- 6.3.1 Functionality of Advanced Courseware
- 6.3.2 Usability of Advanced Courseware
- 6.3.3 Adaptability of Advanced Courseware
- 6.3.4 The Impact of theTechnical Contexts on Advanced Courseware
- 6.3.5 Implications for the Technical Contexts of Future Projects
Chapter 4 Technical Contexts
- 4.1 Types of Functions
- 4.2 Sources of Usability
- 4.3 Adaptability
- 4.4 The Impact of theTechnical Contexts
|
Software |
Usability for User |
Usability for Author (Construction) |
|
Linking |
GUI Interfaces, Maps |
System Integration |
|
Database |
Search and Query |
Integrated Editors |
|
Multimedia |
Intuitive Controls |
Powerful Editors |
|
Microworlds |
Point & Click Interfaces |
Common Toolkits |
|
Network |
Usable Browsers |
Stable Standards |
Lawler: I think the example of virtual memory will demonstrate an important point. Before virtual memory, programmers did horrible things to get programs to run in limited real memories. After the introduction of virtual memory, people could escape from limitations of the machine. The question is one of reaching a critical point of available resources, to escape from the focus on the issues of design which are primarily economic and primarily physical, into the focus on design issues which are primarily logical and organizational in terms of what is coherent.
Educators may someday raise above the complexity of technical limitations, while maintaining a knowledge and understanding of their importance. Many efforts have been made to define hypermedia by what it is. Perhaps a better approach would be to define it by what it should be, which is the ultimate in human computer interaction. "In some ways, the people who first described hypertext - Bush, Englebart, Nelson- all had the same vision of hypertext as a path to ultimate human-computer interaction, a vision which is still alive today among hypertext researchers." (Conklin, 1987, p. 20). Hypermedia would then be defined as the point at which technical limits are overcome, so that authors become free to deal with more abstract issues and "escape from the focus on the issues of design which are primarily economic and primarily physical, into the focus on design issues which are primarily logical and organizational in terms of what is coherent (R. Lawler, personal interview, July 20, 1992)." An extension of this definition for education would include the multiple integrated functions required to provide flexible support for broad educational goals and the ultimate in interaction between learner and knowledge. Part of this definition would also include the attributes that make software usable by learners and authors while being adaptable for availability and change in distributed computing environments (Meyrowitz, 1991).
Participants in this study maintained an awareness of a multitude of technical issues to provide a reasonable foundation upon which to base decisions and activities. Initial technical choices were based on the characteristics of the technology that best supported the educational goals at hand, but other technical factors played important roles too. How well software supported the creation of courseware and the interaction of users was a consideration before software was chosen, or it became an issue during the early phases of the projects. Every successful project also eventually needed to find a way for their courseware to be adaptable for change and availability.
There was a delicate balance maintained between the technical and the academic contexts of successful projects in advanced distributed computing environments. Technical issues posed challenges that threatened to overshadow the academic issues, yet contributed to the positive growth of projects when overcome. To forget about issue of portability or the limitations of the computational medium for modeling real physical systems was to ensure the limited success of a project. However, another danger was becoming so concerned about the technical issues that sight was lost of the educational goals or vision. It was constantly necessary to make decisions in which technical possibilities were compared to each other, not only based upon their inherent educational merits, but also upon the amounts of human, technical or financial resources involved. This leads to many organizational issues which are the third and final major category of concerns that was examined through this study. The next section will describe the organizational contexts of projects that were balanced with the educational and technical to create successful courseware.
Past educational computing efforts existed in technical contexts which emphasized fragmented functions, separation between the role of the learner and author, and emphasis on the use of one platform over another. It is time for education to reassess the types of characteristics that should be emphasized for educational tools in order to take advantage of new and powerful technology and insights (White, 1989).
"Functionality"
Research Question
What educational considerations influenced technical decisions about courseware?
Finding
Usually a key concern for software selection or creation was the type of software
functions needed to represent the discipline (Linking, Database, Multimedia,
Microworld, & Network Collaboration).
Traditional courseware project leaders have accepted the limitations
of single packages because integrating multiple packages smoothly was difficult.
Taylor (1980) used the concepts of Tool, Tutor and Tutee to describe how these
types of software functions tend to serve different educational goals.
While Taylor's framework is an accurate historical description of the
fragmented functions and uses of microcomputer software through the 1970s,
it is no longer a thorough description of today's more powerful software.
It does provide a reminder that different types of software functions
support different educational goals. A variety of additional software
functions are now available in the today's advanced educational computing systems.
There were five general functions of software which received emphasis across projects.
The choice of functions depended upon the types of discipline representation to be achieved.
While participants did not reflect major dissatisfactions or problems with the limited
functions afforded by the their chosen software packages, there was a general
acknowledgment of the limitations. These limitations may be unnecessary in the future,
as the AthenaMuse software paradigm illustrated.
The choice of software to support courseware was always at least
partially based on the need for access to particular functions that
were congenial to representing a specific academic body of knowledge.
There were five software functions emphasized:
o Hypertext/Hypermedia Linking Support
o Database Storage and Access
o Multimedia Capture or Creation and Manipulation
o Language /Application for Modeling and Toolkits for Interfaces to Microworlds
o Connectivity through Distributed Multi-User Network Access
Multiple Functions. The need for a number of functions to co-exist
in the same package was either recognized and incorporated at the
beginning of a project, or recognized as imposing limitations to a
project if a range of functions was not available in the chosen software.
There is no reason that educational courseware should rely on only one or two
types of representation. In the future, educational computing endeavors should
try to overcome the shackles of these frames of thought about limitations
introduced in early years of educational computing, but which are no longer
necessary. Future courseware projects should buy software with the broadest
possible functionality available. This will allow flexibility for the project
to expand to alternative forms of representation with few problems involving
extensions or porting. In future operating systems, there will be a trend
toward tools which operate more smoothly together and will therefore make
it much easier to provide integrated functions. The integration of existing
and emerging functions will make it possible to build richer learning
environments in the near future and extensive virtual worlds of knowledge
in the long term (Brand, 1988).
"Usability"
Research Question
What were pragmatic technical issues that emerged during courseware projects?
Finding
Usability was a major concern in every project. Attributes varied by "interaction" (learner/user) or "creation" (teacher/author) and by the major types of software functions used.
Software Functions and Corresponding "Usability" Issues
The role of usability played a central role within projects.
Some courseware projects in this study arrived at the issue of usability
for practical reasons, while others arrived at it for educational reasons,
but they all ended up appreciating the importance of this characteristic
for educational software from both the learner's and author's perspective.
Usability of courseware was influenced by a variety of factors in the contexts
of projects. Some projects started with providing for learner construction
among their educational goals, and included "ease of use" for the learner
among their initial design criteria. The need for authors to have efficient
use of particular types of software functions was another major source of
concern about usability. This concern sometimes emerged late in projects
due to the large amount of effort authors had invested to create easy to
use software for learners with hard to use authoring interfaces. The
consistency which was required within the structure of courseware for
portability also contributed to usability. Finally, there were situations
in which administrative decisions and advice contributed to provisions for usability.
The choice of a particular genre of software function was determined
before projects began, and was based upon the type of data to be represented.
The later choice of a particular package was generally further constrained
by a set of convergences and circumstances flowing from either the ability
of software to support learner oriented objectives, or pragmatic concerns
about efficient authoring. No matter whether the source of the concern
was educational or pragmatic, early or mid-project, an important issue
that emerged in every project was the "usability"of both the courseware,
and the software used to construct it.
Learners and Their Influence on Usability. The decision to cast the
learner in the role of constructor contributed to the early consideration
of ways to make software easy for learners to use. A related issue was the
relationship between the learner and the author. There was no separation
between the two roles within the Intermedia software because learners were
to help construct the courseware themselves, rather than to only interact
with interfaces provided by authors (Yankelovich, Meyrowitz & VanDam, 1985).
In other situations, easy to use software for authoring and easy to use
interfaces for learners were separate issues. Courseware that was easy to
use by students was sometimes constructed with software that was difficult
to use by authors.
Usability Related to Software Functions. Table 4 provides a description
of a variety of characteristics of software that increased the learner's or
the author's ability to interact with courseware and to participate in its
construction. The nature of the features that were valuable to increase
"usability" varied across each of the five main types of software functions
(see Table 4).
Organizational Factors that Influenced Usability. Usability by development
teams was necessary to make production cost effective, regardless of the degree
to which usability for construction was passed on to learners. During a
teleconference about workstations in the future, Lerman, a past director of
the Athena project, and the current director of CECI, explained the role
usability can play in major courseware development efforts. "The availability
of efficient software tools was the essential difference between those application
building efforts which were successful, and those which were bogged down by the
complexity of the application development process" (Lerman, 1992).
An additional organizational factor that contributed to the inclusion of
"usability" in both the Context32 and the Geology Tutor courseware was the
availability of resources to develop tools to support learner oriented
educational goals. In both cases the project leaders were in the enviable
positions of being able to directly influence the character of their educational
software. The interaction of a project director with experienced people in the
campus computing organization also influenced the consideration of usability of
authoring software early in one project before software was chosen. Bucciarelli
chose cT for the Mechanics 2.01 Problem Set Solutions with direction from
consultants at Athena who advised him about the importance of its usability
for his purposes. This advice was based on a long history of experience from
earlier projects like TODOR that had not had the benefit of easy to use packages
for caurseware authoring.
In the future, factors influencing usability should be considered before
a project begins, rather than after it has been constructed. Future projects
should begin by considering the ability of software to support learner
construction because then they are more likely to select software which
easily supports the construction of materials by faculty. Projects which
set out to provide courseware for students, without learner construction
as a major goal, will be more likely to select packages which require more
effort for authors to use. Taking this ironic situation into account is a
luxury educators of the future will have which original pioneers did not.
Projects should also investigate what characteristics support usability for
the main types of software functions they wish to use. Design decisions that
contribute to consistency in the courseware structure will contribute to
usability and adaptability of courseware.
"Adaptability"
Research Question
What were key technical characteristics that determined the viability of courseware?
Finding
Every project eventually had to deal with the need for adaptability in their courseware for either availability to learners (platform) or inevitable change in environment (system or hardware).
Software Functions & Corresponding "Adaptability" Issues
Adaptability to accomodate availability and change was also critical.
Beyond concerns about how easy educational courseware is to use,
there are other technical issues that need to be recognized. These are
adaptability for availability and change. During the past fifteen years,
the major technical problems which educators have faced are the problems
of standards to allow cross platform compatibility of their software.
Educators today are facing the type of problem that only a few early
groups of innovators faced who began using mainframe computers during
the 1960s and continued to work in the field as microcomputers were introduced.
There were many complex technical issues surrounding courseware containing
large linked databases of content, multimedia, or microworlds accessible over networks.
The adaptability of software upon which courseware was based often became the most
critical technical consideration after courseware projects were well under way.
There were frequently problems with long term and wide spread availability of
hardware and software. Another problem faced by every project was the unavoidable
nature of change in distributed computing environments. Stability emerged as a
related third consideration in the complex interrelated environments characterizing
the new distributed paradigm. Characteristics of software that helped projects
weather change while providing availability were found for each of the five main
types of software functions (see Table 5). In addition, some general principles
were found to apply accross software types. For example, use of widely accepted
standards were identified as particularly critical for achieving interoperability
across multiple platforms on a network.
While concerns about the match between software functionality and
educational goals continue to be important for successful projects,
other technical concerns will soon become more pervasive and complex.
The emergence of large linked databases of multimedia and the connectivity
and collaboration afforded by the emerging computer networks will only be
available to provide potential benefits to learners if the multitude of
usability and adaptability challenges are overcome successfully.
Future courseware developers should take advantage of the hard
earned technical lessons revealed during this study. They should
not forget that, while the new distributed environments will provide
powerful tools for collaboration, mistakes will prove to be unpleasantly
expensive. Educators who consider investing in either constructing their
own courseware or investing in that constructed by others should make sure
that what they buy will be in a standard format adaptable to computing
environment changes. It is advisable to seek advice from technically
knowledgeable people about these before making investments due to rapidly
changing requirements. Mistakes will be expensive. They will also lead
to disparaging and discouraging attitudes towards beneficial technical capabilities.