Digital Didactics

By Arnout Vree

At Montessori College The Hague

Friday the 13th 2012
Situation: The Montessori College of The Hague has an functioning Learning Environment. This LMS is used only with the basic functionalities, like learning schedules, class information and the sharing of links; thus pushing information to the student. Being aware that a lot of interesting applications are present at the LMS, the teachers struggle to apply them. The ICT department organized a workshop on the subject of Digital Didactics. Arnout Vree as director of Avetica was asked to perform a presentation on the topic.

The presentation was powerful and enticing. Arnout has been teacher himself and understands the situation from within. An extra dimension to the message was given by the fact that he knows how to deal with the critical and suborn teachers.
The presentation was supported by a Prezi
The didactic concept was by a journey which need to be undertaken by the involved. A journey into Digital Didactics. The teachers had to face their reality; how exactly ICT is applied at their college. An assignment of analyzing a course in their LMS made the teachers realize their situation. A course of their choice had to be analyzed by cards. The persons present had to write out the content of each course. There were red cards for text (sources) and white cards for support (also text), green for activities and yellow for offline activities.

The aim of the activity came clear soon as the cards were written. Mainly red cards, hardly any green. Thus people realized that their online content was pushing text, not very different from a website. I think there was nobody with a green card. Yet online activities are important for digital didactics. By the comment of Arnout, that they are lazy to make more of their tools, some people staggered. “ICT should make your live easy”. An interesting  discussion followed. Arnout replied that the responsibility of the teacher is to facilitate learning; to help the student further. Teachers should make more use of the tracking possibilities in the LMS, and create helpful options like a test before examinations.

The difficulty for teachers however lies in the combination of pedagogy, the teachers content (field of expertise) and technology. How to find the right combination (clarified by the message on www.tpack.com).
Arnout continued his presentation, because the journey to digital didactics is a process of years. The whole journey is one of starting educational support with ICT, the confusion on how to use it, planning unto full integration. There are three steps in a process of years to take:Substitution: small changes made with ICT: study schedule online, testing and handing in an assignment. Transition: forums outside of lessons, practice for examination, ‘rich’ instructions modules (SCORMS)Transformation: activating didactics, project phased education and competence based education. The question which was rightfully asked was, “but how do we get there”. Arnout replied with three focus points which are obvious management focus points necessary for the process: precondition, strategy and focus.

Preconditions are a clear vision on the role of ICT,  leadership and the focus on results.

The strategy needs to be on the front (for the ICT user) seduction and facilitation. On the backside pressure and consequence.

The focus of the teacher needs to be to learn together, share knowledge and experience and extra support of the trailblazers.
How to actually fill in digital didactics at Montessori College was, practically, not answered. Arnout urged the attendance to sit together, to investigate and plan ways of improving their online content. Suggesting the website www.digitaledidactiek.nl , a website full with examples, suggestions and inspirational work.

The public was very enticed and confronted by the message. Many discussion started and people were excited to continue the discussion and to make more steps in the deployment of ICT for their classes.

I have found a useful and practical methodology to set help designing the Digital Didactics course. It’s the Systematics Iterative Course Design Methodology of Hoobroeckx  & Haak, 2002. The systematic is a compilation and simplification of several systematics. The goal is to provide a simple framework for a course designer who needs to start creating courses. The iterative element stands for the fact that practice learns that revision of finished phases in  the course design process alters during the development. Course design is typically a case of progressing insight. The desired behavior analysis might affect the learning urgency and so on.

The systematic gives me a good hand on for designing the Digital Didactics course.

Read more at the ‘currently reading’ section.

I have approached Marcel de Leeuwe of the site leerbeleving.nl. Marcel is owner of the company Leerbeleving (learningexprience), which gives advice and training in the area of e-learning. Marcel has a huge passion for the combination of learning and the application of ICT and creativity.  A lately initiative of his hands is a 4 day education for pedagogic e-learning developer.

I asked Marcel if it is possible to interview him, discuss several issues and questions I have on the subject of digital didactics. He has been so kind to schedule a Skype conversation of one hour!

I have been thinking for a while about the subject of didactics and digital didactics. Didactics seems to me to be the word to capture a lot of different subjects: didactical concept, didactical work plan, didactical approach, digital didactics etc. Although of course, I know it all is about the communication style you use for your e-learning, it wasn’t really specified in my mind.

• Didactics is the science of transferring knowledge and skills.
• Digital didactics is the science of transferring knowledge and skills by means of  information technology.

In nature the science of digital didactics is not very different from ‘common’ didactics. My colleague mentioned that probably in the future the word ‘digital’ of digital didactics will likely disappear in the future. Learning and communication via the internet will be so common that it does not need a specific didactics title.

The coming days/ weeks I will focus on the topic of didactics. This with keeping in mind a practical translation for e-learning.

A training on how to create e-learning, instead of a training in an e-learning tool

Currently I am developing a training on Lectora. The obvious and easiest way would have been a so called ‘buttons’ training. Telling people how to use the Lectora Online tool to create e-learning.  A button training is needed for Lectora Online. It is a tool with a lot of possibilities, but unfortunately also one which is not that easy to use. To use the functionalities to its full extend you need knowledge on working with actions and variables. This is almost software development.

My audience will be a group of around eight people who are new to e-learning development. They are accustomed to e-learning itself. An external company has been until recently developing e-learning for their institution.

At inquiry, during making the appointment for a training, the manager of the educational department saw herself faced with the dilemma how to approach the internal development of e-learning. We agreed to have a training on the creation of e-learning (with the tool Lectora-online). This was a chance to extend to a much broader level. For an individual to start creating e-learning, with little foreknowledge is quite a challenge. The past weeks I have been working on a training which has a blended approach, between the two training days there are several assignments to complete in the LMS of the institution.

It is a great chance for me to incorporate research for the my ECD-project. The future Digital Didactics course is all about the development of e-learning. I am faced again with the broad subject area related to e-learning.  For example the simple question ‘what is good e-learning’ is not easy to answer. Lies quality with didactical approach, applied technology, type of multimedia, graphic design or simply content  which focusses on a specific target group?

We had a discussion yesterday at work what digital didactics really supposed to be; it’s probably just didactics. The digital part is likely to be hot only for a few years.

I personally tend to say that  ‘good e-learning’ is focused on the target group, with an appropriate didactic concept. The rest is important, but of secondary importance. It’s like with software tools (the old Telnet applications), they look dreadful, compared to  present day software, never the less the ones I know were very easy to use with no nonsense output. And no risk of Repetitive Strain Injury.

So if the information is useful and practical for the target group, presented in an appropriate didactical format, the trick is done. No rocket science at all. My brothers daughter mastered herself a grant for the university this way; doing additional e-learning of her high school. This particular e-learning looked dreadful at first glance. The content was explained in a format which did not possessed any eye-candy[1] (it actually looked Telnet-ish), however relevant and practical for someone who wants excel.

The issue with creating ‘good- e-learning’ is the extend fields which are connected to the subject of creating elearning. At least the following expertise are involved:

• The didactics or training expert
• The subject matter expert
• Text writer
• Graphical designer
• Software specialist
• Multimedia specialist
• Testers
• Quality Assurance specialist

For some individuals taking it upon themselves to create e-learning there are a lot of specialties to master. It’s inevitable that some degree of work will need to be board out and made by a third party. Never the less, much can be mastered by having a tutor who can point out the happy flow of e-learning development.  The deviations will need to be handled as experience grows.

It’s the day after Boxing day, and I make a start to pick up where I left a couple of months ago. Due to a lot of work and a serious illness the work on my ECD project has stagnated. It’s my wish to finish this project, so with Richard we have agreed on a few deadlines. This will help me to stay focussed.

The planning is as follows:

February - research questions and methodology agreed and chapter outlined

March - first draft of literature review

May - Data collected, draft of result chapter

June - paper on work in progress to the TELIC conference

July - First draft of disseration to RP for comments

August 10th – second draft of dissertation to RP for comments

August 31st – submit

November - wear funny hat, get drunk

I am not sure about the italic parts, this more seems like deadlines for a literature research, will check this with Richard.

It is not that I have been doing nothing in the mean time. It has come up that I have to perform a training in Lectora online soon. Instead of a training how to use the buttons in this content creation tool; I will give a training on ‘How to make elearning, with Lectora’. It is good preperation for the to develop training on Digital Didactics.

The multitasking I have mentioned in my previous post is true. I have a selection of 17 book my employer (and me too of course) would like me to read.  All related to digital didactics, online training, e-learning, etc. I have picked up the book ‘Test development’ of Teelen kennismanagement.

The development of test and exams is something I never have given enough attention.

I am reading the book because it will also be a part of the digital didactics training. It is good to see reaffirmed how important the stage of curriculum development is. For the larger part the curriculum development is equal to the ‘quick and reliable design’ (Horton, 2006) of  course- and learning objectives. The methodology includes guidelines on the development of questions. Personally I find it too brief. Teelen kennismagement gives interesting and practical guidelines for course development. The guidelines take the importance of test goals, or testterms, more in consideration. The testterm is the minimal performance and requisite related to a specific learning goal.

To indicate the level and hierarchy of questions the taxonomy of Bloom is advised to use. I have heard this taxonomy being mentioned several times during classes at the HAN. However I have never really taken the time to investigate what the taxonomy stands for. This mainly because I didn’t see a practical application for it. As a help/ methodology for the formulation of course questions it is a useful tool.