Use of a Technology-Mediated Learning Instructional Approach For Teaching an Introduction to Information Technology Course

Journal of Information Systems Education, Summer 2005 by Hardaway, Donald E, Scamell, Richard W

The Internet search process was a significant work requirement for the course. The use of search engines to locate relevant information is not an exact science and typically results in discovering volumes of both useful and useless information. Although search engines make the retrieval process easier for the learner, they are not intended to make learning itself easier (Jonassen et. al., 1998). The information retrieved still must be carefully read and sorted in order to find the information sought. Synthesizing the selected information into an appropriate form for inclusion in the written assignment and presentation required additional work. During the review process learners have to think more meaningully while constructing their own realities (Jonassen et. al., 1998).

Although the class was divided into work groups for the purpose of allowing the students to offer feedback to the other group members on their work, grades in the course were individually assigned to each student by the instructor. The written work done by each student constituted 40% of the course grade, presentations were worth 30% and the final exam was worth 30%. Preparation for the final exam required students to attend class presentations and discussions of the news articles. In addition, students were encouraged to familiarize themselves with the work of other students in the class as a way to prepare for the final exam.

WebCT served as the learning management system (Kaynama and Keesling 2000) and provided students with a number of helpful tools (see Table 1). These tools included individual provisions for building web pages, plus a discussion board, email, and calendar. The students' papers and presentations were loaded on the server and made accessible to the entire class so students could study all IT topics investigated by the class. Although students could communicate with the instructor outside of class by phone and/or via office visits, the preferred communication was email. Each work group had its own home page with a link to the documents developed by each member for easy access by the entire class. The course used the face to face in-class opportunity for presentations and discussions, as in traditional courses, while using WebCT features gave the course a TML orientation.

4. COURSE EVALUATION

Most courses use some type of standardized course evaluation instrument to assess the learning experience of the student during the course. However, these instruments are commonly designed for a lecture course and therefore have limited applicability to a course where the students were responsible for much of their own construction of knowledge. Due to these limitations, the nominal group technique (NGT) was used to collect anonymous information about the course from the students. This technique was considered to be more useful for gaining insight into the relationships among the technology capabilities, instructional strategy and psychological processes involved in the students' learning experience since it enabled the collection of original responses from the members of the class.