ICT in Education

Thoughts on: Creating Motivating Interactive Learning environments (Hedberg & Harper 1997)

September 4, 2007

Hedberg, J. and Harper, B. (1997) Creating Motivating Interactive Learning Environments. Keynote address at EDMEDIA, Calgary, Canada, 1997.

This paper repeats a lot of the points covered in the last two.

It still contains a few interesting points though so I’ll try to sum them up as succinctly as I can. (As it’s getting late and wading through this hard to read ode to constructivism has fried my mind a little)

In essence:

• learners use productivity tools to construct their own meaningful chunks of content that sum up the available information
• In designing learning environments: 1. identify the information to be covered, how to structure it and what the target audience already knows about it 2. find a metaphor to shape the information structure 3. link the design ideas to an interaction structure

This next bit is actually worth quoting (I think):

” Each interaction consists of a node point which forms the basis of the interaction, a set of options which provide links to other nodes or additional information attached to the current node. One of the links must relate to earlier travelled or preferred paths through the materials and each choice must inform the user about what is likely to occur as the result of a choice.

These can translate into the traditional concept of results (correct or incorrect) or performance support enhancement such as suggested hints (maybe you could have levels of hints?) or revision of the underlying concept/principle which might be employed to make the choice.

Depending on the instructional strategy chosen, another element might include the concept of duration, either time or the limit of options based up previous choices or paths taken.”

“The range and extent of user interaction with the data in the software increases as the user is given more freedom to navigate, access, determine the format of information representation and manipulate the data using cognitive and metacognitive tools”

You can have more than just text in the information presented.

In interaction, “it is important that the user is required to think before a response is possible”

“Being able to store and report thoughts and impressions derived from media experiences by using the media itself (actual video/audio and pictures, not just text representations of the media) provides a more powerful means of ‘reformulating’ (Schroeder & Kenny, 1994, p 965)”

Simulations can be powerful tools – “which provides support for the solution to one of the embedded problems by mimicking a “real world process”"

Good idea to allow learners to share and compare the products that they create – particularly to compare them against the work of experts in the field – “learning can occur through the resolution of multiple responses to the same task”

Entry Filed under: 913, General, constructivism, democratic, education design, information landscape, learning environment, multimedia. .