Wim Veen

The Role of Beliefs in the Use of Information Technology: implications for teacher education, or teaching the right thing at the right time

ABSTRACT The decision of teachers whether to use or not to use computers depends on two basic categories of factors: factors at the school level and factors at the teacher level. At the school level the principal plays an important role in the support of innovations in school. The principal supplies financial, organizational and moral support and should give the innovation a long‐term perspective. However, teacher factors outweigh school‐level factors. Teachers have strong beliefs with respect to the content of their subject matter as well as to its pedagogy. The case studies described in this article show that those beliefs appear to change only very slowly. Teachers adopt new media if they can use them in accordance with their existing beliefs and practices. From the results of this research, implications are drawn with respect to the content and strategy of initial and in‐service teacher training in the field of information technology (IT).

A virtual workshop as a tool for collaboration: towards a model of telematic learning environments

Abstract In the T3 project (telematics for teacher training) seven European partners actively adopted the use of telematics in their teaching programmes. Partners collaborate through face-to-face meetings, videoconferencing and virtual workshops. Virtual workshops are web-based discussions using groupware facilities mainly focusing on the enhancement of future collaboration plans. This paper reports on the first virtual workshop organized within a telematic learning environment which was created by the project evaluation team. The research focused on the learning effects of the virtual workshop. Although the workshop as a whole has been evaluated positively by the participants, the results also show that the virtual workshop did not contribute significantly to their learning process. This leads to the conclusion that, in order to stimulate learning in virtual workshops, specific pedagogical actions must be taken.

Tool Support for GSS Session Design

Research has demonstrated the added value of Group Support Systems (GSS) when they are applied under the right circumstances. However, the design of a GSS session remains a complex task and is vital for successful intervention using the technology. GSS supported sessions are dynamic and mostly unpredictable events, and preparation is therefore difficult. This paper presents a suite to support novice facilitators in the design of GSS sessions. The suite contains several tools and supports not only the design process of a GSS session but also the learning process of a novice facilitator during the preparation. The paper will explain the theoretical basis of the suite, the tools within the suite and a first evaluation of the added value of this suite for novice facilitators.

Design Elements for a CSCL Environment in a Teacher Training Programme

In the design of a Telematic Learning Environment (TLE) in which student teachers learn collaboratively, we consider three clusters of design elements as important: the Telematic Work Environment, the guidance of the instructor and the task instruction. We will have a look at the way group and task behaviour, triggered by these design elements influence the collaborative outcomes. Experiments have revealed that the technical environment is not as important as we had expected beforehand. This research shows that the task instruction (pre-imposed structure, role taking and intrinsic motivation for the task) and the group process itself have far more impact on the online collaborative work of the student teachers.

Factors affecting the use of computers in the classroom: four case studies

The decision of teachers whether or not to use computers depends on two basic categories of factors: factors at school level and factors at teacher level. However, teacher factors appear to be more significant than the factors at school level. Teachers have strong beliefs in respect to the content of their subject matter as well as to the pedagogy. The case-studies in one school (1989–1993) described here show that those beliefs appear to change only very slowly. Teachers adopt new media if they can use them in accordance with their existing beliefs and practice. The findings of this study coincide to a large extent with the results of many other studies of classroom practice.

Knowledge Workers and the Realm of Social Tagging

Social tagging is a relatively new type of social software that stores user-generated textual keywords to describe a resource or aspects of that resource. In this paper we explore the mechanisms that social tagging can trigger to change the behavior of knowledge workers. We argue that social tagging has the potential to activate mechanisms of connection management and sociality in the context of knowledge work. To understand social tagging as a trigger for behavioral change, we explored the recent theoretical perspective of connectivism and connected knowledge. In connectivism connection making and sociality are key elements of knowledge work. Using this perspective we explore the realm of social tagging for knowledge workers.

The Homo Zappiens and its Consequences for Learning in Universities

Homo Zappiens is the new generation that is growing up with modern communication technologies shaping their views on the world around them. Prominent characteristics of Homo Zappiens include their preference for images and symbols as an enrichment of plain text, their seemingly effortless adoption of technology, and their cooperation and sharing in networks. They use technology in a functional manner, not touching what they cannot use, and increasingly this generation seems to take exploration and learning and discovering the world, into their own hands. Homo Zappiens shows us that we can increasingly rely on technology to connect us and allow us to organize and preserve our society as a group. In a networked society, the individual has more room for contributing his/her unique value, and innovation and knowledge reside in a network, rather than in each separate individual. Higher education institutions will evolve towards institutions that will function as hubs in knowledge networks, serving students working in fluid communities of research or learning on subjects of their interest. Realizing that we need a flexible structure for organizing ourselves and the world around us, we can look at Homo Zappiens for a clue.

Design Elemens for A CSCL Environment in a Teacher Training Programme

In the design of a Telematic Learning Environment (TLE) in which student teachers learn collaboratively, we consider three clusters of design elements as important: the Telematic Work Environment, the guidance of the instructor and the task instruction. We will have a look at the way group and task behaviour, triggered by these design elements influence the collaborative outcomes. Experiments have revealed that the technical environment is not as important as we had expected beforehand. This research shows that the task instruction (pre-imposed structure, role taking and intrinsic motivation for the task) and the group process itself have far more impact on the online collaborative work of the student teachers.