. This chapter provides definitions of organisational cultures, roles and identities in relation to learning technologies. It considers why organisational issues are important in the context of the implementation of learning technologies and what strategies are needed to understand and take account of them. The chapter looks at mechanisms for understanding organisational culture, identification of external drivers and articulation of the different stakeholder perspectives. It provides examples of different institutional profiles and mechanisms for identifying cultural factors and their impact.

Finally, Chapter 6 provides an overview of approaches to learning and teaching and the learning theories associated with particular practices. There are two important aspects – the way learning technologies have impacted on traditional approaches and the ways in which they can best be used for effective learning, especially when this involves new or different forms of learning. An understanding of theoretical perspectives on learning has been an active area of research across a number of subject disciplines, but particularly psychology and education. This chapter outlines some of the predominant theories and shows how these relate to e-learning; these are then mapped to different pedagogical approaches. The chapter begins by discussing characteristics of learning. This abstraction is used as an analytical tool, allowing components of learning scenarios to be described and related to appropriate theoretical approaches through the use of specific tools and resources. Our assertion is that a better articulation and mapping of different pedagogical processes, tools and techniques will provide a pedagogic approach that is more reflexive and consistent with practitioners’ theoretical perspectives on learning and teaching.

Part II – micro dimensions of e-learning

Part II concentrates on ‘micro’ aspects of e-learning: learning and teaching practices as learning technologies relate to them, from issues of curriculum design, design and management of digital resources, through to different forms and representations of literacies and exploration of the notions of collaboration and affective issues in e-learning.

Chapter 7 introduces designing for e-learning, providing a definition of what constitutes a learning activity then going on to consider the different mechanisms that practitioners use to create pedagogically informed learning activities. It begins with a brief review of academics’ curriculum design practices, locating these as social and political, before moving on to consider the various ways in which curriculum knowledge (and the role of technology) is represented. The relationship between subject, pedagogical and technological knowledge is outlined, and an attempt is made to describe media and the impact of mixing these upon teaching practice. A taxonomy for learning design is presented as a mechanism for guiding practitioners through the process of linking good pedagogy and the development of effective learning activities.

The issues that arise around designing digital resources are discussed in Chapter 8, arguing that, unlike traditional print-based technology, practitioners do not yet have a clear understanding of how to create effective e-learning resources. It focuses on three issues: designers’ practices, learners’ needs (particularly in relation to accessibility) and re-usability (focusing on the resource). One of the principal themes of this book is the changes to learned information associated with recent technological innovations, given the transition from print as a dominant technological medium to a situation in which a much wider range of media technologies play a significant role in the learning process. Throughout this book, authors have understood this process of change as one in which the new learning technologies provide new affordances to the conduct of educational praxis. However, it is also important to understand that all these technologies ‘constrain’ as well as ‘afford’ new opportunities. Chapter 8 involves exploring what this means for the design of specific educational resources.

Chapter 9 moves on to considering the management of educational resources, outlining the range of tools available to academics and highlighting the importance of interoperability standards. The chapter discusses the pedagogical, technical and cultural issues that may inhibit effective content management and provides insight into ways in which these challenges might be addressed. It begins by exploring the ways in which practitioners design courses and outlines a range of tools available to academics to help them manage resources. Finally, the chapter investigates pedagogical, technical and cultural issues that may inhibit effective content management and provides insights into ways in which these challenges might be addressed. In doing so, the promise of Chapter 8 – with its vision of how learning resources might benefit from economies of scale – is revisited so as to understand how re-usable resources (‘learning objects’) might comprise a new currency of exchange within a learning economy. However, current content management tools do not allow academics freedom and flexibility in course design to develop pedagogically effective learning activities, nor do they allow easy resource re-use or sharing. The discussion highlights how second-generation content management software might address these challenges.

Chapter 10 begins with a bold assertion that assessment is the catalyst for learning, considering the role that e-assessment might have in addressing the needs of students. It provides an overview of the evolution of e-assessment, as well as a summary of key criticisms of its use. Current activities are discussed, particularly developments in the design and delivery of objective tests, assessment of asynchronous and synchronous discussions, plagiarism and the automatic marking of free-text assessments. Assessment policies (at a national and institutional level) and their impact on e-assessment developments are discussed. The chapter goes on to review theory and research in assessment and discusses the extent to which generic approaches to assessment are appropriate here. It then considers the impact on practice, highlighting a broad range of issues.

Chapter 11 considers the terminology surrounding literacy in online environments and interrogates some of the conflicting views and ideological assumptions about the concept of ‘literacy’ in relation to e-learning. It discusses the issue of academic literacy in a modern context, giving a definition for new literacies, then commenting on the range of terms and different attempts to define and describe this area and the slipperiness of both language and concepts. Contexts in which to think about new literacies are then explored. The chapter goes on to explore issues of writing with technologies, focusing upon hypertextual, multi-modal discourse (for example, what might characterise a hypertext essay), and concludes by considering jointly constructed online discourse (such as that found in virtual learning environments), new approaches to knowledge construction and issues of power and identity.

Chapter 12 looks at collaboration and in particular provides a comparison between the terms ‘cooperative’ and ‘collaborative’ learning. It begins by examining why collaboration has emerged as such an important aspect of the potential of learning technologies to support teaching and learning, then explores the theoretical and philosophical foundations for theories of collaborative and cooperative learning and how they have been applied in relation to e-learning. The chapter explores Computer Supported Cooperative/Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and st...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Open and Flexible Learning Series
• Title page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Part 1: Macro dimensions of e-learning
• Part II: Micro dimensions of e-learning
• References