Teaching+and+learning+on+the+Web

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 * Aligning e-learning with some educational principles **

** Interaction within the //domain//, the //person// and the //field// **

It is a given that creativity is an essential component of learning. According to M. Csikszentmihalyi, creativity is "the result of the interaction between three subsystems: a domain, a person, and a field. Each subsystem performs a specific function. The domain transmits the informati on to the person, the person produces a variation, which may or may not be selected by the field, and the field in turn will pass the selected variation to the domain. The subsystems influence each other, and no act or product with claims to creativity can exist without an input from each of these subsystems." (1990)

Csikszentmihalyi published his work on the domain, the person and the field, almost a decade before the concept of **Web 2.0.** Although this wasn't actually a new version of the web in the same sense of software upgrades, it is a term which reflects the gradual transformation of the web through development of software, browsers, and the needs of end users. **Web 2.0** is characterised by its facility for writing as well as reading, meaning that it has become an **interactive** tool. As educators we see the strength of the web as a space to which the learner (the person) brings her prior knowledge, which has been acquired from an area of knowledge (the domain). The learner makes her own contribution by way of variation to the body of knowledge (the field). The web was not designed consciously in its entirety — mostly it has evolved from needs, desires and experimentation. Yet, although it was not designed from the basis of educational theory, in practice, it mirrors Csikszentmihalyi's theory nearly perfectly.

**Activ****e** **learning**

The web e ncourages, demands even, active participation from the learner. Teaching is an activity of potential only, until it excites an active response from the learner. Educational research published from the 1980s to the present stresses the importance of active participation in the learning process. Adler famously declared that, “all genuine learning is active, not passive”, that it “involves the use of the mind, not just the memory” and is a “process of discovery in which the student is the main agent, not the teacher.” (1982)

Of all the educational tools we could use to encourage active learning, the most fitting and useful tools come from **Web 2.0.** We will talk about the individual tools later, but by way of introduction, wouldn't it be great if students were able to write a response to a teacher's learning task by getting immediate (instant) responses from their peers by way of feedback. Similarly, how about if teachers could see a student's work in progress without having to take it away in a written form, write on it and return it for revision, but could help students as it was actually being constructed. Wouldn't it be helpful too if groups of students could work together on the same project even if they live in different part of the country, or different parts of the world. And how about we invite experts in the subject from anywhere in the world to comment on our students' work. This would be especially good if students could see them talking. Then we could publish the work and invite feedback from all around the world. All of this, and more, is possible through tools such as **blogs, wikis, social media** (e.g., Facebook) and **twitter**. And what about access to information? The possibilities are limitless. There are huge repositories of data on the web, and this has been gathered together into **metadata,** along with very powerful search tools. Then what if all this cool stuff were free? Amazingly, it mostly is free, and it has been made this way because the millions of people who have contributed to the web have done so entirely out of their own passion for knowledge in their own subject of interest or expertise. The benevolence of most people using the web is what makes it work as a massive tool for active learning.

**Creativity**

More recent research tells us that creative agency from the learner greatly enhances the learning process. Bob Jeffrey identified the key characteristics of creative learning as being identical to those required for creative teaching, i.e., relevance, control, ownership and innovation. (2006) To be relevant requires that learning is meaningful to students, and that it appeals to their interest and needs, in other words, “students learn what they care about and remember what they understand.” (Ericksen, 1984)

The power of **Web 2.0** as creative tools can be seen everywhere. Being able to share the project together through a Wiki has been a creative experience, and in our small, amateur, way we have had fun playing with **images** and **widgets** and **video** in the making of this assignment. Being able to do so has greatly enhanced our enjoyment of the project, making it more memorable, inspiring, and hence, educationally positive.

** Multimedia effect **

Richard Mayer in his paper "The promise of multimedia learning: using the same instructional design methods across different media", discusses the assumption that humans process visual and verbal information separately, and that meaningful learning (according to cognitive theory of multimedia learning) requires recognising these as two separate processes, and then to "build connections betwe en the verbal and pictorial models with prior knowledge". According to Mayer t he //multimedia effect// refers to the finding that students learn more deeply from a multimedia explanation presented in words and pictures than in words alone." (2003) Add sound to the multimedia effect and then ask, where can we find more effective, cheaper and more readily available multimedia learning possibilities than through **Web 2.0?**

**TPACK** What is TPACK? It stands for Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge. "[It] attempts to identify [|the nature of knowledge] required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of [|teacher knowledge] . At the heart of the TPACK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK)." (Koehler, 2011) The diagram shows very simply how three areas intersect, so that each area has its own discreet field but it is only where they overlap that knowledge becomes truly multifaceted and more than the sum of its parts. This is what we have experienced in the exploration of web resources and thinking around applying them in our two fields of knowledge.