Source: http://images.nypl.org/index.php?id=407529&t=w

“Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity.” –Charles Beard

• Insidious Pedagogy – How Course management systems impact teaching by Lisa Lane
  • We would like to believe that technologies are neutral, that they can be used well or used poorly, but contain no inherent direction or intent.
  • These new technologies, we say, had both good and bad applications, which depended entirely on the humans using them. Instinctively, however, we know that such an approach is faulty.
  • The fact that each technology had a specific purpose implies a goal in its design, an objective that limited or even determined its use. Today’s online technologies are no different, and create serious impacts on our teaching.
  • Few discuss the ways in which they influence and guide pedagogy, and those that do only note their predisposition for supporting more instructivist methods. Current research also ignores the fact that many of the new wave of online teachers are Web novices entering the field without a deep understanding of online technology.
  • Course managment systems each contain their own inherent pedagogy, and for most systems these pedagogies are traditional in nature. As with all technologies, the design of the product is a result of its perceived use. Today’s enterprise–scale systems were created to manage traditional teaching tasks as if they were business processes. They were originally designed to focus on instructor efficiency for administrative functions such as grade posting, test creation, and enrollment management. Pedagogical considerations were thus either not considered, or were considered to be embodied in such managerial tasks.
  • The built–in pedagogy of the big systems is based on traditional approaches to instruction dating from the nineteenth century: presentation and assessment.
  • “the downside of the CMS is that it canalizes our collective creativity by forcing e–learning technologies into the familiar classroom categories of lectures, discussions, and exams”, reinforcing “uncritical acceptance of the traditional features of the classroom model.”
  • oday’s CMSs can be customized, changed and adapted, so why aren’t faculty tinkering with them in an effort to make their individual pedagogies work online?
  • Today’s online faculty don’t teach online because they spend their lives blogging, reading feeds, and Twittering, and one day think, “hey, I could also teach online!” Most were drafted, either because they felt their market value would slip if they didn’t teach online, or because their department or dean told them they must. Their adoption of technology is based on top–down directives rather than interest or aptitude (Samarawickrema and Stacey, 2007).
  • They do not possess the “information literacy” skills now required of many undergraduates (Reid, 2006), despite an assumption that professors are all computer–savvy (Dykman and Davis, 2008). Some of these faculty have been teaching in the classroom for many years, and have developed successful instructional formats for themselves, be they traditional or more collaborative. Then they are assigned to teach online. When they ask where to start in creating an online course, they are usually pointed to the college’s preferred CMS. And that’s where the pedagogical guidance begins.
  • make a distinction between a teacher experienced in instruction, and one experienced in using the Web to instruct.
  • “While seeking information, the Web novice groups were overwhelmed by simply trying to keep track of their location, and they repeatedly got lost.” [2] These users were trying to reduce their cognitive load by limiting their use of the software, while Web experts were able to keep their goal in mind easily while searching more deeply. Expert users contextualize their resources fluidly and organize materials effectively, while novices just upload and share files, hoping students will find them (Reanut, et al., 2006)
  • Novice users rely heavily on the first tier of accessible features, and depend on elements that assist their memory and prompt them to enter information. To operate the system, they require “restricted vocabularies, simple tasks, small numbers of possibilities, and very informative feedback.”
  • Blackboard “tends to encourage a linear pathway through the content” [3], and its default is to support easy uploading and text entry to achieve that goal.
  • Blackboard/WebCT’s default organization accepts neither of these approaches in its initial interface. It forces the instructor to think in terms of content types instead, breaking the natural structure of the semester, or of a list of topics. Again, we know that the setup can be customized with relative ease, by going to the Control Panel and selecting Manage Course Menu, then using Modify buttons. You could change all the course menu buttons into “Week 1”, “Week 2”, or organize by topic instead of content type. But few professors try that, or they assume that they can’t do it. Blackboard can be highly intimidating to learn, and may “seriously hinder” choices the faculty member makes while using the tool
  • Even after several years of working with the CMS, faculty requests for help focus on what the technology can do, rather than how their pedagogical goals can be achieved
  • They want speed and ease of use rather than more features
  • Carmean and Haefner (2008) argue that any CMS can provide a deep learning experience and can be used for multimedia and in–depth communication with students. Educational technologists look at a CMS and see its many features, but faculty see an inflexible system that cannot be customized
  • Few instructors are consciously aware that CMS design is influencing their pedagogy.
  • hose taxing the system more, and using the most complex features, show lower levels of satisfaction. The vast majority of complaints about CMSs come from innovative, heavy users of Web technologies, those accustomed to customizing applications to make their work more effective. They also come from behaviorists and constructivists who face significant limitations in many systems. Novices happily use the high–tech CMS as a glorified copy machine (Dutton, 2004; Walker and Johnson, 2008
  • With Web novices, pedagogy must be emphasized before features and tools.
  • Teaching faculty to consider their teaching approaches first, before they enter the CMS, could help prevent tool availability from limiting their pedagogy.
  • Opt–Out systems are most likely to overwhelm Web novices, because they present an array of tools, and the tendency is to reduce cognitive load by using the defaults.
  • In an Opt–In system (such as Moodle), the instructor selects each activity and presentation factor from a menu list, effectively designing much of the interface for students. Fewer defaults are pre–set, forcing the instructor to think holistically about the class structure. Features such as chat, polls, and interactive lessons as options presented with the same weight as more traditional text–based resources.

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