Wow - Week 9 Already.

Thinking about statements for my e-portfolio made me recognize that education and technology are integral to all aspects of academic libraries and academic librarianship.  That seems pretty obvious, but as I learn more about research in educational technology and assimilate the concepts of learning theories, I now have concepts and terminology to describe the connections and the beginnings of techniques to use.

This week's readings and discussion are timely and very relevant to my interest in this field of study: e-learning, learning objects, rich media, social networking tools and games.  I have practitioner experience with some of these tools and concepts, but learning about the definitions, theory and research related to these concepts broadens my perspective and helps me recognize the options and the rationale for advantages and disadvantages for learning.  As a 'novice' it is a lot to take in in one sitting, but I will definitely be coming back to these chapters. New to me concepts of special interest:
Seductive details, overload, transient nature and passive mode of video as compared to less complex graphics. Also, there is a lot of focus on learning styles, so it is very intriguing to learn about research that determined that the learner's level of prior knowledge is more of a determinant than their self-assessed 'learning style'.

The question about whether we are repeating history by jumping 'on the bandwagon' with new web 2.0 and "rich media" technology tools is a concern when viewed with the research on achievement of learning outcomes in mind.  I think the lack of success with most of the previous technologies that were seen as the "solution" is that little attention was paid to how the technology was integrated into the learning environment (e.g. just watching an 'educational TV' program without follow up discussion or assignments or assigning students to computer-based lessons and then moving on to other topics).  Our current 'miracle' tools could suffer the same fate if they are used just because we can and not because they are determined the best fit for the learning objectives.  Yes, many students would think it would be great to watch an animated video instead of PowerPoint notes with simpler graphics, but the 'evidence-based guidelines' indicate that sometimes simpler is better or that both could be used in an integrated design to reinforce the concepts.

For example, although the Lynda.com videos are great, I would not benefit as much from them if I couldn't see the actual Flash files, turn on the captioning during the video, review (and keyword search) the transcript and frequently rewind to repeat the steps when I am working on my own project.