Q3: Are educational technologists impacting on changing pedagogies?

Joyce Seitzinger
12:59pm 3 September 2009

Thank you for starting this cloudscape and lit review. I'm an educational technologist and have just started  some research into the collaborative  process between tertiary teachers & e-learning support staff. So I'm hoping your project can inform that.

In doing my own lit research, I've come across 2 articles that may be of interest here.

Martin Oliver
4:39pm 25 September 2009

I haven't seen much evidence of learning technologists taking an informed, activist approach. But there is some - like:

Roberts, G. (2002) Complexity, Uncertainty and Autonomy: the politics of networked learning. Proceedings of Networked Learning 2002, 201-208.

...and see some of Richard Hall's blog posts at:

http://www.learnex.dmu.ac.uk/

In terms of just introducing newer pedagogies, I think that there is a "constructivist good, behaviourist bad" story that circulates in learning technology research and practice, which over-simplifies both positions but is involved in promoting particular pedagogies. But I don't know how visible this is in literature - you'd have to review the literature itself, and comment on it, to make it visible. 

In terms of evolving pedagogic positions, not directly the consequence of learning technologists but just in general, is noted in:

Thorpe, M. (2002) From independent learning to collaborative learning: new communities of practice in open, distance and flexible learning. In Lea, M. & Nicoll, K. (Eds), Distributed Learning: Social and Cultural Approaches to Practice, 131-151.

Tom Browne
10:25am 1 October 2009

Thanks to both Joyce and Martin for these really interesting references.

The Hixon reference makes much of the merit of 'bringing together faculty and a variety of instructional support staff' noting that: collaborative course development is a significant departure from how many faculty members approach course design and development .  How true! 

Taking this a stage further, and connecting with our ultimate clients (in this context, our students) I think it's worth quoting verbatim an extract from the abstract of the reference by Wiesenmayer et al This study examines the relationship between technical support and pedagogical guidance, two factors deemed critical to successful programs, and student satisfaction and perceived learning. The outcomes are considered important as analysis demonstrates that those measures that produce high degrees of faculty satisfaction do not significantly impact students in a similar manner. From an application perspective this leads to questions about how current training and support mechanisms can be enhanced to serve both populations.

Finally, I've added a reference above by Hoggkinson-Williams and Czerniewicz.  This is a very bullish article which places educational technologists at the centre of the challenges which are faced globally and internationally.   Drawing upon the delightful text in their title re 'Moving beyond random acts of progress' they note that: In order to move towards sustained acts of progress we need to understand our role within HEIs more fully and to develop our capacity as professionals responding to the challenges that impinge on the teaching and learning needs within HEIs in the 21st century.

So very much a pedagogic focus.  And later, they say: Yet it is the educational technologists who must be alert to the pedagiogic possibilities of new tools as they come into existence.  Good stuff.

Laura Czerniewicz sent me this reference directly. She says she is very happy to be contacted at   Laura.Czerniewicz@uct.ac.za to receive a copy (and also note her reference cited under Q2).

Tom Browne
10:41am 1 October 2009

I've only just noticed the McPherson and Nunes reference deposited above.  Thanks for this Maggie. To all - http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2042.html may be an easier URL to locate the ref.  The Abstract says this paper discusses four main types of roles (pedagogical, social, managerial and technical).  It draws upon a reference by Duke (2002) which proposes that 'this approach calls for more in terms of pedagogy than simply "putting professors" lectures on the web".  The context for this approach is primarily within a more 'distance' context to online learning, and this emphasis is prominent in the earlier references commented upon above.   Might this be significant?

Martin Oliver
1:20pm 29 October 2009 (Edited 10:23am 5 March 2010)

This article has just come out, looking at practice in South Africa, and drawing on Technological Pedagogic Content Knowledge as a lens for analysis:

http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=860&layout=html