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"Beyond Computer Literacy:
Implications of Technology for the Content and Outcomes of a
College Education"
The second of five outcomes
of a liberal education as described by the Association of
American Colleges and Universities:
2) Deep understanding and hands-on
experience with the inquiry practices of disciplines that
explore the natural, social, and cultural realms—achieved
and demonstrated through studies that build conceptual
knowledge by engaging learners in concepts and modes of
inquiry that are basic to the natural sciences, social
sciences, humanities, and arts;
Professionals in almost every discipline now
use technology-based tools to think in new ways. For
example, statisticians explore data differently now, using
new statistical procedures and displaying results
graphically. Technology-based tools enable relative novices
to ask meaningful questions of their own – literature
students learning a bit about inquiry in biology, and vice
versa. In addition to these "power tools for novices,"
technology is playing other roles in helping people from all
fields learn skills of inquiry. One often over-looked
impact of technology on education in inquiry: making it more
feasible for students to do research off-campus, and thus
enlarging the variety of meaningful projects on which
students can do research -- see
Outcome 4 for some examples of this type.
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Doing research as a way of learning
to do research: Digital technology has vastly
increased the types of inquiry that are done by
professionals, and the types of inquiries that can be
done by undergraduates. Most people think first of the
Web and Google, but that's only a small fraction of
what's already happening.
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This web page of examples, developed by Prof.
Allen Gathman of Southeast Missouri as part of his
role in one of
our webcasts on IT and general education,
illustrates a series of assignments that can be done
by undergraduates over several courses that help
them learn increasingly sophisticated skills of
research (in genetics, in this particular case).
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Simulations are
one way in which technology can make it more feasible
for large numbers of students to learn new forms of
inquiry. Simulations can play many roles. Simple
simulations that embody what the student is to learn
(e.g., a chess program; a simulation that allows the
user to combine simulated chemicals and see videos of
the results). Such simulations don't themselves teach
skills of inquiry. But other kinds of simulations, some
described below, embody enough complexity and provide
enough 'scaffolding' that novices can do meaningful
research. Some operate on rules or theories that users
can't change ('black box' simulations) while others
allow the users to simulate the operation of their own
theories.
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BioQUEST
creates, collects and distributes realistic research
simulations. Students can practice what BioQUEST
calls the “Three P’s”: problem posing
(creating a research problem to do in the simulated
world, such as a genetics experiment or a
biochemical analysis), problem solving
(carrying out the research and developing a
conclusion based on the evidence), and persuasion
(persuading first a peer and then the instructor
that the experimental evidence is sufficient to
support the student’s conclusion. One nice feature
of the BioQUEST software: not even the instructor
can ‘open’ the simulation to find the right answer.
The instructor, like the peers and the student
investigator, must examine the problem, the chain of
experiments, and the resulting evidence in order to
assess the student’s work.
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The University of
Mississippi
PsychExperiments site makes dozens of simulated
psychology experiments available free to learners
and institutions around the world.
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To help its own
students and others (including school age children)
learn the skills of inquiry used by engineers, the
US Military Academy at West Point has created a
bridge-building simulation.
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Some students gain
insight into physics through this
simulated cannon on the University of Oregon's web
site using either pure trial and error, or else
thinking as a scientist would: charting data points,
creating a mathematical equation that describes
those data points, and then using the equation to
predict where the cannonball will fall when 'fired'
in a new way. Students at West Point study calculus
with this simulator as well as with toy cannons that
fire light-weight plastic balls. They use the same
method of data collection, analysis, and prediction.
Here's a photo of one team that's just used its data
and its mathematical skill to hit the target in the
foreground.
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Wolfgang Christian's
"Physlet"
site at Davidson offers a variety of physics
simulations.
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Want to look for more
simulations in a variety of disciplines? One good
source for simulations (and many other online
academic resources) is
MERLOT.
Accounts are free. If your institution or system
becomes a member, you can become a peer reviewer
(the best way to learn about MERLOT's resources).
TLT Group subscribing institutions get a discount on
MERLOT fees, and vice versa.
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Analysis through new
ways of representing data
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One way for students
to learn is through close study of the data. As
archaeology students in a course taught by Prof Lynn
Schwartz Dodd of the University of Southern
California discovered, computers provide new options
for studying the three dimensional relics of
vanished civilizations. To see movies and analyses
of their 3-D reconstructions of Troy and of the
Baths of Caracalla, and for other undergraduate
projects using multimedia as a tool for analysis and
communication,
click here to see the Project Showcase page of
the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at USC. IML
is a real leader in pioneering the creative,
academic use of multimedia by undergraduates
studying in general education courses as well as a
wide variety of majors.
In what ways do the
uses of information technology in the wider world have
implications for what all students in higher education
should learn? If you know of
examples that can be used to expand this web page,
please let me know!
- Stephen C. Ehrmann,
ehrmann@tltgroup.org
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Implications of Technology for the Content and Outcomes
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