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Follow UsUsers are concerned
with the ease of reading, interesting use of interactions, and the speed and the value of
the training--factors to be kept in mind while developing your WBT titles.
Educationists have drawn on a wide
array of knowledge and experience, including: the work of 19th century and early 20th
century educators, analyses of apprenticeship learning and of the rapid learning of young
children, and cognitive research to come to certain conclusions on how learning takes
place.
Learning takes place in conLearning Software Business Unit, NIIT Ltd, and through
observations. We do not learn isolated facts and theories in some abstract ethereal land
of the mind separate from the rest of our lives, we learn in relationship to what else we
know. Learning happens in the midst of meaningful, ongoing activities and on the receipt
of immediate feedback on the success of the learner's actions.
Learning is a social activity. The society serves as a model for imitative learning and
provides a structure to and connections between the learner's experiences and his
learning. Our learning is intimately associated with our parents, teachers, friends and
acquaintances, that is, the people we tend to interact with in day-to-day life.
Motivation is the key to learning. Unless the learner knows the reasons why, he may not be
very involved in using the knowledge that may be instilled in him even by the most severe
and direct teaching. Hence, the need for and purpose of the learning should be explicitly
stated for the learner.
Work is the driving force. Learning happens more on the job then through instructions.
Therefore, learning is effective where the outcome involves the ability to do rather than
the ability to talk about something. Since learning is functional, concepts and tools are
acquired as tools to solve problems. The concepts and tools that help solve problems
should be structured in progressive difficulty to accentuate learning. Further, for
effective learning to happen it is essential to embed performance standards in the work
environment.
These findings and actual attempts by cognitive scientists to create different kinds of
learning environment, and an extensive body of cognitive science research has added up to
a solid foundation for designing effective learning environments.
What constitutes the learning
environment
The constituent of the learning environment are not new, but together they define an
effective learning situation. The first constituent is the content. All trainings usually
focus exclusively on the concepts, facts and procedures of a subject. However, to operate
effectively in any setting, learners also need three other types of content:
* Tricks of the trade: Problem-solving strategies that experts pick up with experience.
* Cognitive management strategies: Goal setting, strategic planning, monitoring,
evaluation and revision.
* Learning strategies: Knowing how to learn, exploring new fields, acquiring more
knowledge in a familiar subject and reconfiguring knowledge already possessed.
Another constituent is the teaching methods. The teaching method should provide the
learner a chance to observe, engage in, invent or discover expert strategies in context to
the subject being learnt. The teaching methods should encourage learner exploration and
independence. The environment should coach, offering hints, feedbacks and reminders. It
should also provide `scaffolding,' support for students as they learn to carry out tasks.
And fade that is gradually handing over control of the learning process to the learner.
Sequencing, the third constituent of the learning environment, lays emphasis on
structuring of the content. Learning should be so structured that the learner builds the
skills required in expert performance and discovers the conditions under which the skills
apply. This requires a sequence of increasingly complex tasks, increasingly diverse
problem-solving situations, and the staging of learning so that students develop a feel
for the overall terrain before attending to details.
Learning is a social activity. Therefore the learning environment should reproduce the
technological, social, time and motivational characteristics of real world situations
where what is being learned will be used. It is only through encountering subject matter
knowledge in context that most students will learn when, where and how the knowledge
applies to other situations. Therefore, special emphasis has to be laid on the way
instruction is delivered.
Having discussed the fundamental constituents of the learning environment, we look at the
effects of the changing societal trends and their effects on the prevailing educational
systems.
A number of aspects reflect the changing societal trends and should therefore be taken
into account while developing the learning environment. These are:
The growing need for flexible, tailor-made educational programs that address individual
needs.
* The need to integrate the learning and working environments.
* The need for competence-based learning programs.
* The growing interest in distance education as an educational concept and delivery
method.
* And last but not the least, the advent of new information and communication
technologies.
The internet is fast emerging as one of the most important teaching tools, with the WWW
emerging as the easiest and most popular way to access the internet. The web represents a
new way of looking at instruction--at how it is organized and how it is presented. It is a
delivery medium, content provider and subject matter, all in one. Using it, teachers and
designers can create instructional delivery mechanisms to guide their learners through
this storehouse of information. These instructional delivery mechanisms or web-based
trainings (WBTs) are essentially a collection of instructionally sound, well-designed web
pages.
WBT is a very recent phenomenon, since the web itself emerged in the early nineties only.
However, several areas are related to WBT, where research results exist, like distance
education, computer-based training (CBT) and hypertext/hyper-media.
When to use the web?
The web uses text, graphics, interactively, and, to a lesser extent, video and audio.
According to Reiser and Gagne's media selection diagram (Reiser and Gagne, 1983) and
Merrill and Goodman's strategy and media selection technique (Merrill and Goodman, 1972),
these characteristics make the web most useful when used to explore intellectual and
verbal knowledge, and to a lesser extent when exploring effective learning. With it's
versatility and interconnectedness, the web offers one of the most effective ways to work
with learners who are spread geographically.
It is easy to collate and put information on the web, but it has very little to do with
creating instruction. Instruction is the deliberate organization and presentation of
information with the end goal of promoting specific learning. When designing WBI, it is
vital to keep the instructional aspects first in your design considerations. The snazziest
web site can still be completely ineffective at guiding a learner toward an instructional
goal if it is not created with sound instructional design theory in mind.
There are two major schools of theory in instructional design today: the Objectivists,
whom we will present with Dick and Carry's Instructional Systems Design (ISD) model and
the Constructivists, whom we will represent with the Hypermedia Design Model (HDM), based
on Spiro's Cognitive Flexibility Theory. WBI can be designed under either paradigms.
The ISD model
Traditional Objectivist ISD models provide a series of steps that lead inevitably to the
production of effective instructional materials. These models primarily require that the
learner meet a preset list of entry behaviors. They take little account of individual
learners and the differences in prior knowledge and motivation that each brings to the
instruction. The final goals are all described in terms of behaviors that is, what the
learner will be able to do and not in terms of what he has understood or learnt? This
makes evaluation relatively simple. Can the learner exhibit the required behavior? This
model may well be appropriate if the knowledge is procedural and can be exhibited.
However, if the instruction deals with declarative knowledge, or more importantly with
higher levels of thinking and learning, these models and the instructions produced by them
can prove ineffective.
The traditional models break down the process of creating instruction into seven basic
steps, to be completed in order.
These steps can be paraphrased as:
* Identify what the learners will be able to do once they have finished the instruction.
* Break the goal into a hierarchy of subordinate skills. Decide which skills. Decide which
skills the learner has to perform to meet the subordinate skills to achieve the final
goal.
* Examine your hierarchy and determine the minimum level of skills with which you expect
your learners to come to the instruction. If your goal is to prove a given geometry
theorem, can you reasonably expect your learners to come to the instruction with the
ability to read and perform basic calculations.
* Specify performance objectives. Performance objectives are the behaviors that the
learner will demonstrate at the end of each subsection to show that they have mastered the
subordinate skills.
* Create test items based on the performance objectives.
* Develop the actual instruction. This step includes media selection, strategy development
and production.
* Finally, evaluate the effectiveness of the instruction. Can the learners actually do
what the instruction intended them to do?
In this paradigm, the designer sets all instructional objectives. It is assumed that all
learners coming to the instruction are either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to
learn the behavior set in the instructional goal. Individual learner differences are often
either ignored or generalized.
Flexibility and the hypermedia
design model
The Constructivists approach differs from the Objectivist in that the student takes
control of the learning. One example of this theory is the Cognitive Flexibility Theory.
Cognitive Flexibility Theory deals with `the special requirements for attaining advanced
learning goals, given the impediments associated with ill-structured features of knowledge
domains' (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, and Coulson, 1991) and suggests a metaphor `of the
criss-crossed landscape with its suggestion of a non-linear and multi-dimensional
traversal of a complex subject matter' (Spiro et al, 1991). It means that the theory views
the learning methods as having a multi-dimensional perspective with a crisscrossing of the
subject matter in a non-linear fashion. This desire for multiple perspectives and
knowledge crisscrossing is well supported in the internet environment, especially using
the hypermedia of the web in conjunction with one of the net's discussions facilities.
The Hypermedia Design Model (HDM) in utilizing the above theory defines the design methods
as the knowledge that the designer hopes will be attained by the learner and how the
learning environment is organized. The learner methods are what the learner hopes to
learn, and how the knowledge is accessed by the learner. The important aspect of this
model is that it differentiates between design goals and learner objectives. Design goals
are that knowledge which the designers hope that the learner will construct from the
environment. Learner objectives are what the learner actually comes to the environment
wanting to learn. Traditional ISD models deal almost exclusively with design goals, where
as HDM is designed with the idea that learner objectives are paramount, but that guidance
can be provided to help the learners reach those objectives. This model deals mostly with
the pursuit of intermediate and expert knowledge in complex and ill-structured learning
domains. If your learning domain is simple or well structured, you might want to consider
using a more traditional ISD model.
Hypermedia design model
The first step in using HDM is to define the learning domain. You need to set the
boundaries on what you wish to present to the learner. Therefore the larger you set your
boundaries, the less detail you will be able to include within them. Domains are rarely
complete and unique. Physics, for instance, overlaps with mathematics, chemistry, and any
number of other domains. Thus, in your instruction, you need `to define where the domain
that you are going to cover begins and ends and what is included.'
Once you determine the boundaries of the learning domain, the next step is to identify
cases within the domain. You need to determine the various learning elements or cases to
be studied, as well as the instructional elements, that is the text, graphics, sounds and
videos, with which you will represent the domain. Choose these cases with the complexity
of your domain in mind. Over simplification is a common error in instructional design. It
is also important to make sure that the cases you choose to represent the domain are
authentic and represent multiple perspectives of the domain.
From here, the model splits into two paths of equal importance--the guided path and the
learner controlled path. On the guided path, you specify what the design goals are and
create trails through the domain leading the learner to what you want her to see. The
learner-controlled path allows the learner to specify what she wants and to navigate to it
without the aid or interference of the designer specified trails.
In the guided path, identify the themes or the perspectives to be highlighted. Select the
learning elements you feel that anyone familiar with the domain should have. These differ
from the instructional objectives of more traditional ISD models in that they are
ultimately suggestions to the learner rather than exact descriptions or what each learner
will get out of the environment. Interface designs should situate the environment in as
authentic a context as possible to aid in transfer outside the instruction.
The instructional elements, which represent the cases you have chosen for your suggested
path(s). These paths should crisscross the landscape so that you return to the same
element many times from many directions, thus building multiple perspectives or contexts
for the same elements. This aids in the building of a pattern, which facilitates transfer
of knowledge.
In the learner-controlled path, provide learner-controlled access to cases. In this model,
it is essential for the learners to create their own objectives. If those objectives
differ from the ones suggested by the designer, it is imperative that the learners have
the tools to explore the domain on their own. These tools might include keyword search
engines, concept maps which can be restructured by the learner, and even random link
creators.
Finally, encourage learner self-reflection. It is important for the learner to reflect on
what they are learning. This helps them decide whether they have met the objectives and
where to go from there. It is important for the designer to remember that this is not the
standard Objectivist evaluation. Because each learner will set their own objectives, it is
impossible for the designer to test whether those objectives have been met. Only the
learner can do that. However, the designer can provide questions and guidance to help
foster this sort of self-evaluation. In addition, the design should include tools that
help the learner decide what to do next based on this reflection.
Good WBT design
Once the instructional design methodology for designing the WBT has been determined, you
need to work on the design front of the WBT itself. Though it is very difficult to have
every web user agree on what constitutes a good web document design, some simple steps
that can be taken to ensure maximum utility for learners are:
* Establish a formal development process that is best suited for your product. Each step
of your process should focus on meeting the needs of the user. Listen, plan, design, test,
build, deliver, observe and refine. Quality outcomes depend on complete process
fulfillment.
* Choose media types based on learning objectives. Users of your WBT product will be more
impressed with rational choices of media types and technologies that speed learning and
improve human performance.
* Provide ample opportunity for the user to interact with the information. Keep in mind
that your design goal should be to encourage intellectual interaction with the training
information, not simply include many click areas. Interactions should always test
informational skills and understanding, or they should activate more information that the
trainee can use to advance learning.
* Design products that adapt to the users' abilities and intelligently respond to the user
input. Provide meaningful feedback to user input that reinforces a concept and hardens the
foundation for further learning.
* Keep in mind that people learn in a variety of ways. Visual learners need many graphic
illustrations to understand concepts and relationships. Verbal learners use text and
narration to accomplish the same end.
* Reject linear thinking and design. A highly structured, top-down approach to
instructional design does not address the needs and preferences of most trainees. WBT, and
the web itself, is the world of hypermedia, where the user decides the direction best
suited for accomplishing his or her goal: to learn. Good WBT design allows the user to
`begin in the middle and end at the beginning,' even though, in truth, the beginning is
wherever the user chooses to start and the end wherever he stops. Respect the learner.
Avoid any content or feedback that is instructionally insignificant, annoying or
degrading. People read at different rates, so do not display information that disappears
after a short time. Finally, in WBT, especially, long load times for insignificant
information are annoying--make every bit of downloaded information count.
* Test your designs on real users. This applies to both the instructional design and the
user interface, with all its icons, buttons and navigational features. Products of bad
design instill resentment in the user and place a barrier to learning. The developers'
maxim: test early, test often.
User complaints about WBT
Based on interviews and conversations with other users and experiences of using different
WBTs the areas of complaint/concern are:
Readability:
* Ability to read the material on the screen is a major area of concern for users.
* Although learner may read many pages in a textbook, having to read the same amount on
the monitor can be unpleasant, especially if the font is too small.
* The necessity of scrolling can be irritating.
* Since it is not as easy to read from the monitor as it is from a paper, there is a
tendency to become easily bored and loose interest. A solution is to break the information
into chunks that are presented on separate pages. Also break the material into smaller
sections and add questions or exercises to break the monotony of reading.
* Another way to reduce boredom in reading is to add a little levity so that the subject
matter does not get presented in a heavy handed manner. Of course, be cautious in using
humor that may not seem proper to some in audience.
Interaction: Although
interaction is an important advantage of a WBT, requiring too many interactions,
especially with a mouse can be irritating. So, give the option of using the keyboard
making the interaction of a page-turner less stressful. Avoid stating the same information
across pages or using too many interactions that could easily be stated on a single page
or screen. Interaction should be easy, necessary and engaging.
Speed: People are busy and
they want to get through their WBT in a minimum of time. They do not want to sit through
unnecessary animations or overly detailed explanations. When providing material on WWW,
you must also be conscious of the transmission speed limitations. Complex graphics, sound,
video and animation can take a very long time to download over the web. People do not want
to wait several minutes for the next screen to load.
Value: When someone takes any
type of training, especially if it is a WBT, that person wants to learn something of
value. Avoid useless information. People want to learn and get their money's worth and
value for the time they spend.
Pluses and minuses
Through helper applications and internal mechanisms, the web can connect a learner to
almost any part of the internet. Due to this, the web shares the advantages and
disadvantages of the rest of the internet. McManus' description of the internet fits well
for the WWW: "The Internet can deliver video, but not as quickly as videotape, TV, or
CD ROM. It can carry real-time personal interaction, but not as well as telephone or
videoconferencing. It can display textual information, but not as usefully as a book or
magazine. Why then should the internet be used? The net has two real advantages over other
media. It combines advantages of other media so that it conveys video and sound better
than a book, is more interactive than videotape and, unlike a CD ROM, it can link people
from around the world cheaply. The second advantage, and one that is often overlooked when
discussing the Internet as a delivery system, is that it can also be a content provider.
The internet is, arguably, the largest and most diverse information resource in the world
today. It is possible to incorporate the wealth of information available on the net in
your design. For instance, if you are designing a module on renaissance art history, you
can include links to the Vatican Library and the Louvre, as well as to the Art History
exhibit of the Australian National University, just to name a few. This sort of immediate
access to information and resources cannot be found with any other medium."
In short the advantages of WBT are:
* Elimination of travel time and travel cost
* Low or non-existing distribution cost of training material
* Real-time grading of interactive exercises
* Immediate feedback to learners
* Tracking of individual performance on question and exercise base
* Single point of maintenance on host site
* One copy of material; that is always current
* No recall actions of outdated material necessary
* Hypermedia learning systems accommodate various learning styles
* Page can be used as learning and reference material
* Worldwide distribution
* Platform independence.
One has to keep in mind that to
achieve its platform independence the WWW limits its technology. Therefore, WBT
limitations are:
* Cross-platform, cross-browser layout consistency is very difficult
* Bandwidth on the inter/intranet is limited
* Access to inter/intranet with a graphical browser is required
* Security is a problem of distributed WBT systems
* Direct control over testing may be technically difficult
* Latency over a network can limit the effectiveness of interactivity.
It is important to remember that the
internet can be both delivery medium and content provider for WBI. Web pages can link to
newsgroups, telnet systems and gophers just as easily as they can to other web pages.
These links to pages outside your own creation let you expand your instruction almost
infinitely. However, they are also outside your control. Content may change, too many
links may cause the learner to get lost, or the other sources may simply not be available.
Use the internet, but remember its limitations.
Users are concerned with the ease of reading, the interesting use of interactions, the
speed of the training and its value. These are the factors to keep in mind when developing
your WBT titles.