Tony's+Heuristics

Draft Heuristic: **Field of Dreams? If you build it, __//will//__ they come?** Shirley 18/8: I like this kind of language - you just need to extend it to offer a clear message eg., If you build it, will they come? Only if there is a clear purpose and perceived need....or something like that My heuristic follows in a similar vein to Steve's. I'm not going out of my way to be pessimistic (neither I suspect is Steve) but my particular view is based on looking at experiences such as Steve's and coupled with my own observations of the educational landscape since my reintroduction to it 4 months ago. Our school is contemplating the introduction of a 1to1 laptop roll out and this topic presents a wonderful opportunity to gain some insight into the processes and the results based on the experiences of other (notably state) schools. One of the salient points of discussions and presentations from the likes of Bruce Dixon is that you can't simply throw a laptop at students and suddenly expect the pieces to fall into place. Just simply building the field will not result in a paradigm shift away from orthodox teaching methodologies. There are a slew of issues that must be taken into consideration before the first laptop hits a school bag. Our main focus at our school will be teacher training and content creation/curation. Steve's point about the changing role of teachers is well put. Teachers are changing from content and knowledge creators, generators and repositories to facilitators. They will in time become the lens providing focus and context to the content that lies out in the world of Web 2.0.
 * Tony Edwards**

//**Comments: Tony,**// I like the heuristic. I think that the DET has built the kind of field that no-one wants to play in. Its interesting just to take a cruise through the DET websites created to support the laptops, incredibly difficult to navigate, poor web design stuffed full of content that no-one is really interested in looking at. It reminds me of those interior decorators that order books by the linear foot to fill a 'designer' bookshelf. I liked the article by Shank (2008) and the idea of formal education and informal education: kids are naturally motivated to use Web 2.0 for their own purposes for informal education (social networking, exchanging pertinent information etc), but it would be a mistake to believe that this naturally translates to using Web 2.0 tools for formal education purposes. Its not the medium, its what kind of exciting innovative things that we might be able to do with it that 'turn kids on': that's the challenge. I also like the distinction of Tan & Williams (2008) of digital natives vs diligent students - there's an implicit structure in schools that values performance, but not necessarily learning. Diligent students that follow traditional scholastic goals may perform well, but other aptitudes such as 'cognitive playfulness' and learning for its own intrinsic sake are necessary to benefit from Web 2.0 activities.

I like your comments, however, I think that you should take a look at your heuristic and “ State the issue in a single active sentence” Your heuristic has two questions, no action statement and no call to action. But you talk about what your main focus will be in implementing the laptop rollout in your comments. Regards, Chris  Suggestion from Shirley - propose a possible solution - to guide someone who is designing online learning experiences - eg, "Don't assume that providing online tools is enough - there needs to be a purpose" - or something like that. Also, the heuristic needs to have emerged from one of the cases you have selected. (SA) 
 * Hi Tony,**



Thanks for the comments and guidance, guys! I've taken them onboard and come up with a few derivations that hopefully are more rule-of-thumb oriented and less slogan like.

Heuristic 1:  The school’s intranet resources have to be inclusive and accessible for everyone. Close attention should be paid to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines A lot of educations web sites and interactive content are loaded with graphics and non-accessible markup. Strong vibrant colours are heavily utilised by websites aimed at Stage 1 and Stage 2 children (http://www.funology.com and http://www.abc123kidz.com/fun_stuff.html for example) or are entirely comprised of Flash movies (http://www.paulysplayhouse.com/, http://www.clubpenguin.com). These can be very appropriate when used in the right context for most children but can be a barrier to inclusivity and accessibility for those children who have eyesight difficulties. My seven year old son is colour blind, so a lot of websites pitched at kids his age would lose their impact and could possibly be difficult or impossible to read for children with mild visual impairment. For those kids with more severe impairment, the situation gets worse. The advent of online learning opportunities means that the educational net can be cast wider among the population. This implies that older people will have access to educational possibilities that were previously out of their reach. The accessibility considerations of these people as well, needs to be taken into consideration. The Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, has these people in mind in his preamble to a government media release about the federal government’s endorsing of the WCAG 2.0 website accessibility standards: “Accessibility is not only important to people born with a disability, but will become important to a great many of us who will develop various disabilities as we get older” (Innes quoted by Tanner, 2010) What is a little surprising is that none of the case studies seem to mention the notion of accessibility. There is some discussion about the //accessible// nature of web based learning materials (Chaiprasurt, C. & Esichaikul, V. (2010)), but nothing specifically about accessibility considerations. In my capacity as a web applications developer and as a teacher of web design at TAFE, the importance of well crafted, accessible and usable web sites has been well demonstrated. Not only is it pedagogically desirable to make a site as accessible as possible for all students it is also in some jurisdictions legally mandated to make it so (“Disability Discrimination Act, 1992” Commonwealth of Australia, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Some educational institutions publish guidelines to assist educators in ensuring that their web based learning material is accessible and inclusive (http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/inter/support/accessibility/initiatives.cfm). Pearson and Koppi (2001) have identified that poor design of websites and the non-adherence to accessible guidelines present barriers to inclusion. They say that “Web based learning materials tend to be heavily text based, and some students may have difficulty reading or comprehending text or distinguishing colours”. They also go on to note that “The increasing use of multimedia can be beneficial in providing an enriched environment, but it can also be a barrier to those who cannot see or hear audio, video, animations etc. “ It is my contention, and the focus of this heuristic that the following of the standards outlined in WCAG 2.0, will serve to reduce the barriers to online educational resources and allow access to these learning activities for all. Heuristic 2: Teachers must change their role from that of content repository and generator to that of session facilitator and moderator

Shirley 18/8: Suggestion - Online learning changes the playing field - teachers need to be more facilitators of online interactions rather than transmittors of information.... =“The instructor acts as a coach and facilitator, supporting students as they accomplish authentic tasks.” Woo et al (2007) “ Implementing Authentic Tasks in Web-Based Learning Environments”. =

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The role of the teacher has shifted to one of instructor or mentor. Brown and Voltz (2005) discus the changing role of teachers: “The change in learning context affects the student–teacher relationship, which becomes a multifaceted interaction among student, online materials, the broader community of Internet users, and, in many cases, teachers as facilitators and mentors.”

The difficulty with some websites, learning based or otherwise, is that they can include to many tangential links. At least in the early stages of online learning implementation, consideration needs to be given to a certain amount of “hand holding” of the participant. Displaying a list of expected outcomes for the week or a list of tasks to be completed for the student can give them a sense of direction and grounding - they are simply not let loose on the web with the expectation that results will be delivered. The role of teacher should be that of a “lens” that provides focus and alters the depth of field of the content available to the participant in an online learning exercise. But as DiPietro (2008) says, this shift in paradigm should not be a huge game changing jolt, rather it is to be undertaken as part of the reflection of a teacher’s delivery. I stepped back into a classroom last week as a teacher after a 20 year absence. Suffice it to say I felt like I had “lost my mojo”. Whereas I used to have a range of entertaining anecdotes, or the ability to dictate notes to a restless class with little or no preparation, now I am nervous, and intimidated. Surprisingly this still happens to a lot of my contemporaries when they are confronted with technology - the sight of a blank interactive white board or a non-responsive keyboard has them resorting to the chalk and talk format in a matter of seconds. My point is that, in order to regain some form of teaching prowess, I need to reappraise, reflect and reimplement strategies. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">//**To be continued...**// <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">