Wednesday 1 June 2011

The Reason

We have reached a point in the uptake of technology within adult learning in which the notion of quality is emerging as a perpetual predicament and subsequently, the learning outcomes from these methods of teaching are being questioned. With the plethora of available online courses nowadays, questions such as:
  • Is online teaching as effective as face-to-face instruction?
  • Are online courses as good as they could be?
  • What is the best way to deliver online courses?
are rightfully being asked by educators and learners alike (A. Herrington, J. Herrington, R. Oliver, S. Stoney, J. Willis, 2001).
There have been many studies and subsequent developed theories on what ascribes to be considered effective learning; in particular, game-based learning (Prensky, 2002, Gee, 2005), constructivist learning (Bruner, 1966, Jonassen, 1999), cognitive load (Mayer, 1998, 2003), and constructive alignment (Biggs, 2003) to name just a few; with many of these transcending to include perceived effectiveness within online learning environments also.
Nonetheless, despite all of this knowledge being readily available to online course developers, there continues to be an influx of perpetual iterative didactic, text-book-on-a-screen page turners being mass produced and paraded as the future of education; all under the guise of the touted term e-learning…
But this is where ‘Hired or Fired?’ aims to be different!
With the intention of incorporating aspects from several established learning theories, ‘Hired or Fired?’ aspires to increase learner engagement and idyllically result in learning by:
  • Including interactive game play into in the prescribed activities (Prensky, 2002)
  • Presenting information in semantic chunks for readability and understanding (Henderson, 2006)
  • Applying PARC principles to all user interface/screen design
  • Use of a combination of dynamic (animated) and static, simplistic pictures rather than realistic images such as photographs to reduce extraneous cognitive load (Mayer, 1998, 2003) and to assist weaker readers in constructing sense of the text and context of the topic
  • Use of simple, easy to use predictable structures in the navigation tools to reduce student cognitive load and thereby give them more 'thinking space' for the task at hand (Herrington, 2001)
  • Creating interactive, choice based activities that allow the students to make frequent, meaningful decisions and be in control of what they choose to be shown/tackle next
‘Aw, that will be easy!’ you may say?
We’ll see…

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