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Abstracts / Résumés 1999 |
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links to go to Contents Keynote Address: 1999 Keynote, Elaine Greenberg Speedy Web Graphics for Beginners, David Strong and Alain Côté Integration = Professors + Computers + Instructional Design,Ining Tracy Chao & Carolyn Duvar Creating Innovative Teaching Techniques To Improve Science Literacy, Steven Rosenstein - "Captain Catalyst" The Head Training Cost Analysis Model, Fanny Korman, Yael Nisan, Jennifer Desroches The Air Canada Project, Cindy Katz, Elana Glazer, Caroline Taran, Yael Nisan, Jennifer Desroches QESN Connection: Website for Teacher Professional Development, Sylwia Bielec, Christine Truesdale, Lauren Aslin Parent, Child and Teacher Communication Web Site, Daniel Séguin & Brian Seltmann Exploring and Celebrating My Personal Values as an Adult Educator: Facilitating Self-Directed Learning Through Teaching Goal-Setting Skills, Katherine Childs The Effects of Group Membership and Task Experience on Computer-Mediated Groups, Christina Dehler Health Institution-based Internship: The Project's Scope Definition Process, Daniel Héon Interactivity: How should we interact with computerized instructional systems, Claude Martel The Virtual Company, Brian Seltmann Why Does Educational Captioning Work? Adapting Kozma's Educational Programming Guidelines, Kevin Chin The Workers' Educational Association: A Study in Social Change and Resistance in Canadian Working Class Culture, Amanda Benjamin A Comparison Between Student-led and Instructor-led Online Discussions in Distance Education, Michelle Miller & Eva Bures Three Times a Lady: The Design and Development of a Learning Environment for Professional Development, a Triad of Theses, Sylwia Bielec, Jeanette Caron, Christine Truesdale Functional Literacy from a Cross-cultural Perspective: A Comparative Study of Japan and Canada, Makoto Nakamura Human Rights and Education: What are our Responsibilities as Future Educators?, Jeanette Caron & Mariam Kakkar
Keynote 1999: Elaine Greenberg Instructional designers are often faced with numerous challenges when planning or designing training within a technical environment. For some, the challenges may be political in nature, wherein the design of training must fulfill the organization's mandate, or may be constrained by budgetary or scheduling limitations. In other cases, the training design may be impacted by the level of maturity of the system itself; that is, there may be little data to support training development or the data may be constantly changing. Other designers may find themselves trying to prepare learners to work in an operational environment that cannot be replicated; and still others may be faced with a heterogeneous target audience, which consists of individuals with varying levels of previous experience or varying levels of language proficiency. At the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), our training program has been faced with all of these challenges. As part of its commitment to the International Space Station Program, CSA has agreed to provide a robotic system to assist in Station assembly and maintenance, and is responsible for the operations and training for this system. The challenges begin when trying to develop training for a system which has not yet been built, tested, and operated in orbit. Operational procedures and manuals are still under development, as is the simulator needed for skills training. In addition, we have been forced to compress the number of training hours by more than half, in order to meet the scheduling constraints of astronauts who must be skilled in operating the hundreds of different systems on board the Station. Furthermore, we must ensure that these astronauts retain the knowledge and skills prior to launch and during their long-duration missions in orbit. In order to respond to these challenges, we have relied on a careful mix of classroom-based instruction, self-study, simulation, and virtual reality to maximize training fidelity, effectiveness, and efficiency. We have also phased our training development and conduct to parallel the design and development of the robotic system, which is the subject of our training. Through creativity, flexibility, and crisis management, we have been able to provide Station crewmembers with a training program that has, thus far, received rave reviews. Our success, however, can only be measured by the success of our trainees in orbit. Biography: Elaine Greenberg is a training contractor at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Since 1991, she has been involved in the analysis, design and development of robotics training for astronauts and mission controllers, and has represented CSA at international training meetings. Her previous employment experience includes the planning of helicopter maintenance training at Canadian Marconi Company and the coordination of human resources training at the National Capital Commission in Ottawa. She received a Master of Arts degree in Educational Technology from Concordia University in 1989, and has focused much of her work around the effective use of media and the customization of training to meet learner needs. In association with the University of Calgary, she developed and presented a multimedia program at the G7 ministers' conference in Brussels in March 1995. She has also written articles regarding CSA's approach to training, which have been published by the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI), the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Canadian Review. Speedy Web Graphics for Beginners David Strong and Alain Côté Many potential Web designers, particularly those in the educational field, lack computer graphics knowledge. They either don't use images or restrict themselves to using commercial "clip-art," images from digital cameras or scanners, or images found on the Web and re-used "as is". Adapting these images in order to fit the needs of the site's audience is crucial to developing effective Web sites. Until everyone has a high-speed Internet connection, the need for speed will be a major constraint for anyone producing graphic images for the Web. By the end of this workshop you will be able to take an image of any format, size, or resolution, and resize and convert that image into a quick-loading Web-appropriate file. Using Adobe Photoshop you will also learn how to correct common image problems by adjusting brightness, contrast, and color balance. Join us for what promises to be a fun and informative half-hour. Integration = Professors + Computers + Instructional Design Ining Tracy Chao & Carolyn Duvar Nowadays more and more universities are integrating computer-based technology into their courses to transform conventional curriculum into a more dynamic and interactive format . The EMBA program at Concordia University is at the transformation stage, which requires the pedagocially-sound design of courses and the appropriate selection and use of technology. In conjunction with the Center for Instructional Technology we conducted a needs assessment to determine the professors' attitudes toward integration and their needs in order to initiate the transition. As a result we developed, delivered and evaluated a workshop for the professors in which an instructional design approach for integration was introduced. It is a three-phase methodology that leads them to reflect on their teaching methods, select appropriate technology and delineate an integration plan. Creating Innovative Teaching Techniques To Improve Science Literacy Steven Rosenstein - "Captain Catalyst" The National Research Council in the United States said in 1996 that "Lifelong science literacy begins with attitudes and values established in the earliest years." The definition of science literacy keeps changing. Children must now be aware of scientific inquiry, scientific enterprise, and scientific world views. Unfortunately, our school system is failing to make children science-literate. The sad state of science education is demonstrated by the results by 11 year olds on a science quiz. One humorous, but tragic response, "When you breathe, you inspire. When you do not breathe, you expire." New techniques must be implemented to excite children about science. They combine education and entertainment. These educational techniques are based upon traditional play theory (that children can learn science through play and exploration), the project approach (that children learn best when working on science topics of their own choice), and Bruner's Spiral Curriculum (to a certain degree, children are capable of learning almost anything at any age; it is the level of comprehension which changes.) My workshop topic relates extremely well to this year's theme; Captain Catalyst's techniques in science education are most definitively "active". The Head Training Cost Analysis Model Fanny Korman, Yael Nisan, Jennifer Desroches As part of a course requirement, a team of Concordia graduate students approached IMS, a Montreal based company, to conduct a training cost analysis of their "Project Management" program. The team will present a brief analysis of our experience. This will include: An introduction to Head's training cost analysis model. The process by which training-related decisions are made at IMS and how these decisions are reflected their philosophy towards training. An account of the "Project Management" training costs. A synopsis of the value and drawbacks of Head's training cost analysis model. What IMS learned from the experience. Cindy Katz, Elana Glazer, Caroline Taran, Yael Nisan, Jennifer Desroches "Design is always a process of working within a framework of constraints" (Pellegrino & Altman, 1997) The Air Canada project has proven to be an invaluable experience. The opportunity to put into practice what we learn in our courses has given us an enlightened perspective on instructional design. So much of what we learn is not an accurate reflection of "real world" constraints. More importantly, we are left with no choice but to learn to work within and around those pressures. The nature of the obstacles vary from SME access to miscommunication to inexperience with instructional design. During our round table we will discuss the obstacles our team has faced on the Air Canada project and how they've been resolved. Parent, Child and Teacher Communication Web Site Daniel Séguin & Brian Seltmann One of the reasons the web site was created was to help parents become active participants in their child's education. The web site was also designed to promote parent teacher communication and act as a resource for parents. The latest research shows that because of the new lifestyles of many families, parent, child and teacher communication is on the decline. Greenwood (1995), states that many parents are unable to visit the school on a regular basis because of work schedules or because they must take care of younger children at home. The increase in single parent families--approximately 13% of the population (Wilson, 1997)--also contributes to the decline in communication between parents and schools, due to lack of time. Taking an active role in your child's education can only further that child in his/her education. According to the NAEYC (1996), "sharing information and insights about a child's needs and development helps the family, the child and the program." Our main goal for this web site was to create a tool for parents who may not be able to actively participate in their child's education, due to work or other reasons. Many parents would like to participate but lack the time. This web site allows a parent to see what his/her child is studying, what types of projects he/she is involved in and even the child's artwork--all at the touch of a button. QESN Connection: Website for Teacher Professional Development Sylwia Bielec, Christine Truesdale, Lauren Aslin Professional development needs to reflect the fact that teachers, like students, construct understanding; they need to collaborate with others, try things out, reflect on the results, modify their attempts, and try again." (Marx, 1997, pp.355-356). The qesn.connection is a model of professional development that encourages teachers to be in control of their learning, to engage in activities that are directly related to their classrooms and their students. It is a space for teachers to talk to each other, in schools and across the province, about what works and what doesn't and why. It is a tool for teachers to use in their professional development and thus becomes a professional development infrastructure. Exploring and Celebrating My Personal Values as an Adult Educator: Facilitating Self-Directed Learning Through Teaching Goal-Setting Skills Katherine Childs I believe that the more active and autonomous learners become in the learning process and the more they take responsibility for the decisions regarding their own learning, the more meaningful this learning becomes and, consequently, the more motivated the learners become. As such, the main focus of this presentation will be an examination of my practice as an adult educator as a realization of my own personal values. I believe that my struggles to understand myself and my own firmly-held beliefs about the value and specialness of every student may be of interest to those of us who are trying to help our students become self-directed and highly motivated learners--to enable them to become successful, functioning members of society. Motivation and commitment have never been real problems in the Adult Education system--at least until recently. However, with the tremendous influx of 16-18 year old students into the adult education sector in the past three years, I have become increasingly frustrated by my students' lack of involvement in their own learning. There are times when I feel as if I care more about their education than they do! I have felt frustrated by the lack of their ability to finish work, to divide their time and energy, by the lack of commitment, and quality of work exhibited by my young "adult learners". This action research project is my attempt to investigate my own values as an adult educator as I tried to answer the question "Was/Is there a way to improve learners' skills, to enable them to take an active role in their learning, to empower them to become more successful, functioning members of our system?" I will be implementing this action research using the mentoring system currently in place in my school. This mentoring system was initially implemented to provide a structure and a process by which adults can experience the individual growth and success which will enable them to find their own place in society as productive, self-empowered citizens, and to foster a sense of community and belonging while promoting a vision of personal excellence in a safe and secure environment. As well, mentoring appears to address the specialized needs of--and especially responds to--the unique personal and academic growth of the younger adults (16-18 year olds) in transition within our community. Not only will I be working closely with my own ten "mentees", but I will also be using the "Personal Planning Portfolio" extensively with the other students I teach. This mentoring tool provides an excellent means for one-on-one counselling opportunities and also is an excellent way to help students acquire pertinent goal-setting skills while monitoring their subject-specific and overall progress. The Effects of Group Membership and Task Experience on Computer-Mediated Groups Christina Dehler The importance of communication within an organization has long been recognized as a key contributing factor in reaching high levels of productivity, efficiency and employee well-being (Senge, 1990). Since the introduction of computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies into the work environment approximately two decades ago, great promise has been anticipated from CMC systems that allow individuals anywhere in the formal organization to gather together and focus on a specific task (Hiltz & Turoff, 1993). This is particularly true today, given that the present state of North American business is one in which organizations are becoming geographically dispersed, where departments, divisions and employees are linked to one another via electronic communication networks. Recent developments in CMC technology may be particularly helpful to work groups confronting physically dispersed members, lack of information sharing routines, and short-term deadlines (Galegher & Kraut, 1994). Yet, perhaps the greatest potential of CMC use in an organizational context is its capacity to foster organizational learning and promote collective intelligence. As the era of distributed work is now upon us, it is imperative to determine just what types of task work groups can carry out in an asynchronous CMC mode and to identify the factors which may affect the efficiency of the working process, foster a supportive collaborative work community and contribute to the quality of the work produced. That being said, doctoral research examining the effects of group membership and task experience on asynchronous computer-mediated (CM) group performance and processes was carried out during the Fall 98 semester. 203 first year Commerce students participated in time-differed CM groupwork over a period of three weeks using FirstClass. Preliminary results as well as observations about the research process are discussed. Galegher, J. & Kraut, R.E. (1994). Computer-mediated communication for intellectual teamwork: An experiment in group writing. Information Systems Research, 5(2), 110-138. Hiltz S.R., & Turoff, M. (1993). The network nation: Human communication via computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday. Health Institution-based Internship: The Project's Scope Definition Process Daniel Héon The topic's relationship to this years theme stems from the fact that my internship's project analysis and planning stages are very much processes as they are taught in Ed Tech, but occurring in a different context. I have been offered to work on the implementation plan for a Web site attached to a Patient Learning/Information/ Resource Centre. The centre itself will be part of the future McGill University Health Centre. Four McGill-affiliated hospitals are to merge, reorganize their services, and move to a new building adapted to modern needs. The institutions involved are The Royal Victoria, The Montreal General, The Montreal Neurological, and The Montreal Children's hospitals. The McGill School of Medicine is also an important partner. The feasibility study conclusion being positive they were authorized and funded by the Ministry of Health and Social Services to produce a detailed plan. At this point in time my proposal is the planning of a virtual site attached to the future MUHC Patient Learning/Information/ Resource Centre. To this end, I will research, and report, information chunks from the bigger picture down through the various layers of specific information required for establishing such a Web site. The various points, in broad strokes, are as follows: ascertain the Patient Learning/ Information/ Resource Centre context to which the Web site would be attached research and report on current educational views of Web based learning establish the MUHC Patient Learning/ Information/ Resource Centre's Web site purpose outline the Web site's organizational integration offer site design strategies recommendations identify resource requirement Interactivity: How should we interact with computerized instructional systems Claude Martel Interactivity is probably the most-used buzz word in the 1990's when talking about how new technologies will improve learning. The factor of interaction has been identified by some authors as the most significant feature of these emerging instructional technologies, yet little has been written to really define and test the components of interactivity. In this presentation, we will review the different definitions and functions of interactivity. I will then present a review of the literature to see what different authors and researchers have to say about the subject. We will also cover some related concepts, like learner control, to determine who should control the interaction in the learning process--the learner or the system? We will also look at the impact of variable narrative structures and how we make sense from the fragmented experience we obtain from many of these computer-driven courses. Finally we will review what the different learning theories have to say what about the phenomenon of interactivity. Brian Seltmann Over the seven years I have been teaching at the high school level, I have witnessed that most computer classes end up with the students bored and playing with some kind of a paint program making swirls or spelling their names with a spray-can. When they do have projects, they usually revolve around writing compositions and then inserting a couple of graphics. Once this is done--usually in about twenty minutes--it's back to the virtual spray-can for some more graffiti. Because of this phenomenon, I began to think of ways to battle boredom in the computer lab. My objectives were as follows: 1. Make the project developmental. 2. Base the project on the constructivist theory. 3. Ensure that students would be intrinsically motivated. 4. Make the project cross-curricular and incorporate technology. 5. Associate the project with the "real world." 6. Incorporate co-operative learning and group work. 7. Make the project flexible. 8. Make the project last several months (one full unit). 9. Make the project applicable when the students are done. 10. Make the project both process- and product-oriented. What I came up with was the Virtual Company. The students would be building a profit or a non-profit based company. The project would be taught in different sections. These would include: finance and budgets, researching, advertising, presentations and marketing. It would incorporate language arts, math, art, geography, history, economics and research. Technologically, it would incorporate: Excel, HTML, Word, WWW, On-line stock market and presentation software. The Virtual Company would allow the students to start with an idea for a company and then see it grow as they progress through the different sections. Student and teacher manuals would be produced along with a support web site. The web site would be in place to promote student-teacher communication and to allow students to work from home. The project would last one semester or all year. The students would be learning real life skills that they could utilize at a later date. The project ends with a presentation of their company to the class or school. Why Does Educational Captioning Work? Adapting Kozma's Educational Programming Guidelines Kevin Chin While captions can sometimes be distracting for general audiences during films, hearing-impaired people depend heavily on this technology in order to better comprehend what they are viewing. The hearing impaired do not have the luxury of receiving coherent information via dual channels (auditory and visual), so instead rely solely on receiving information from their visual channel. Because of this, visual attention must be divided between the on-screen action and the captions appearing at the bottom of the screen, negatively affecting overall compre-hension. Although numerous studies tout the benefits of captions in education, none offer definitive reasons that explain its effectiveness. Research from the field of educational television programming is seen as a possible answer.(Kozma, 1986) Kozma's four essential constructs in encouraging learning are discussed: pacing, cueing, modeling, and transformation. Originally intended to facilitate educational programming for general education students, the findings can be readily adapted to provide an elegant explanation for the success of textual stimuli in video for hearing-impaired children. Following Kozma's guidelines will be beneficial to both academics and instructional designers concerned with hearing-impaired education. The success of captioning is a prime example of combining research and technology with the goal of providing access to education for all. Kozma, Robert. (1986) Implications of instructional psychology for the design of educational television. Educational Communication and Technology, 34, 1, 11-19. The Workers' Educational Association: A Study in Social Change and Resistance in Canadian Working Class Culture Amanda Benjamin This paper looks at the Workers' Educational Association of Toronto (WEA) and attempts to establish the social importance of this organization in the history of Adult Education in Canada, both as a responder to change and impetus for social change. The WEA was an educational organization that attempted to provide a link between labour and learning by making education available to the working class. It was believed that this type of education would help workers become leaders in the labour movement and would educate workers for "citizenship". This examination of the socially "charged" educational programs offered by this organization establishes historically that this organization had many far-reaching effects. Furthermore, by highlighting some of the indicators and efforts to create change that occurred in the WEA, this paper will determine whether this organization was a significant vehicle for change within the Toronto and Ontario working class. Finally, the design of this paper is to fill in some of the gaps in history by emphasizing the importance of the Workers' Educational Association in Canadian Adult Education history. A Comparison Between Student-led and Instructor-led Online Discussions in Distance Education Michelle Miller & Eva Bures This research compares student-led and instructor-led discussions in on-line DE, with the aim of reducing the surprisingly high and oft-unnoticed instructor workload while maintaining pedagogically sound, motivating learning environments. Participants were drawn from an undergraduate DE course, n=31. Data included a series of 3 on-line motivation questionnaires, a post-course questionnaire, data for frequency of on-line contribution, and grades. Each participant was assigned to either an instructor-led or student-led group for 4 discussions. Student-led groups performed less well on the essay half of the final exam and identified instructor contributions as a less important source of their learning (n=26, p<0.05). Successive exposures to discussions interacted with the type of discussion in impacting on learning intention and on frequency of on-line contributions (n=13, p<0.05). Instructor workload was reduced significantly, making on-line collaborative learning with large classes more realistic. Three Times a Lady: The Design and Development of a Learning Environment for Professional Development, a Triad of Theses Sylwia Bielec, Jeanette Caron, Christine Truesdale In April of 1998, work began on a project commissioned by the Ministère de l'Education du Québec which had as its broad mandate the design and development of a professional development infrastructure in support of English schools in Quebec. The infrastructure developed includes the use of multiple media and larger-scale collaboration in the delivery of professional development of teachers. The qesn.connection is a shared experience, co-constructed in flexible, school-centred time frames, in what is broadly understood to be a distance setting. We have worked to create flexible learning networks that integrate existing educational improvement infrastructures from within Quebec's Ministère de l'Education - services à la communauté anglophone, that will both support teachers in the short term and will sustain a high quality collaborative learning environment in the long term. Sylwia Bielec: My thesis currently focuses on a primarily qualitative inquiry into the implementation and evaluation of the qesn.connection, including how it operates as a vehicle for professional development and how the tools and support strategies included therein serve to support teachers' integration of technology into their curricula. I will be discussing the real-life ups and downs of conducting this type of inquiry. Christine Truesdale: In an attempt to link my art practice with my educational research practice, I will be creating a quilt that will reflect the design team's process. Its central themes: Connections - Context, Construction, Collaboration, and Conversation (Jonassen, 1995), mirror our design and development framework. The collaborative quilt-making process becomes the context for our reflection on shared experiences and for gaining an understanding of the many stories which it represents. The quilt creates a reflexive intertextual space for conversation, interpretation, and critique of our design practices. Jeanette Caron: My contribution involves the design and development of a strategy for on-line communication for teachers within the qesn.connection. Insights into the qesn.connection virtual community will be shared based on existing models of on-line communication for professional development, the theoretical underpinnings of the project and real-world realities of schools, teachers and the virtual environment. Functional Literacy from a Cross-cultural Perspective: A Comparative Study of Japan and Canada Makoto Nakamura Over the last 130 years or so, all industrialized countries in the world have established compulsory education systems providing their citizens with at least nines years of schooling. Increase in enrolments in education systems is often interpreted as a solid indicator of an increase of future literacy rates. However, UNESCO claims to have found that, in recent years, industrialized countries are being affected by "functional illiteracy." Japan and Canada maintain opposite standpoints with regard to literacy issues. Japan seems indifferent while Canada appears obsessed. Illiteracy is considered non-existent in Japan based on the 99.8% attendance rate in Japan's compulsory education. In Canada, the 1987 Southam Report warns that 24% of adults are functionally illiterate, and 100,000 illiterates are annually added to the population by a flawed education system. This presentation will discuss the following questions: (1) What are some of the most crucial issues involved in defining and measuring functional literacy? (2) Is Canada having a functional literacy "crisis" as some recent studies (e.g., the Southam Literacy Survey) suggest? What is the state of current functional literacy research? (3) Is Japan's literacy rate truly 100 per cent as its government and Ministry of Education claim? If not, is there any distinct group that is affected by illiteracy? (4) Why is literacy/illiteracy a widely discussed issue in Canada and a non-issue in Japan? How have these different views been formed and reinforced? I suggest that the answers to these questions will be found to be complex and only capable of partial answers. Human Rights and Education: What are our Responsibilities as Future Educators? Jeanette Caron & Mariam Kakkar Interested in issues related to the 'Women in Afghanistan' or ideas of how we can integrate our school projects and Human Rights issues? This session will discuss issues related to Human Rights and Education. Students are encouraged to share their experiences, interests and ideas with people working in this area to get a sense of what is being done and ideas of how to do things differently. This round table will discuss what can we, as education students, do to foster Universal Human Rights and finally, do we have a responsibility to act? Return to Archives
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