Author Index

Author Index: CIT Vol. 21 (2013), No 1–

Does Online Education Need a Special Pedagogy?

The extensive integration of information technologies in teaching and learning in the 21st century has initiated a dramatic change of educational paradigm. To a large extent this change was caused by the online education. A rapid growth of online university programs raises a number of new pedagogical, psychological and social issues. Online learning creates a learning environment that, compared to traditional, classroom-based education, is less personal, more independent, often fragmented, rarely systemic, distributed in space and time, and dependent on the learner rather than on the teacher. Many problems with online education (high attrition rate, orientation at highly skilled and highly motivated people, among other issues (The Trouble with Online College, 2013), indicate that one of its major challenges is not the technology itself or its classroom applications, but the lack of sound, research-based theoretical framework as the foundation of quality online learning. A comprehensive and effective educational theory is thus crucial for the quality education. This article makes an argument for such a theory and offers a model of online pedagogy for higher education with a focus on instruction and instructor, student autonomy, socialization through networking and collaboration in the online learning environment

Innovation in education: what works, what doesn’t, and what to do about it?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical review of the educational innovation field in the USA. It outlines classification of innovations, discusses the hurdles to innovation, and offers ways to increase the scale and rate of innovation-based transformations in the education system. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is based on a literature survey and author research. Findings - US education badly needs effective innovations of scale that can help produce the needed high-quality learning outcomes across the system. The primary focus of educational innovations should be on teaching and learning theory and practice, as well as on the learner, parents, community, society, and its culture. Technology applications need a solid theoretical foundation based on purposeful, systemic research, and a sound pedagogy. One of the critical areas of research and innovation can be cost and time efficiency of the learning. Practical implications - Several practical recommendations stem out of this paper: how to create a base for large-scale innovations and their implementation; how to increase effectiveness of technology innovations in education, particularly online learning; how to raise time and cost efficiency of education. Social implications - Innovations in education are regarded, along with the education system, within the context of a societal supersystem demonstrating their interrelations and interdependencies at all levels. Raising the quality and scale of innovations in education will positively affect education itself and benefit the whole society. Originality/value - Originality is in the systemic approach to education and educational innovations, in offering a comprehensive classification of innovations; in exposing the hurdles to innovations, in new arguments about effectiveness of technology applications, and in time efficiency of education

How Dangerous is the Web for Creative Work?

With the rapid penetration of the Web into all areas of society there is also an increasing number of warning voices that the Web is endangering creative work: it encourages plagiarism, the spreading of half-truths, causes loss of memorizing ability, reduces the ability to read complex matters, provides so many distractions that prevent coherent thinking, networks of pseudo-friends eat up valuable productive time, etc. One early target of complaints were search engines with which we “build up a distorted reality”, this was followed by researchers who seemed to show the rather negative effects of new (social media) on “reading with understanding”, and it has culminated in a number of publications showing negative effects of many aspects of the internet including scathing attacks on e-Learning, like in the German book by Manfred Spitzer on “Digital Dementia: How we make sure that all of us are getting stupid”. In this paper we discuss how the Web both supports and stifles creative activities. We report on our experiences, many based on a project that was part of the “Sparkling Science” initiative of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research. We show that some claims can be validated, others are exaggerated