Thanks for your comments, criticisms, and atta-boys. Since I was gone for a day I'm already pretty far behind. I'll try to address the spirit of the questions in as economical way as possible.
[quoting Tripp, 27 May 96] ...most of the work involved... is beyond the education of most people in (so-called) IT. They simply don't know enough about computers, and digital images, and OCR, and so on"
Its gotten to where I'm not sure where the "IT" field starts and ends. A few years back I wouldn't have looked for names like Bransford and Spiro to be as widely referenced as they are. Same for Gary Marchionini, Seymour Papert, and Eliot Soloway. I doubt any of these people would consider themselves part of the IT field, yet they have significant influence on IT-related work. The distinctions between/among fields has blurred. I'm no longer concerned with whether work is "inside" or "outside" the IT field--just that its being done and producing some interesting approaches. The downside, as you imply, is that a good deal of the very high profile systems (WWW and browsers like Netscape) could really have used a designer's touch--no argument there. But its also not new. The same criticisms were levied about Stanford's early math tutorials/drills in the mid-late '60s and early PLATO. If nothing else, history tells us that no single field likely has the breadth of understanding to design high-end systems that address the range of design concerns likely to be important in teaching, learning, and technology. We need each other--we just haven't found ways to connect until we re-realize that something's missing.
[quoting Draper, 27 May 96]Could you please post the references to McCaslin & Good; Richard Clark; and to Bob Kozma. [I agree the style of listing influential experiences is important and much missed in conventional academic literature; but it makes "conventional" reference lists more not less important.]
Sorry--an oversight.
Clark, R. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 17, 92-101.
Kozma, R. (1991). Learning with media. Review of Educational Research, 61, 179-211.
McCaslin, M., & Good, T. (1992). Compliant cognition: The misalliance of management and instructional goals in current school reform. Educational Researcher, 21(3), 4-17.
I wasn't always sure of how the "revelations" were intended to relate to associated text. In particular: Revelation 3: did you think animal behaviorist studies were "researching how people learn" or "researching if people can learn in particular ways"?
Actually, at the time, it was researching learning. Period. The rules of reinforcement theory were believed to be universal. So yes, when studying the behavior of animals it was assumed that the principles applied to learning generally.
Revelation 4: explaining vs. predicting. Which, if either, did you mean, when you said that explanation had become more important to you than prediction?
My notion of explaining has to do with better satisfying my own need to understand the answer to the questions why and how. This may also provide predictive value, but it doesn't necessarily. Conversely, having perfect predictive capability may or may not reflect understanding. Most adults can point to (or tell you) with perfect predictive accuracy what in direction the sun rises, or tell you its hottest during the northern hemisphere's summer and coldest during the winter, but amazingly few can explain it with any deep understanding. Does the sun actually rise? How does the tilt of the earth on its axis affect temperature? Etc. My interest is in garnering better understanding for my own purposes. I don't want to spend my professional life doing the IT equivalent of telling children something that is absolutely correct without trying to help understanding how and why.
RE: COMMENT 1
I agree--I believe that the nature of a resource's use determines whether it is instruction or some other teaching-learning enterprise. Books, like most source media, are interesting instances of where the nature of their use defines the directed versus open nature of the learning environment. An example. A science textbook that is developed as a primary textbook for an introductory course in college biology clearly has a defined focus (author's, compatibility with external course accreditation standards, etc.). It is often used to promote understanding of the author's perspective alone (and presumably the perspective of the organization). However, the same text contains tons of stuff on various concepts. I could use it for self-study, to compare the treatment of a concept with another author's perspective (multiple perspective building), I could use illustrations that clarify something that was unclear based on other resources, etc. The context of use, and the locus of the motivation for use, that influences the degree to which the environment is externally directed, self-directed, etc.
RE: COMMENT 3
The issue you describe seems to me to be one of scaffolding. How much supporting structure is required or desired to aid the learner in engaging the environment meaningfully, and can/should it be faded? Most people I know do not thrust learners into a vast void (in terms of their conceptual understanding, system facility, etc.). One of the basic design questions is how is engagement to be elicited and sustained. To some extent, a well-framed organizing problem helps to induce a mental set. Still, depending on how learning or performing are defined, we may need or want substantially more support along the way. Some of this might need to be faded (i.e., the knowledge or skill needs to be exhibited in uncued conditions), while others may remain permanently (i.e., like the calculator, word processing spell-checker, etc.).
[quoting Dalgarno, 28 May 96] It seems that the term OELE covers quite a broad range of approaches. I think it would be useful to list some of the "host of other more open learning approaches." I can think of a few, but I'd like to hear Michael's views. Perhaps it would help also to define what is not an OELE. (Maybe environments that take an "instructivist" approach, or have a large degree of system control.)
I think of OELEs not as a single kind of design, but as representing a class of designs that reflect, to varying degrees, similar assumptions, methods, etc. I spend more time framing the range of learning environments in:
Hannafin, M. (1992). Emerging technologies, ISD, and learning environments: Critical perspectives. Educational Technology Research and Development, 40, 49-63.
Recognizing that these exist more on a continuum than as discrete distinctions, here are examples of designs/work that reflects OELE approaches:
Efforts toward the other end of the continuum (using very different systems):
I'll try to catch up with the other comments, etc., later this evening.