6.4.4 Implications for the Organizational Contexts of Future Projects
While the descriptions of organizational structures and issues developed during
this research provide a foundation upon which to base future investigations,
much work remains to be done to gain more complete and detailed understanding
about the operations, strengths and limitations of different organizational
structures which evolve to support courseware. This will be particularly
important as computing technology and software continue to evolve to allow
for richer and more complex representations.
"While the metaphor of creating a microworld is in fact useful in all types
of computer applications, whether or not multiple media are used, it is the
potential of different media, such as audio, still images, and video,
to create realistic microworlds, that makes the metaphor of a microworld far
more useful in the case of multimedia, than in more traditional computer
applications" (Lerman, 1992). The increasing
integration and expansion of software functionality makes it necessary for
the role of authors to undergo a significant shift because they are called
upon to provide for the maintenance of the complex learning environments or
"virtual worlds" they construct.
During this study, the members of the organization responsible for the
development of the AthenaMuse authoring tools have shown particular
sensitivity to possible redefinitions of authorship required within rich
learning environments. Matthew Hodges, an original member of the team,
provided an expression of a new way of viewing the task of authors of complex
learning environments. He suggests there are three key questions the authors
of these environments must ask themselves. They are the following:
How do you build a world?
How do you build tools for that world?
How do you get your friends into that world to create knowledge together?
(Hodges, 1991)
Implied in these questions are the new tasks of learning environment authors.
Authors are now charged with building virtual worlds, creating tools for the
worlds they create, and then finding ways to get their friends or learners
into the world they have constructed. In complex distributed computing
environments, the "virtual worlds" created by courseware authors need to
continue to evolve in order to be maintained over a significant period of time.
Courseware developers constructing rich learning environments must recast
their endeavors as both managers of the rich computational virtual worlds
they construct, and the external resources upon which the continued existence
of the worlds depend. Perhaps the hardest role of all is obtaining the resources
to continue the rich learning environment once it has been created.
This represents a significant redefinition of the roles of authors relative
to traditional definitions.
It is important to explore the different roles which learners can play
within the new structures required to support learning environment or
"virtual world" authorship. A trend towards increasing levels of learner
involvement through learner construction creates new roles for learners.
All of the projects in this study include provisions which changed both
the role of learner and the author relative to the courseware.
Learners became authors, while the roles of the key members of courseware
teams changed from authors to learning environment managers.