ICT in Education

With proliferation of computers and the increase of the availability and speed of the Internet, and pervasiveness of computing resources, better utilization of those resources for learning becomes evident. Researchers have been working to utilize new inventions for learning, especially considering attractiveness of ICT functionalities and power.

Researchers in e-education have been attempting to utilize attractive features of technology. The digitization of learning resources such as text and video enables the reusability to make them available several times anytime and anywhere. This also enables the use of resources at the pace rate of the learner and go through the resources, such as videos several times on a mobile device.

Technology nowadays has added convenience to its users. Connectivity can help access systems not only remotely but also available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Users do not have to commute to distant places saving transportation effort, cost, and time. Even at several situations, such as in rural areas, access to learning is difficult.

The economic aspect of education and the need for resources to support learning should not be neglected. Economy of scale plays a central role in the success and potential for ICT in education. As a simple example, once a Web page is developed and delivered on the Internet, millions of users can visit it and browse

through the information presented. The scalability of Internet resources plays a significant role in the economy of scale of such tools. While education institutions can take this aspect into consideration, it also lessens the costs incurred in buildings and classroom using the virtual class or the virtual university. However, consideration is moved towards administrative and support cost to e-learners who do not receive face-to-face interactions.

On the other hand, it is obvious that it replaces the human-to-human interaction toward human-to-environment interaction or human-to-human indirectly (asynchronous learning). Adding a none-human medium of communication brings a virtual distance between the learner and the educator (see Figure 4). Unfortunately, it removes important human aspects needed for learning; such as emotions and gesture effects. That is in addition to the intelligence of the human educator compared to an artificially intelligent software component. That led to the idea of combining the advantages of both through blended learning settings that e-learning should be complemented with human educators support. However, new interesting features are yet evolving that brings new learning scenarios that were not possible in traditional learning settings.

Figure 4: The virtual distance between the instructor and the e-learner.

2.2.1. Forms of Learner-Centered Tools

With evolvement of technological solutions for education, several forms of supporting tools are considered for solutions. Several of which considered understanding the learner as a central element. Table 4 gives examples of learner-centered tools and their supporting learning theories.

Computer Mediated Communication - CMC

Table 4: Several forms of ICT tools for adaptive learning based on learning theories (modified from Soliman

& Shaban, 2009) Personalized Learning

Environments (PLE) PLE systems try to capture information about the learner as a form of profile and present the suitable material to the learner

This complies with different learning theories based on understanding the learner.

Intelligent Tutoring

Systems (ITS) ITS’s requires no human intervention.

These systems are intelligent and try to capture information about the status of learning result and change the sequence to suit the learner

These systems assume the importance of understanding the learner needs in the subjects but not the learning styles. The use of cognitive tutors that try to establish a learner cognitive models make it eligible of use of congitivism-based theories.

Learning Objects and

Web Services Tries to use useful IT disciplines of learning objects and services to create on-the-fly compositions. Having those variations helps in establishing variations of learning methods.

Pedagogical-aware learning objects

e-Portfolios Are collections and records about

learner activities in an electronic format The use of e-portfolios improve learners’

motivations of esteem and self-actualization Social Collaboration

& Social Software The use of social web, folksonomies,

etc Social constructivism

Adaptive Hypermedia In user interfaces. Only the

presentation of content. Theory of multiple intelligences

2.2.2. Technological Support to Collaborative Learning

Different technological solutions have evolved to support collaborative learning. The growth and availability of the Web has made it an interesting medium for aiding instruction. Tools for group learning support include the use of emails, instant-messaging, and others to facilitate communication in either standalone domains or within course management systems. Supporting the production of knowledge by groups has become available recently as the evolution of the Social Web (Web 2.0). Most of the success of Web 2.0 is attributed to the social nature that encourages group work by Blogs, Wikis, and group tagging. Other e-learning methods have evolved to support instruction.

Unfortunately, pedagogy as a design factor is sometimes ignored or sometimes has the view of e-learning paradigms replacing conventional methods. E-learning should support the learning process in a way that complements rather than replaces other settings thus improving learning effectives; and it always depends on the environment settings. Then e-learning support for groups has to be investigated in way that complements, rather than replaces other methods by seriously considering learning pedagogical objectives¹.

Computer support aiding group human activities takes different forms, and dates back even to the early stages of the creation of computers. Computer

1 Paragraph is adopted from Soliman and Guetl (2010b).

Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) evolved as a multi-disciplinary research including computer science, social psychology, and education (Grudin, 1994). It involves how people work and do things together by means of computer support. Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), instead, adds the dimension of learning in addition to collaborative task achievement. CSCL involves learners who are separated by distance or time. Then the key distinction aspect between Computer Supported Collaborative Learning and CSCW is the learning focus. This means further pedagogical support is needed. And CSCL environments should have further support and richer capabilities than CSCW since CSCL involves group work to achieve a task in addition to learning requirements. While both fields are multi-disciplinary, CSCW started by technologists to learn from different fields including social psychologists and educators (Grudin, 1994). Conversely, CSCL are crucially expected to be pedagogical-aware¹.

2.2.3. Virtual Learning Environments

Given that learning occurs in environments and in conjunction to interaction with others, researchers investigated the environment impact towards creating virtual learning environments. What is a virtual learning environment (VLE)?

What are its characteristics? And what distinguishes it from other environments?

A good view of VLEs that clarifies it and provides insights into its design is found in the work by Dillenbourg (2000). Dillenbourg (2000) identified seven characteristics to the virtual learning environment listed in Table 5.

Table 5: Seven characteristics specific to virtual learning environments by Dillenbourg (2000).

1. Information space realization: “The information space has been designed”

2. Turning spaces into places: “Educational interactions occur in the environment, turning spaces into places”

3. Social space representation: “The information/social space is explicitly represented. The representation varies from text to 3D immersive worlds”

4. Students are actors: “Students are not only active, but also actors. They co-construct the virtual space”

5. VLE complements classroom: “Virtual learning environments are not restricted to distance education.

They also enrich classroom activities”

6. Technologies and pedagogic approaches integration: “Virtual learning environments integrate heterogeneous technologies and multiple pedagogical approaches”

7. VLE overlaps with physical environment: “Most virtual environments overlap with physical environments”

In order to further assess added pedagogical values of virtual learning environments, one can consider it in comparison with Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). ITS’s characteristic is the removal of human intervention by the use of artificial intelligence methods. While intelligent tutoring systems intended

1 Paragraph is adopted from Soliman and Guetl (2010b).

to provide pedagogical functions through personalization, sequencing of instruction, and more, their direct benefits were a focus on individual uses as direct consequences of the removal of the human tutor. But so far, they lacked the rich 3D visualization aspects that are available in recent 3D virtual learning environments. Furthermore, VLE provides more collaboration and exploration-based learning opportunities and can be much more open and flexible than the individualistic ITS. An intelligent agent can roam across several domains to search for resources, collaborate with other peers, or learn from others’

experiences. This was not a design factor in an individual ITS.

In the virtual environment, the learner user has more control on his/her experiences and is more of an actor. Therefore, it is more directed towards learner-centered learning, and hence greater need for individualization services towards learners as actors is expected.

2.2.4. Challenges for Learning with Technology

Students face challenges in using electronic environments for learning due to interaction with machines rather than the human. The human aspects in learning cannot be found in virtual environments. Even with a remote teacher in asynchronous learning environments, the virtual distance still exists that hinder for example face-to-face passion that teachers use to support students in the traditional classroom.

With the scalability and availability of learning environments, it becomes difficult to provide 24/7 remote support to learners. Furthermore, with the explosive growth of learning resources available, it becomes questionable of how a teacher can guide learners to navigate through those resources. In individual learning in those environments, the engagement of the learner should be taken into consideration; otherwise, learners will become discouraged from completing activities on time.

Furthermore, the role of the teacher should change with new ICT-based learning activities and environments. Online learners are faced with challenges in the environment as a result of lack of human guidance in those environment and interaction with machines. Challenging questions arise such as how to motivate and engage learners in virtual environments? Developments in adopting innovative methods should target those challenges. The use of artificial intelligence in education is an example attempt to target such problems.

Education occurs in relation to real-life situations, such as in experiential learning and situated learning theories. The visual component of the situation has an effect on occurred learning. Learning with two dimensional resources such as photos or videos does not provide a complete representation of reality. Learners’

ability to interact with visualizations should foster learning preferably if there are

three dimensions rather than images or video content that will be considered in the subsequent Chapter.