October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...
October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...
October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...
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Narrative<br />
Structure<br />
(Form)<br />
Content<br />
(Substance)<br />
Functionality<br />
(Medium)<br />
Conclusion<br />
Introducing<br />
The Theme<br />
A title is set<br />
for the circle,<br />
and an expert<br />
is contracted.<br />
Participants<br />
work with<br />
introductory<br />
material<br />
Introductory<br />
texts and/or<br />
video clips<br />
Table 3. Genre framework for Competence Kick-off<br />
Framing and<br />
Prioritizing<br />
Participants<br />
discuss &<br />
negotiate<br />
their<br />
objectives<br />
and needs.<br />
Thereby<br />
identifying &<br />
prioritizing<br />
core<br />
questions and<br />
themes<br />
Computer<br />
Conference<br />
System or<br />
Video<br />
Conference<br />
Graphical<br />
tool for mindmapping<br />
Requirement<br />
Spec.<br />
Document<br />
A formal<br />
document that<br />
is negotiated<br />
with the<br />
expert<br />
regulating<br />
content and<br />
goals for the<br />
expert<br />
presentation<br />
Collaborative<br />
authoring tool<br />
or Blog<br />
Expert<br />
Presentation<br />
Interactive<br />
seminar<br />
Streaming<br />
video<br />
suplemented<br />
with tool for<br />
synchronous<br />
text-communication<br />
De-Briefing<br />
Group<br />
discussions<br />
following up<br />
& evaluating<br />
the expert<br />
seminar.<br />
Threaded<br />
discussion<br />
forum or<br />
videoconference<br />
A jointly<br />
authored<br />
document<br />
describing the<br />
outcome of<br />
the<br />
competence<br />
kick-off.<br />
Intended also<br />
for sharing<br />
with non-<br />
participants.<br />
Collaborative<br />
authoring tool<br />
or Blog<br />
This paper wants to make a fairly simple point with respect to design of educational technology, innovation and<br />
dissemination of techno-pedagogical ideas need design concepts that can bridge the gap between highly abstracted<br />
IS design theories for learning and the situated nature of e-learning practices. We have presented concrete examples<br />
where techno-pedagogical design concepts, framed by the genre dimensions form, content and functionality, are<br />
instrumental to that effect.<br />
We think there are primarily two major merits from using a genre approach to e-learning design Firstly, we think that<br />
the structure dimension of a genre captures the inherently narrative property that is central for any educational<br />
design, and by viewing the design as a series of activities that unfolds as a narrative or a story we can capitalize on<br />
the communicative strengths of narratives that can be effective as agents for innovation and change (Bolin et al.,<br />
2006)<br />
Secondly, the interplay between structure, content and functionality has the potential of letting the designer work<br />
with an integrated design rationale rather than with separate design agendas for instruction and technology (Svensson<br />
& Östlund, 2005)<br />
To back-up these claims we are drawing from the experiences of the collaborative design work where the design<br />
concepts presented in this paper have been realised into systems and systems prototypes. These experiences and the<br />
evaluations of the systems further stresses that the genre framework functioned well as a tool for collaborative and<br />
multi-disciplinary design. Furthermore, given the fact that the Competence kick-off genre has been applied in three<br />
different contexts, with varying content and audience suggests that the level of abstraction of a techno-pedagogical<br />
genre makes it suitable for flexible translations.<br />
However, it is important to acknowledge that the proposed framework for techno-pedagogical genres does not<br />
replace the need for design theories for various learning contexts. Instead genres should be carefully developed in<br />
White<br />
Paper<br />
46