The December 2006/January 2007 isue of Innovate, now available at
www.innovateonline.info, offers critical commentary on a recent development
in e-learning technology, recommendations for supporting faculty use of
technology, a revealing account of how writing instruction can benefit from
an online learning environment, and two case studies illustrating the key
role of collaboration in the effective design and development of
educational technologies.
Stephen Downes opens this issue with a commentary on how educators,
technology specialists, and open source advocates have assessed the
Blackboard patent case in terms of its legal merits as well as its broader
implications for future advances in educational technology. While
Blackboard's current patent infringement lawsuit against Desire2Learn
will continue to be fought out in the courts, Downes's verdict remains
clear: The patent decision fully deserves the widespread condemnation of
educators as well as proponents of technological innovation in the academy.
(See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=399 )
Our following two articles address the challenges that many institutions
continue to face in fostering effective technology use among faculty. For
Sharon Kopyc, institutions should adopt a flexible range of approaches that
support sustained partnerships between faculty and support staff. In
addition to adopting such measures as faculty development workshops and
technology committees, Kopyc argues, institutions should also consider the
value of faculty-led teaching forums, faculty fellowships, and flexible
just-in-time training programs suited to accommodate faculty schedules and
preferences. Moreover, she notes, faculty members should be provided with
concrete, research-based models of effective practice if they are to
maintain a genuine commitment to the pegagogical use of technology tools in
their work. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=74 )
In turn, Alan McCord offers a more focused look at how a single university
took measures to ensure adequate staffing and technological support for a
new series of online courses. In addition to the comprehensive approach to
faculty development advocated by Kopyc, these measures include a policy
that provides equal compensation for online course development and online
instruction as well as equal compensation for adjunct and full-time faculty
who develop or teach online courses. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=406 )
In our next feature Sarah Guth illustrates how she used online conferencing
software to support a graduate writing course for engineering students at
the University of Padua. The course aimed to increase student proficiency
in academic writing conventions, to enhance English language skills, and to
foster professional skills in peer review by incorporating collaborative
assignments in which students regularly gave feedback on one another's
work. While full formal assessment of the course remains to be conducted,
the positive responses from Guth's students confirm the value of online
technology in this context; in turn, she notes that the structured workflow
design of the course provides an easily adaptable model for other
writing-intensive online courses. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=277 )
As new educational technologies continue to emerge, the process of
technology development and design has become a vital area for scholarly
exploration. Stefanie Panke, Christian Kohls, and Birgit Gaiser argue that
effective strategies of development can only arise when planners examine
the full social environment of a given project. To this end they analyze
the challenges that characterized the early development of an online
e-learning portal in Germany; in particular, they note the disconnect that
often existed between technology design staff and editorial staff due to
the segmented structure of the project, the technological means of
communication, and the divergent models of professional practice held by
members of each group. In discussing how they addressed these challenges,
the authors advocate a cyclical, participatory approach to software
development in which technicians and users serve as "co-designers" through
each phase of a project. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=326 )
Brian Winn and Carrie Heeter address similar issues in the collaborative
development of an educational game designed to fulfill national science
standards for 8th and 9th grade students. As they discuss how educators and
technical design staff worked together to negotiate the most effective
balance between pedagogical criteria and game-specific criteria, they
illustrate how this balance was met through the user-based "playtesting" of
three successive prototypes of the game. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=392 )
Finally, Stephen Downes returns to close the issue with his review of the
OpenLearn Web site, a recently launched site affiliated with the U.K. Open
University. In offering convenient access to online course packages that
can be downloaded, redesigned, and uploaded back to the site, OpenLearn
represents another progressive step in the dissemination of free teaching
materials for shared use. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=432 )
Please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists and to
colleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work and please ask
your organizational librarians to link to Innovate in their resource
section for open-access e-journals.
Thanks!
Jim
----
James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
http://www.innovateonline.info
Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership
UNC-Chapel Hill
http://horizon.unc.edu .