Innovate (www.innovateonline.info) is published bimonthly as a public
service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova
Southeastern University and is sponsored, in part, by Microsoft.
The first three articles in the April/May issue describe courses that
use David Kolb's experiential learning cycle to shape a combination of
e-learning technologies and experiential learning pedagogy in
"ee-learning." Lindsey Godwin and Soren Kaplan describe how they used
Kolb's experiential learning cycle in a workshop to shape course
activities and reflect on the broader implications of their experience
for ee-learning approaches as a whole. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=489&action=article)
When instructional design is the subject of the course itself,
ee-learning is a particularly effective method to ensure that students
develop knowledge through contextualized, hands-on activity. Ana-Paula
Correia describes an online master's degree course at Iowa State
University that incorporates team-based activities, customized
projects, and a collaborative model of assessment to develop
instructional design skills in the context of real-world situations.
(See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=495&action=article)
In turn, Joanna Dunlap, Jackie Dubrovolny, and Dave Young describe a
similar graduate-level course at the University of Colorado in which
students work together to design educational Web sites. As in Godwin
and Kaplan's workshop, these two instructional design courses apply
Kolb's experiential learning cycle to ensure a reciprocal relationship
between experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation
in the work of their students. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=490&action=article)
Our next two articles resume an ongoing discussion regarding the
potential of gaming technology to enhance learning. Recognizing the
mismatch that typically characterizes gaming practice and educational
goals, Karl Royle argues that the only way to foster an effective
fusion between the two will come from a willingness to embed learning
opportunities within commercial modes of game design--an approach that
will itself require much greater readiness to think outside the
framework of current curriculum standards. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=433&action=article)
Stephen Yang, Brian Smith, and George Graham then consider how
physical education programs may be enhanced by the emerging genre of
"exergames," which require players to engage in strenuous physical
activity during game play. After providing examples of such games, the
authors assess their value for reducing childhood obesity and
promoting healthy behavior, while also acknowledging that further
research as well as cost-benefit analyses are needed to discern the
viability of this technology for broader adoption by schools. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=186&action=article)
We conclude the issue with two feature contributors to Innovate. For
his Perspectives column, Reid Cornwell interviews Peter Suber who
reflects upon the recent growth of open-access initiatives in the
academy, as well as their long-term implications for the future of
scholarly publishing at large. As an added feature to this column, you
can download the audio as a podcast in the features menu within the
article. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=564&action=article)
For his Places to Go column, Stephen Downes reviews the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) Web site, which provides
access to a series of reports that rank the test performance of
students from participating nations. While PISA rankings have begun to
influence many educational policy-makers, Downes cautions that the
value of these rankings must be considered carefully in light of the
methodological constraints of the tests. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=563&action=article)
We hope that you enjoy this issue of Innovate. Please use the
discussion board within each article to raise questions or provide
additional commentary. Your comments will be sent to authors for their
response, which will become part of the record for their article.
Also, please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists
and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work and
ask your organizational librarian to link to Innovate in their
resource section for open-access e-journals.
If you are considering submitting a manuscript describing how you use
Microsoft technology to enhance the educational experience for
publication consideration in the From our Sponsors section, please
make sure that it conforms to the publication guidelines described at
the Contribute link on Innovate's navigation bar.
Finally, check out the Innovation 2008 conference at
http://education-2008.org that Innovate and the Focus on Education
Foundation are hosting this coming April 14-15 in beautiful
Breckenridge, CO. If you cannot physically attend the conference, you
can attend virtually, thereby allowing you to get a true taste of the
attendee experience through informal real-time chats with keynote and
session presenters, participants, and sponsors. Innovate's partner,
ULiveandLearn, will broadcast all sessions of the conference live and
will archive the webcasts for later viewing in the event that you are
not able to attend the live sessions. For more information and to
register, please go to
http://tinyurl.com/2nrhxa
Thanks!
Jim
----
James L Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
http://www.innovateonline.info
Fischler School of Education and Human Services
Nova Southeastern University
http://www.schoolofed.nova.edu/home.htm