The main idea presented in this paper is that successful adoptions of educational technology are usually a consequence of the decisions made by a teacher about her critical competitors. We begin with a definition of "critical competitors" and likely interactions between the humans and their newest technologies. My goal in writing a paper with such a focus is that other educators will choose to examine some of the controversial perspectives and debates associated with using technology in educational settings.
Critical Competitors
The term "critical competitor" first emerged in Scriven's 1981 work on product evaluation (Scriven, 1981). Scriven used "critical competitor" to mean a creative alternative which adds value and provides comparable or even better results. For example, Scriven recommended that during 1970's print-based instruction was still a viable critical competitor to CAI. Ragsdale (1988) extended Scriven's usage to include equally agreeable alternatives to computers in all curricular areas, including Phys Ed. In Math Education for example, peer tutoring was seen as a critical competitor of CAI. Around this time, critical competitor adopted an axiological, more context-dependent meaning: 1.) that something is gained and something lost; 2.) that student literacy is likely to suffer over the short-term; 3.) that student clicking with a mouse will replace the requirement to remember anything; 4.) that typing may replace social interaction; and, 5.) that their student assignments will tend to reflect a group mandate. Then in 1990, Geisert and Futrell introduced four "paradigms of computer use" (i.e., task-defined, timed, milestone and open), and four possible "users-per-station" (i.e., one, small groups or whole class). In this way, critical competitors were seen as important decisions about competing needs among students, facilities and instructional intent. Knowing our critical competitors, therefore, means knowing how to prioritize our computing requirements based on factors under our control.
Motor Learning
A critical competitor for many novice users of educational technology is the time it takes to complete a task with a keyboard, mouse, scanner or other input device. Since the 1950’s in fact, completion time has been a critical competitor to student aptitude, motivation, software attributes, teaching method, and other factors in educational technology; that is, time required to access a site, time required to pull down a menu, and required time to type a paragraph. The need for a more accurate prediction model of movement-time in computer input tasks has been stronger than it has been for the past thirty years. Bit mapped displays and office and desktop metaphors have replaced nested menus and command lines. Cursor and function keys have been largely replaced by computer mice and pull-down menus. Arguably, the best understood measure of task difficulty as it applies to the time required to complete a task is Fitts’ Law (Fitts, 1954). Psychomotor studies have shown high correlations between Fitts’s measure of task difficulty and the time required to complete a task (MacKenzie, 1991). In comparing four devices for selecting text, Fitts law was found to provide good movement-time prediction for a mouse and joystick. In a Keystroke-Level Model for predicting user performance times, Fitts law was cited as an appropriate tool for predicting pointing time (Card, Moran & Newell, 1980). In weighing the cognitive benefits of movement time and task difficulty then, should one paraphrase text by keyboarding-in the text, scan with a hand scanner, or use a mouse to "block and paste" from someone else’s web page? The correct response to this question can now be expected to improve efficiency of using computer software and online services.
Another critical competitor for many novice users of educational technology is the growing requirement for learners' to shift their attention between detailed information presented visually and gist information presented in auditory prompts (Mann, 1995c; Mann, 1997c). We know that gist is best assimilated by listening, and detail through reading; gist and detail may be considered to be critical competitors of one another in educational technology (Mann, 1995b; Mann, 1997b). In this way, sound design is a parsimonious approach to retain our multitasking efficiency while reducing the cognitive load associated with using computer software or online services. Similarly, auditory design as well as visual design should be considered critical competitors in educational technology.
Teacher Competencies
When educators begin to feel informed enough to get
beyond the intimidation
of technology within the educational system in which they work, they tend
ask someone, "What do I need to know?". At this moment, the process of
understanding one’s critical competitors begins. And a wise response should
be, "know something about each of the thirteen ‘Technology Foundation Standards
For All Teachers’ established by the International Society for Technology
in Education (ISTE)" (Thomas, 1993). These are:
That said, the assimilation process requires diligence with the technology (Poole, 1997). And at the institutional level, the implementation of the assimilation process has been identified as an important catalyst for educational change. There have been three distinct approaches to assimilating technology into educational institutions: "transformationalism", "collaborationism" and "incrementalism". See Mann (1994) for an explanation of each of these perspectives. The preferred position advanced in this paper is incrementalism. Incrementalism is consistent with the Japanese management practice of kaizen, meaning "slow, never-ending improvement in all aspects of life" that focuses on quality control. Continuous improvement differs from the classical Western approach to improvement principally in that it relies on an investment in people, not on equipment. Incrementalists propose that inservice courses in educational computing be provided to assist instructors in how to implement computers in the instructional process. Preparing instructors to cope with and use computers in the classroom and laboratory is considered to be a complex task, continually buffeted by technological advances and constrained by resources. "Unless instructors become advocates of the change, the innovations are implemented pro-forma, if at all".
At most levels of the educational system, successful changes to educational computing with a minimum of discomfort requires policy-makers' attention to certain factors. The first factor affecting the successful adoption of the distributed learning environment is the support and leadership exhibited by the administration. Many educational computing facilities, however, are still planned and managed by non computing administrators. "It is only when faculty see chief administrators using technology do they feel the need to learn it themselves". A second factor affecting the successful adoption the distributed learning environment is an incremental adjustment plan-of-action. This type of planning should reflect the current total quality management trend in business which advocates several small-steps' over the complete replacement' approach. The probability of successful implementation increases when technology plans are tied to the goals of the institution. Carnegie Mellon University has implemented a major inquiry called "The AAAA Initiative" which is expected to produce recommendations in the next few months. The A's ask, "What makes it routinely possible for anyone, to send or receive anything electronically from or to anyplace at anytime?".
In most educational settings, it seems that there is
still a range of
experience and expertise in educators’ knowledge and skills with technology.
From the limited research (Mann, 1994; Schrum & Berenfeld, 1997), it
appears that incremental implementations should logically occur in three
stages.
Stage One: From Extracurricular to Curricular Enhancement. At this stage, educators do not redesign their curricula or teaching practices to enhance courses with web-based activity. The use of the Internet and web-based material is often introduced as extracurricular activity, though preferably still within I.S.T.E. Standards. After an exploratory period, these activities are then introduced into specific courses.
Stage Two: From Curricular Enhancement to CMC Modules. Educators in most educational institutions still lack the training, experience, or confidence to abandon their conventional teaching practices in favour of new and unfamiliar ones. In most educational settings, this lag is apparent throughout the entire educational subculture (See Mann, 1994). Nevertheless, some educators who have successfully augmented their curricula with the Internet and web-based activities tend to approach the next stage of technology integration by inserting specially-designed web-based modules into traditional courses; again, preferably within I.S.T.E. Standards.
Stage Three: Telecommunication Fully Integrated Into Curricula. At this
stage, integrating the Internet and other computer-based activities into
daily instruction is more challenging than merely downloading files or
sending email. Full integration of technology using I.S.T.E. guidelines
eventually requires a redefinition of pedagogical goals, restructuring
of curricular offerings, provision for instructor training and support
material, and sufficient online tools for the collection of student
data.
Unfortunately, most educators do not implement technological integration in discreet stages. What tends to happen is that the initial confusion about how to proceed is compounded somewhat by stochastic and idiosyncratic advice, though this trend may be starting to change.
One of the greatest new areas of confusion about how to proceed is compounded by stochastic and idiosyncratic advice is "tele-learning". As a catchall term, "tele-learning" of the 1990’s is replacing 1980’s terminology such as, "computer-mediated communications", "telecommunications in education" and "educational networking". Although this new field has already generated many of its own critical competitors, only a few will be discussed here. Most educators now recognize that current web-based technology is a bona fide critical competitor to conventional technology. E-mail is a critical competitor of telephone voice mail. Chat Rooms, though not often used in education, can be seen to be a critical competitor to answering the telephone. And The Internet is a critical competitor to using the local public library, or is it? The Internet is only a distributed environment, not a distributed learning environment. Academic rigor gives way to popular culture, most of questionable origin and character. So it should not surprise educators when the Internet offers them and their students mediocre educational material.
Unlike much of downloaded material from the Internet, an educator’s curricular web page can be original and theory-based, reflecting one’s own experiences or aspirations in their teachable area. Despite this capability however, instructional design templates are recommended for instructors who want to design new courses to be taught over the web. In our recent study (Brown & Mann, in press) of using templates in the web site development process, we found that a print-based template served to assist subjects as they restructured school lessons into a personal expression on a public document on the institution’s web site. Implied in this process of students’ mental restructuring of textual data was that their interpretation of the text for web site presentation changed the mental organization of that information for the student. We found that the web design activity added to their mental restructuring process.
Today, many colleges and universities foresee their future prosperity in terms of the swiftness with which they can create and maintain sophisticated World Wide Web-based courses, or more correctly, "a distributed learning environment website". Toward this end, interest has been re-kindled in instructional design and its application to the Internet environment. And to this end, software developers have been scrambling to offer educators design tools for such a purpose. WebCT is a good design tool for the creation and maintenance of sophisticated World Wide Web-based courses.
WebCT (Goldberg & Salari, 1977) is one example of a tele-learning technology that is being seen as a critical competitor to conventional technology. WebCT incorporates many of these newer web-based technologies (and coincidentally many of the critical competitors) in one teaching tool. WebCT has its own e-mail, now a critical competitor with the University e-mail service, or that of the local Internet Service Provider. WebCT offers four separate Chat Rooms. And of course, unlike these other features, WebCT offers educators and their students a flexible yet structured, distributed learning environment; a critical competitor to most things done by educator with students in classrooms and labs. Of course, everything in WebCT is controlled by the educator or instructional designer. In a word, WebCT is a good design tool for the creation and maintenance of sophisticated World Wide Web-based courses. The open learning environment provided in WebCT works best with experienced, traditional learners and tele-workers (learners on the job). Most of the benefits can be found with this group because WebCT can accommodate individual differences in objectives- setting, assignment completion and flexible test-taking. Less experienced traditional learners and tele-workers can be accommodated in WebCT using a traditional behavioural objectives approach to instructional design. For less experienced traditional learners and tele-workers, conventional timelines would be set by their instructors with the usual requirements to complete quizzes and tests at prescribed time periods.
Metacognition
Contemporary educational technologies place new demands on students’ attention and motor learning. The Faculty of Education at Memorial University has recognized these current challenges. Some conventional and online courses have been modified to conform to the I.S.T.E. Standards and Explorer Centres implemented to deliver some of the technology-based tasks (Mann, 1997). An Explorer Centre is a self-contained unit, a computer connected to a videotape recorder by a thin wire through an inexpensive conversion box. There are two Explorer Centres currently in use in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University: one self- contained unit in a private room connected to the Internet, and the other unit doubles as the video editing suite also connected to the Internet.
Explorer Centres appear to have strengthened the application of the I.S.T.E. standards with teachers (Mann, 1996). For this reason, Explorer Centres are considered to be critical competitors to simple pc set-ups for practicing and assessing student and teacher knowledge and skills. Explorer Centres are individual computer/video workstations wherein a computer and microphone are linked to a videotape recorder. Explorer Centres: 1) can model the appropriate learning behaviour on a demo tape; 2) can give each preservice teacher a platform for generating the appropriate learning behaviour on tape, and; 3) can provide a record from which to assess each preservice teacher's verbalizations about the learning process. Explorer Centres may be less intrusive due to the absence of the investigator's tape recorder, and more accurate than traditional observation transcription. In this way, Explorer Centres are considered to be critical competitors to simple PC and Mac set-ups in The Faculty of Education.
Summation
Many teachers still feel that that they do not always
have sufficient
knowledge, skills and resources in educational technology (Bartholomew
& Hulett, 1996). This paper has highlighted a few of the challenges
for those who are considering the integration of technology into their
daily teaching routine. In doing so, my intention was to illustrate the
complexity that can affect making decisions about using technology in educational
settings, particularly where budgets and jobs are likely to be affected.
The challenges ahead are continuous, from co-ordinating activities between
eye and hand, to gaining minimum competency as an computing educator, to
metacognition through an Explorer Centre. What I hope to have shown here
is that, more often than not, what starts out as a good challenge becomes
a choice among critical competitors.