October 2006 Volume 9 Number 4

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Chang, K.-E., Sung, Y.-T., & Hou, H.-T. (<strong>2006</strong>). Web-based Tools for Designing and Developing Teaching Materials for Integration of Information Technology into Instruction. Educational Technology & Society, 9 (4), 139-149. Web-based Tools for Designing and Developing Teaching Materials for Integration of Information Technology into Instruction Kuo-En Chang Department of Information and Computer Education, Center of Research for Educational Evaluation and Development, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Tel: +886223622841 Fax: +886223512772 kchang@ice.ntnu.edu.tw Yao-Ting Sung Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, Center of Research for Educational Evaluation and Development, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Tel: +886223952445 Fax: +886223413865 sungtc@cc.ntnu.edu.tw Huei-Tse Hou Department of Information and Computer Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Tel: +886223622841 Fax: +886223512772 ho@ice.ntnu.edu.tw ABSTRACT Educational software for teachers is an important, yet usually ignored, link for integrating information technology into classroom instruction. This study builds a web-based teaching material design and development system. The process in the system is divided into four stages, analysis, design, development, and practice. Eight junior high school history teachers participated in the evaluation of the system. Through experts’ reviews and content analyses of their instructional materials and interviews, we found that instructional materials produced using the system appear to be more coherent and systematic, provide deeper and broader information for learning, apply more adequate teaching strategies, and lessen the design and development load on teachers. Keywords Integrated technology into instruction, web-based teaching material design and development, Instructional design Introduction The impact of information technology (includes web technology, software or hardware tools) on the overall teaching environment is becoming more pronounced. The ability to incorporate information technology into instruction has been deemed to be one of the most important professional competences of teachers (Fisher, 1997; Scheffler & Logan, 1999). Indeed, when used properly, information technology not only allows diverse ways for the presentation of materials (Chang, Sung, & Chiou, 2002; Roberts & Hsu, 2000), but also offers easy access to the wealth of resources available on the Internet and is useful for developing learner-centered strategies and activities (Chang, Chen, & Sung, 2001; Chang, Sung, & Lee, 2003; Linn, 2000). Compared to the pace of advancements in information technology, however, the rate of its adoption in the classroom has been slow. Studies reveal that teachers are often especially interested in such technology, but because of a lack of confidence, are intimidated by it (OTA, 1995; Willis, Thompson & Sadera, 1999). Researchers have identified several internal and external barriers to the adoption of technology, such as teachers’ attitudes and willingness, their workload, the availability and accessibility of hardware and software, staff development, and institutional and technical support (Ertmer, 1999; Rogers, 2000). All these factors are interrelated. Lawson and Comber (1999), for instance, have argued that one of the key factors preventing teachers from applying information technology to teaching is their lack of computer literacy, which would require time to learn in addition to the time required for course preparation. However, Topper (1998) has observed that teacher training programs designed to facilitate technology literacy development often fail to achieve the desired results when teachers are over burdened with too much additional work. Cuban, ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print). © International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS). The authors and the forum jointly retain the copyright of the articles. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than IFETS must be honoured. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from the editors at kinshuk@ieee.org. 139
Kirkpatrick, and Peck (2001) have also found that, although the increasing availability of computer equipment in schools offers easy access to computer resources, many teachers fail to alter existing patterns of teaching. The lack of software designed specifically for instruction might be one of the major reasons for the continued lack of willingness to use information technology. The strong emphasis on the learner’s perspective in recent years has led to many software products for teaching which focus on students’ learning needs instead of teachers’ instructional design facilitation. Hence, teachers themselves have benefited relatively little from such developments (Leu et al., 1998; Marx, Blumenfeld, Krajcik, & Soloway, 1998). The software for “integrating technology into instruction” is therefore needed by teachers to leverage information technology with minimal effort. Moreover, through such software, the burden of course preparation would be lightened, and thus teachers would be better motivated to apply information technology in their teaching. As long as they have the will, they are more likely to seek ways to integrate technology with teaching and try out new materials and methods (Norum, Grabinger, & Duffield, 1999). If the ultimate goal of integrating instruction with technology is to make the technology an integral part of how the classroom functions (International Society for Technology in Education, 2000), then the design and application of software for instructional purposes is an essential step. Most Web tools currently available for instructional design provide only assistance with website construction for either asynchronous learning or distance learning. For instance, WebCT (http://www.webct.com) and e- Education (http://www.jonesknowledge.com) both provide tools for teachers to construct an online classroom to place course content pages and to utilize other functions such as course schedule, discussion zone, online quiz, and bulletin board. However, these web-based tools fail to address the difficulty of finding needed information through Web searches, which limits the amount of supplementary material teachers can offer (Small, Sutton, Miwa, Urfels, & Eisenberg, 1998). Moreover, the emphasis of these web-based tools on distance learning is different from the functions emphasized in technology-incorporated teaching, such as the support of teaching strategies for classroom teaching. In short, a web-based teaching materials design and development system tailored to the needs of teachers who have a lower level of computer literacy is helpful for teachers wishing to incorporate technology into teaching. It is the goal of this study to develop a web-based environment that allows teachers to implement their instructional procedures, for example by developing teaching plans, preparing course materials, and managing teaching activities in an efficient and effective way. This system will focus more on each step of web-based teaching material design (and will highlight the steps of Analysis, Design, Develop and Practice), which offer a series of technological auxiliary tools for teaching. We will also look from the aspect of information-searching, providing URL management modules, offering keyword indexing, and record browsing history. In order to evaluate the system, eight junior high school history teachers were invited to participate in the evaluation. This paper uses experts’ reviews and content analyses of teachers’ instructional materials and interviews, and concludes that instructional materials produced by the system appear to be more coherent and systematic, provide deeper and broader information for learning, apply more adequate teaching strategies, and lessen the design and development load on teachers. System outline The system is divided into four stages: analysis, design, development, and practice. Table 1 shows the functions for each stage. The portal page URL of the system is http://elearning.ice.ntnu.edu.tw. Below is a detailed description of each. Analysis stage In this stage teachers analyze both learners’ characteristics and teaching content. Two functions are used for analyzing the progress and characteristics of learners. The first function is students’ basic information analyzer and manager, which records students’ basic information, including their past learning experience, family background, aptitudes, and what students feedback to teacher throughout the learning process. The second function is students’ score manager. Students’ score data accumulate over time with tests and exams as learning progresses. The score manager helps teachers better analyze students’ learning status. 140
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Guidelines for authors Submissions
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How Does Educational Technology Ben
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Adaptivity is one of the most impor
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3. Ease of editing and updating: wh
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Accessible and personalized Learnin
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From this definition, we figured ou
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Verifying contents Figure 3. The pa
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Figure 7. The ISA on line interface
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Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
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World Wide Web Consortium (1999a).
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guiding and supporting environment
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As an example, to improve the acces
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option). Although this finding migh
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of eLearning content and enhance th
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Hodgings, W. & Duval, E. (2002). IE
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the entire course of study. This sy
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information useful for the contextu
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Nr of student 25 20 15 10 5 0 a - w
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Vincenzo, a second year student, ne
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Evaluation Recently embodied conver
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Poggi, I., Pelachaud, C., & de Rosi
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Lanzilotti, R., Ardito, C., & Costa
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quality in use, which is measured b
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process of designing high quality c
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eLSE methodology Designers and eval
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Execution phase Execution phase act
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on the inspection process and, cons
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Piccinini, N., & Scollo, G. (2006).
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Answers and reinforcement A.1: Use
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potential project ideas (from pure
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For each column in Table 2, the sum
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educational goals and the various r
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A new computerized Records Manageme
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eflected in artifacts and other str
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any distributed community include b
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message in order to obtain a respon
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Figure 3. Social network after intr
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increased face-to-face collaboratio
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References Bogenrieder, I. (2002).
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Donoghue, S. L. (2006). Institution
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contemplate part-time, rather than
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espective institutions. The primary
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greater flexibility in course selec
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Cost-benefit One distinct benefit o
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Page 95 and 96: courses where it is has little pote
Page 97 and 98: A fellowship programme, such as the
Page 99 and 100: Moore, M.G. (1998). Introduction. I
Page 101 and 102: Software reuse has two dimensions,
Page 103 and 104: Courseware development process mode
Page 105 and 106: Didactics analysis This phase consi
Page 107 and 108: Process didactics design We focus o
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Page 113 and 114: Figure 12. Weaving content and dida
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Page 117 and 118: References ADL (Advanced Distribute
Page 119 and 120: Bender, D. M., & Vredevoogd, J. D.
Page 121 and 122: (see Figure 2). The incorporation o
Page 123 and 124: Figure 4: Example of Summary Image
Page 125 and 126: The competitive nature of design cl
Page 127 and 128: Dias, L. B. (1999, November). Integ
Page 129 and 130: materials built into the system. Th
Page 131 and 132: This theory of multimedia learning
Page 133 and 134: E-Tutor (with video). Two weeks aft
Page 135 and 136: empirically tested in TML environme
Page 137 and 138: Rieber, L. P., (1990). Animation in
Page 139 and 140: Appendix B The following 44 items r
Page 141 and 142: Appendix C A Sample of Exam Questio
Page 143: Appendix D Perceived Usefulness Que
Page 147 and 148: 2001). The system thus aims to assi
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Page 151 and 152: of the dynasty. 3. Information on
Page 153 and 154: Comparing works designed using the
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Page 157 and 158: strategies during their interaction
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Page 161 and 162: Online help adaptation using Bayesi
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Page 167 and 168: Figure 7. An example of use of the
Page 169 and 170: Cooper, J. & Herskovits, E. (1992).
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Page 173 and 174: In addition to convenience, propone
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Page 177 and 178: Oppenheimer, T. (1997, July). The c
Page 179 and 180: The basis of reform in science educ
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Page 183 and 184: participants that learning as a gro
Page 185 and 186: A hierarchy of Systems Identifying
Page 187 and 188: the change agents to recognize the
Page 189 and 190: Nonis, A. S., & O’Bannon, B. (200
Page 191 and 192: maintaining the interest levels of
Page 193 and 194: Focus group interviews with our stu
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course and again at the end of the
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second phase of valuing, commitment
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Kinzie, M. B., Whitaker, S. D., Nee
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Although this work is based on a st
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Website Design The MTP website (www
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Researchers, for review and coding
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quality that are the focus of the M
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Kelley, M. A., Whitaker, S. D., Nee
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or underserved populations. For exa
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2004 Baruch College Computer Center
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professional-level tools and resour
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Third, with the exception of the Om
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Hepp, P., Hinostroza, E., Laval, E.
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The AccessForAll strategy complemen
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of people with special needs, or di
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(including where their search for r
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international standard. The ISO pro
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information will be expressed using
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DC Metadata Terms: http://dublincor
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Choquet, C., & Corbière, A. (2006)
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TEL Standards, Specifications and P
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The Resources Management Process ma
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Step 1: Instantiation of the enterp
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Step 5: Instantiation of the techno
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correlation of the different viewpo
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Hummel, H., Manderveld, J., Tatters
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Karagiannidis, C. (2006). Book revi
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Glenn, L. (2006). Book review: Visu
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