TechEduTrain

An AI Application that Might Be Useful to Educators

I found a post on an AI application on my friend, Carmen Maranon's blog. It's worth playing with "Tia" to get some ideas how "she" might be used for an educational or training application. Right off the top, I can think of several--especially K-12.

(Can see I've got a lot to learn about using trackback!)

A Terrific Online Resource

Encyclopedia of Educational Technology, published by San Diego State University, not only contains articles on just about every facet you can think of related to technology-delivered instruction, but the articles are short, sweet, and contain nifty little multimedia elements.

Here's a partial list from the Table of Contents.

-Cognition and Learning
-Active Learning
-Andragogy
-Artificial neural networks
-Attention: getting it
-Attention: keeping it
-Attention theory
-Audio: Does it help?
-Autodidactic learning
-Bloom's learning domains
-Bloom's taxonomy
-Bloom's taxonomy revised
-Brain-based learning
-Brain hemispheres: fiction and fact
-Cue summation in instructional multimedia
-Cooperative learning
-Cognitive dissonance
-Cognitive load theory
-Cognitive style assessment
-Computer hardware as brain
-Discovery learning
-Early childhood computing
-Ecological psychology: Tools
-Egagement in mathematics
-Flow: Optimal experience
-Gagne's nine events of instruction
-Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences
-Gender and technology
-Gestalt theory
-GIS and the K-12 Teacher
-Hemispheric dominance
-How eLearning changes the classroom
-Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence theory
-Humor in instructional design
-Hypnopaedia: sleep-learning
-Information quantity and cognition
-Interactive whiteboards
-Keller's ARCS Model-Attention
-Keller's ARCS Model-Confidence
-Keller's ARCS Model-Relevance
-Keller's ARCS Model-Satisfaction
-Knowledge systems design
-Learning theory fundamentals
-Learning styles
-Long term memory
-Maslow's hierarchy of needs
-Memory model
-Metacognition
-Metacognition v2
-Mind as rhizome
-Multi-Channel learning
-Multimedia and the learning process
-Multimedia and multiple intelligences
-Multiple intelligences, Part 1
-Multiple intelligences, Part 2
-Music enhances reasoning
-Music's contribution to academic success
-Piaget's developmental stages
-Piano lessons and spatial-temporal reasoning
-Postmodern instructional design
-Reactive vs. active theory
-Sense and memory
-Sensory modalities for learning
-Short term memory
-Social learning theory
-Stereotypes
-Structural learning theory
-Subliminal learning
-Techniques for memory retention
-Technology supports learner-centered principles
-Transfer: a principle of learning
-Transfer of learning
-Using simulations to facilitate learning
-Visual perception: Gestalt laws
-Visual perception: illusions
-Working memory

And those are only under the first category! If San Diego State's ISD program is anything like this website, then it sounds like a winner!

'Cuz Keeping Up is Hard to Do

Trying to keep up with the current state of educational technology is like trying to catch the wind. It's there and then, whoosh, it's off to Tokyo!

In the early '80's, the company I was working for created a videodisc authoring system. Since I was the initial user/designer, I re-programmed the user interface, myself, (using BASIC), so I could get my job done. Although I put in plenty of extra hours, I had a usable program after two weeks. The days where one person is able to handle most of the job of creating instruction delivered using technology are long gone. I've heard it said that software development cycles are now running semi-annually, even quarterly in some companies. The same can be said for educational technology.

Since the web has taken off, it's carried web-based training, (aka, WBT, e-learning, online learning, etc.), right along with it. One of the biggest expenses companies face in providing training to employees is the cost of the trainer, as well as travel expenses for students located remotely. WBT, therefore, provides a terrific means of reducing training costs as well as making training more accessible to employees.

The instructional designer, (the title of the person who designs the instruction), however, needs to add knowledge of the Intenet, along with HTML or one of the WYSIWYG HTM editors like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, to the authoring packages with which his/she is already familiar, such as Macromedia Director or Authorware. In fact, most of the CD ROM and hard disc authoring packages such as Director and Authorware can also be used to generate WBT. However, this is hardly the end of the challenges faced by today's instructional designers and technologists.

In the 80s, a very savvy educator and business woman named Gloria Gery, coined a concept called an electric performance support system (EPSS). The goal of an EPSS is to provide workers, via their computers, "just in time" information to help them perform their jobs. Now, however, we have web-based performance support systems (WBPSS), along with a plethora of new knowledge about how to use and design them.

As technology innovations such as XML, AI, CGI, Flash, Shockwave, RSS feeds, new APIs, streaming video and audio, (and this list only scrapes the surface), appear on the scene, developing expertise required for most instructional design and technology jobs becomes more and more daunting.

In addition, computer-managed instruction (CMI) has been replaced with learning management systems (LMS), also called a learning content management systems (LCMS). Standards have been developed, particularly the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). Some employers now require, not only instructional design experience and/or coursework, but a certificate. One can be obtained at George Washington University (Washington, DC) for the paltry sum of $3,495--a steal--especially in a profession that usually only pays in the $35K - $65K range.

There is no doubt that technology has proved itself an effective means of educating children and adults since the first widely-used system, PLATO, appeared on the scene in the 1970s. However, keeping up with an ever-changing technology landscape is a different matter, altogether. And that's not counting changes in the "soft" areas such as learning theory!