Ajaz Rana, Electronic Enterprise Engineering Initiative, New Jersey Center for Multimedia Research, and Institute of Integrated Systems Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102 USA rana@cis.njit.edu http://www.cis.njit.edu/rana
Michael Bieber, Electronic Enterprise Engineering Initiative, New Jersey Center for Multimedia Research, and Institute of Integrated Systems Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102 USA bieber@cis.njit.edu http://megahertz.njit.edu/~bieber
Education, Collaboration, Hypertext, Multimedia, Hypermedia, Educational Theories, Educational Software, Educational Framework
No comprehensive, theoretical framework yet exists for providing instructional environments using new technologies. The Collaborative Hypermedia Educational Framework (CHEF) provides a fundamental philosophy for thinking about how best to serve students, instructors, and courseware developers in a systematic manner. CHEF embodies three fundamental concepts: collaboration, hypertext and multimedia. These three concepts should underlie most facets of learning and instruction and support the implementation of many educational and learning theories. This paper briefly describes CHEF and shows how it satisfies several educational theories. It then describes a prototype implementation for a distance learning course.
Colleges and universities have traditionally been known as repositories of knowledge and the places where people have gone in order to organize, understand, and apply information in a process we call learning. The prevailing stereotype for many decades is the chalk and talk tradition of teaching: the professor at the head of the classroom lecturing students. However, the tradition, the stereotype, and the classroom are being transformed by new information technologies. Students want and need instruction in many formats - not just written text and lecture - and in many places - not just the lecture hall and laboratory. To stay competitive, college administrations encourage faculty to develop instructional materials for the World Wide Web (WWW) in order to reach a wider audience. Yet, we find that few approach instructional development using new technologies in a coherent and systematic pedagogical manner. While the Web and other information technologies have the ability to resolve some fundamental problems with traditional pedagogical techniques, this rush to embrace new technologies has created new problems as well. These problems and related issues include 1) instructional materials that are passive; 2) learning environments that foster isolation; and 3) communication/group tools that exist as disjointed tools.
In this paper we describe a framework for instruction that addresses these problems and issues, and give an example of its use. The proposed framework provides a fundamental philosophy for serving students, instructors and content developers in a principled manner.
The instructional model - Collaborative Hypermedia Educational Framework (CHEF) ( embodies three fundamental concepts: collaboration, hypertext and multimedia. Collaboration often enhances both learning and teaching. Hypertext enhances comprehension. Multimedia adds richness in presentation. We believe these three concepts should underlie most facets of learning and instruction and support the implementation of many educational and learning theories. We view collaboration, hypertext and multimedia as domain independent concepts underlying the infrastructure of the learning environment.
We propose that when developing any teaching module, tool or assignment, the designer (or the instructor) should explicitly think about how collaboration, hypertext and multimedia could enhance learning objectives. We agree with Leidner and Jarvenpaa [16] that the objectives of a learning situation should be based upon the applicability of a learning model (or theory) to the learning task at hand. However, we argue that once the appropriateness of a learning model has been determined, the designer should explicitly think about how the three conceptual components of CHEF could enhance the learning objectives. We support this argument by describing the applicability of CHEF concepts to various constructivist approaches to learning. We believe this exercise will result in the determination of technological support features that fit the learning situation, and hence result in richer and more successful learning.
The next section describes several learning theories and show how collaborative hypermedia fosters their implementation. Section 3 discusses our plans to implement and assess our own collaborative hypermedia educational environment.
Collaborative hypermedia encompasses three major concepts: collaboration, hypertext and multimedia. (We separate hypertext, which concerns relationship management [11], information structuring and navigation, from multimedia, which concerns data formats. The term hypermedia encompasses both.) Collaborative hypermedia addresses three classes of users: courseware developers, instructors who teach from this courseware, and students. It serves these three classes of users in two fundamental functions: authoring and reading. Comprehension in a collaborative hypermedia environment grows from both authoring and reading. By bringing attention to the notions of authoring and reading, CHEF provides a coherent way of thinking about designing instructional activities and/or modules that would assist students, instructors, and courseware developers in their efforts to enhance the educational objectives. CHEF concerns how these users take advantage of these concepts to better support authoring and reading in educational software and processes. Rana et al. discuss the CHEF framework, these components and their interaction in more detail [24].
In the paragraphs that follow, we describe current applications of these concepts and related support technologies for teaching and learning.
The constructivist perspective, as a contemporary belief professed by most educators, implies that the comprehension of instructional material by a learner involves the process of meaning construction. Meaning construction consists of combining the information coded as symbols in the instructional material with previously held knowledge, experiences, and beliefs. From the point of view of the developmental theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, there are two types of constructivism: cognitive and social [32]. Cognitive constructivism places heavy emphasis on an individual's internal mental processes in shaping the interpretation of external reality. Social constructivism views the process of meaning construction as tied to the (social) context in which a concept is learned [2].
Collaborative learning, as opposed to didactic teaching, has a theoretical base in social constructivism ([9]; [6]; [33]). In one form or another, collaborative learning has been used for centuries. "It can be found in the Academy of Plato to the one room school house of the 19th century" [1]. The benefits of encouraging groups of learners to engage in collaborative problem solving activities have been well documented [12]. "Social interaction fosters deep learning in which students develop intellectual structures that allow them to create their own knowledge... It promotes social skills that help people participate in the social construction of their shared reality... It increases student engagement and brings out the relevance of learning... It allows the education process to be more student-centered, less disciplinary, and more exciting." [30].
Computer and communication related technological advancements have sparked a great interest in collaborative learning. The interest in social/cognitive constructivism and computer technology as an enabler of collaborative learning is evidenced by numerous recent presentations of technological artifacts ([31]; [29]; [21]; [27]). Similarly, trade and scholarly publications are filled with claims of innovative uses of multimedia computer technology to support collaborative learning. We believe that a system designed to support collaborative learning must facilitate both cognitive (individual) and social (group) constructivism.
The recent trend in both secondary and higher level education is moving beyond traditional Computer Aided Instruction towards a more interactive hypermedia environment in which, computing and communication technology provide flexible connections among formerly distinct media such as writing, photographs, video, sound, graphics, and computing ([26]; [5]; [23]). Commonly noted benefits of hypertext- and multimedia-based instruction, if done properly, include: higher level of student involvement [13]; greater interactivity and hence better learning experience [22]; flexibility along with a combination of media having positive impacts on learning [14], learning that is constructive or generative in nature through anchored or situated instruction [7], and improved learning through the development of concrete and abstract projections of one's mental images [17].
Collaborative hypermedia is ideally suited to support both individual and collaborative learning because its conceptual tenants (collaboration, hypertext and multimedia) provide a sound platform for implementing theoretical approaches to constructivism. These include: anchored instruction ([19]; [15]); cognitive flexibility theory [28]; student centered teaching [20]; scaffolded knowledge integration [18]; and active learning [25]. In the discussion to follow, we describe each and how collaborative hypermedia serves each.
Based on the principles of situated cognition, this approach claims that learning can be enhanced if instructional activities center around an authentic task or problem that is presented (or anchored) in a context ([15]; [6]. Students use their knowledge to generate hypotheses, offer supporting evidence, and generate alternative solution approaches. The objective is to enable the students to experience the kind of situations they would be dealing with in real life. For an example of this technique in medical education see [19]. This approach is also known as problem based learning.
Real world tasks and problems often take place in groups. Collaboration allows the student to interact with other people, when appropriate. Hypertext links enable the author to add a lot of information about the task or problem, giving the student access to all relevant and semi-relevant information directly and indirectly surrounding it. Multiple media enable the author to express information about the task or problem in the most authentic manner. Telephone messages can be presented in audio, face-to-face discussions can be videoed, etc. If the situation takes place in a crowd scene, multimedia sound and video can reproduce the feel of the situation to a greater degree than textual or monomedia environments.
The cognitive flexibility theory, as an extension of constructivism, asserts that the prior knowledge held by individuals, instead of being retrieved as an intact bundle of information as proclaimed by the constructivist perspective, is itself constructed. The cognitive flexibility theory emphasizes that "revisiting the same material at different times, in rearranged contexts, for different purposes, and from different conceptual perspectives is essential for attaining the goals of advanced knowledge acquisition (mastery of complexity in understanding and preparation for transfer)" [28]. Spiro and colleagues argue that this learning approach is well-suited to ill-structured problems.
Collaboration allows students to discuss complex situations with others to learn about and resolve ambiguity and multiple points of view. Ill-structured problems involve ambiguity or equivocality [8]. By giving users access to a rich set of information related to various aspects of a problem, hypertext supports problem solving in equivocal situations [11]. In addition, different views of the same (or similar) information can be connected by hypertext links. Users can traverse among vantage points to explore different representations, conceptualizations and facets of problems. Similarly, hypertext links can relate the different perspectives of different users [10]. Multimedia provides alternative classes of representations for the same information. To the extent that alternate presentation formats (e.g., graphs versus text) can reduce the uncertainty within ill-structured problems, presenting information in a more comprehensible medium can assist comprehension [11].
In this approach the role of the teacher shifts from a "sage on the stage to a guide on the side" [20]. Students take a more active role by guiding and closely working with their fellow students. The principal argument of student centered teaching is that one learns a concept best by teaching others.
Collaboration plays the central role here. Hypertext features allow students (both as peers and as teachers) to structure information for others. The ability to construct presentations in multimedia gives students a richer tool kit for explaining concepts and details. For both hypertext and multimedia, the act of structuring information helps the authors understand the information better.
In active learning the emphasis is on creating an environment for engaging students in listening, reading, writing, speaking, and reflecting upon subject matter. Repman and colleagues [25] point out that the "increased activity could be between teachers and students, between students at one site or between sites, or between students and instructional content."
Collaboration engages students through the social activity of working on a problem or situation with others. Hypertext has the potential to engage students by providing a rich set of supplemental material for a given topic, both to stimulate their intellectual curiosity and to provide context-sensitive information when the students have the desire to access it. As noted earlier, numerous authors cite multimedia's ability to excite and engage students through the richness of presentation and the ability to interact.
Based on research with learning and integrating scientific and engineering knowledge, the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration framework focuses on establishing relationships between scientific concepts and phenomenon personally experienced by learners [18]. The framework is applied by: (i) presenting alternative models; (ii) making the thinking process visible by presenting various perspectives on scientific concepts; (iii) encouraging the students to monitor and test, and revise their own conceptions of scientific ideas; and (iv) promoting discussions among students.
Cooperative work forms an essential component of this theory as discussed by Linn and others. Furthermore, because students often work with others in their personal day to day experiences, collaboration will support the analogy between scientific theory and student experiences, when appropriate. Hypertext is a concept of information structuring. To the extent that this theory can be implemented within a computer system, links could highlight analogies and connect theoretical descriptions (models) with related manifestations, and thus highlight both mappings and distinctions. People experience the real world in multiple media. Thus, the analogies this theory promotes between scientific theory and student experiences should incorporate multiple media in their implementation.
We note that in the hypertext explanations above, we have concentrated on hypertext "links" to show the relevance of theories. More sophisticated hypertext functionalities [4], which build upon the rich node and link structure, supplement plain linking. For example, annotation promotes sharing of information within collaboration. Paths, tours and overviews present appropriate subsets of links to consider. Navigation and backtracking give the student the ability to explore an information space freely to get a better feel for the information content. Many Web applications fail to take full advantage of these structural and navigational features [3].
We have made an initial attempt to instantiate CHEF in a Web-based course that integrates collaboration, hypertext, and multimedia. The course, ENG 605 Electronic Publishing and Design, is a graduate course in the Master of Science program in Professional and Technical Communication. The course is offered only to distance learning students and is totally accessible on the Web (http://eies.njit.edu/~hapb/). Students interact with hypermedia modules to construct their own understanding of visual design and layout. They construct knowledge in a context that attempts to replicate a realistic setting. And they construct knowledge by communicating what they know to other students in the course. These constructivist approaches underpin collaboration that takes place in the course via an asynchronous learning network.
For example, one course module attempts to guide students through an understanding of visual literacy and a shared vocabulary that students can use to discuss design (http://eies.njit.edu/~hapb/dp040.htm). The instructor provides audio notes as commentary on the textbook reading which the students have completed in preparation for this module. The sound files appear as hyperlinks below thumbnail images which orient the students to a place in the assigned reading. The reading and the audio notes provide a jumping-off point for a portfolio assignment. The assignment, which demonstrates understanding of the elemental principles of design, asks students to write a comparative analysis of the design approaches of two newsstand magazines and to format the analysis with the presentation design tool required for the course. Once students have submitted the assignment as file attachments to mail messages, they go to a computer-mediated conference where they participate in a discussion on the cultural basis of design elements.
This portfolio assignment and discussion activity support several theories of individual and group learning discussed above. The assignment replicates the realistic task of reader/user analysis with which graduates of a technical communication program must have demonstrable competency. Thus, this exercise provides for anchored or situated learning. When students then joined their peers on-line in a computer-mediated conference, they were able to present and defend their analyses in an interactive environment. Therefore, this activity provides for cognitive flexibility, student-centered teaching, and active learning. Students also stepped outside the discussion topic to share on-line the work-arounds they had found to problems with the design tool software or to commiserate about a lost file. Overall, students actually needed one another, and the resulting experience more closely reproduces the real collaboration and teamwork of the workplace. This experience again reinforces anchored learning.
Because this course was offered for the first time in the Spring 1997 semester, we have not completed assessment. of CHEF. However, we have developed instruments to capture behavior and process. We will implement pre- and post- course questionnaires of students who received collaborative hypermedia pedagogy in distance learning and students who received traditional instructional pedagogy, and post-course structured interviews with both student groups.
Additionally, we have conducted a usability test on the ENG 605 courseware to determine the effectiveness of the site. We developed performance measures, such as the time spent navigating a path, the percent of participants who asked for help, and the percent of participants who responded correctly to a task. We also developed subjective measures, such as tests of clear navigation buttons, obvious headings, straightforward links, and strong text presentation on the web site. The data collected will help diagnose problems in the students' ability to navigate the courseware and will allow us to revise the course before offering it again.
We are optimistic that CHEF holds promise in developing a rich learning environment using new technologies. Our initial experiences in the course described above suggest that collaboration is key to success in the learning environment. The communication support system currently in place for different- time different-place distant learners does not provide for collaborative authoring and does not offer a range of media to support interaction among participants. This technological restriction is one we will address in future instantiation of our instructional model.
We believe that the Collaborative Hypermedia Educational Framework's congruence with the constructivist (cognitive and social) approaches to learning make it well suited for developing guidelines for prescribing technological support tools for teaching and learning. Our initial experience in instantiation and assessment of CHEF shows that this framework can aid in developing both instructional materials that are interactive and learning environments that foster inclusion and collaboration. We believe all developers of educational software and guidelines for working in interactive learning environments will benefit from considering their domains, participants and processes in terms of the CHEF framework.
This research generously has been supported by the NASA JOVE faculty fellowship program, by the New Jersey Center for Multimedia Research, by the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, by the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) under grant #991967 and #42140, by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, by the National Center for Transportation and Industrial Productivity at NJIT, the National Science Foundation (NSF-IRI-9015236 and NSF- IRI-9408805), by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and by a grant from the AT&T Foundation. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the funding agencies.
[1] Ahern, T. C. (1995) Effect of Window State on User Behavior in an On-Line
Computer Mediated Conference. Proccedings of the Computer Supported Cooperative
Learning Conference, 1995.
[2] Barfurth, M. A. (1995) Understanding the Collaborative Learning Process
in a Technology Rich Environment: The Case of Children's Disgareement.
Proceedings of the Computer Supported Cooperative Learning, 1995.
[3] Bieber, M. & Vitali, F., Toward Support for Hypermedia on the World Wide
Web, IEEE Computer, 30(1), 1997, 62-70.
[4] Bieber, M., Vitali, F., Ashman, H., Balasubramanian, V. & Oinas-Kukkonen,
H., Fourth Generation Hypermedia: Some Missing Links for the World Wide Web,
forthcoming in the International Journal of Human Computer Studies.
[5] Bostrom,R. P., Watson, R. T., & Kinney, S. T. (1992). Computer Augmented
Team Work: A Guided Tour. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.
[6] Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989) Situated Cognition and
Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, 18:32-41.
[7] Cognition and Technology Group Group at Vaderbilt (1991) Technology and
the Design of Generative Learning Environments. Educational Technology, May
1991, pp. 34-39.
[8] Daft, R. L. & Langel, R. (1986) Organizational Information Requirements,
Media Richness and Structural Design. Management Science, 32:5:554-571.
[9] Dewey, J. (1959) Dewey on Education. Selections form the Child and the
Curriculum. Teachers College Press, New York.
[10] Garzotto, F., Mainetti, L., and Paolini, P. (1996) Navigations in
Hypermedia Applications: Modelling and Semantics. Journal of Organizational
Computing (forthcoming).
[11] Isakowitz,T. (1993) Hypermedia in Information Systems and Organizations:
A Research Agenda, in: Proceedings of Twenty-Sixth Annual Hawaii International
Conference on System Science (HICSS) (Maui, Jan. 1993), Volume III, pages 361-
369.
[12] Johnson, D. W. & Johnson, R. T. (1994) Learning Together and Alone;
Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning, 4th edition, Allyn &
Bacon, Boston.
[13] Kearsley, G. (1988). Authoring Considerations for Hypertext. Educational
Technology, 28:11:21-24.
[14] Kozma, R. B. (1991). Learning with Media. Review of Educational Research,
61:2:179-211.
[15] Kumar, D. D. (1995) Intelligent Educational Systems for Anchored
Instruction. TECHTRENDS, January/February 1995, pp. 33-35.
[16] Leidner. D. E. & Jarvenpaa, S. L. (1995) The Use of Information
Technology to Enhance Management School Education: A Theoretical View. MIS
Quarterly, 19:3:265-291.
[17] Lennon, J. and Mauer, H. (1994). Lecturing Technology: A Future with
Hypermedia. Educational Technology, 34:4:5-14.
[18] Linn, M. C. (1995) Designing Computer Learning Environments for
Engineering and Computer Science: The Scafolded Knowledge Integration Framework.
Journal of Science Education and Technology, 4:2:103-126.
[19] Mahling, D. E., Sorrows, B. R. & Skogseid, I. (1995) A Collaborative
Environment for Semistructured Medical Problem Based Learning. Proceedings of
the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Conference, 1995.
[20] McCown, R. R. & Driscoll, M. P. (1995) Using Collaborative Writing and
Problem-Based Learning in the College Classroom. Proceedings of the Computer
Supported Collaborative Learning Conference, 1995.
[21] Narayanan, N. H., Hmelo, C. E., Petrushin, V., Newstetter, C., Guzdial,
M. & Kolondner, J. L. (1995) Computational Support for Collaborative Learning
through Generative Problem Solving. Proceedings of the Computer Supported
Collaborative Learning Conference, 1995.
[22] Nelson, W. A., and Polumbo, D. B. (1992). Learning, Instruction, and
Hypermedia. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 1:289-299.
[23] Norman, K. L. (1990). The Electronic Teaching Theater: Interactive
Hypermedia and Mental Models of the Classroom. Current Psychology Research &
Reviews, 9:2:141-161.
[24] Rana, A. R. & Bieber, M. Towards a Collaborative Hypermedia Education
Framework, Proceedings of Thirtieth Annual Hawaii International Conference on
System Science (HICSS) (Maui, Jan. 1997), II 610-619.
[25] Repman, J., Price, R. V. & Logan, S. (1995) From Sage on the Stage to
Guide on the Side: Strategies for Promoting Active Learning in the Distance
Education Classroom. ED-MEDIA95, pp. 556-561.
[26] Russell, D. M. & Landow, G. (1996) Educational Uses of Hypermedia: From
design to the Classroom. Hypertext Conference 1996. A tutorial on uses, roles,
development & creation of hypermedia for education.
[27] Sherman, L. W. (1995) A Postmodern, Constructivist and Cooperative
Padagogy for Teaching Educational Psychology, Assisted by Computer Mediated
Communications. Proceedings of the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
Conference, 1995.
[28] Spiro, R. J., Feltovich, P. J., Jacobson, M. J. & Coulson, R. L. (1991)
Cognitive Flexibility, Constructivism, and Hypertext. Educational Technology,
May 1991, pp. 24-33.
[29] Spitulnik, J., Studder, S., Finkel, E., Gustafson, E., Laczko, J. &
Soloway, E. (1995) Toward Supporting Learners Participating in Scientifically-
Informed Community Discourse. Proceedings of the Computer Supported
Collaborative Learning Conference, 1995.
[30] Stahl, G., Sumner, T. & Repenning, A. (1995) Internet Repositories for
Collaborative Learning: Supporting both Students and Teachers. Proceedings of
the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Conference, 1995.
[31] Stinson, J. E. & Milter, R. G. (1995) The Enabling Impact of Information
Technology: The Case of Ohio MBA. Proceedings of the Computer Supported
Collaborative Learning, 1995.
[32] Tudge, J. & Rogoff, B. (1989) Peer Influences on Cognitive Development:
Piagetian and Vygotskian Perspectives. In M. H. Thomas (Eds.) Interaction in
Human Development, pp. 17-40. Hillsdale.
[33] Wiburg, K. M. (1995) A Historical Perspective on Instructional Design: Is
it Time to Exchange Skinner's Teaching Machine for Dewey's Toolbox? Proccedings
of the Computer Supported Cooperative Learning Conference, 1995.
Nancy Coppola, Ajaz Rana &Michael Bieber © 1997. The author assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.