|
Flashlight Evaluation
Handbook
"If we buy technology X, will
learning improve? will costs drop? by how much?" "If we
offer a distance learning program, is it true that the
results will inevitably be worse than campus education? but
less expensive?"
These kinds of questions used
to be asked quite frequently, along with companion questions
such as "What does research tell us about the learning
outcomes of word processing? Do students who write with
Macintoshes learn better or worse than students who write
with other kinds of computers? Do students in online
programs learn more or less than students who learn on
campus? Are distance learning programs cheaper or more
expensive than campus programs?" And so on.
All these questions presume a
direct link between a technology and an outcome: learning or
costs. All of them are analogous to this question, which
I've never heard anyone seriously ask, "If our courses start
using 20% more paper and 20% more electricity, how much will
learning improve?"
There is, of course, no
direct relationship between any instructional resource and
any instructional outcome. Paper does not cause learning,
even if words are written on it. Nor do computers. Nor, for
that matter, do faculty. Technologies don't cause outcomes.
Technologies are used by people to do something. We
call that an activity. And the activity causes the outcome.
When those three elements are put together in an internally
consistent way, an outcome caused by an activity which was
enabled or supported by a technology, it is a triad.
Here's a
narrated slideshow where
I made this point in a bit more detail; it requires
RealPlayer). If you are going to run a workshop to help
others use the triad concept in designing their studies
(e.g. to discover how to improve technology use in a course,
to get institutional value from a course management system,
to get more value from high tech classrooms, etc.), then
click here -
subscribing
institutions only.
Next:
Using Triads to Design Useful Studies
Flashlight Evaluation
Handbook
|
