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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

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