EME 7938 STUDY QUESTIONS FOR GROUP 2 READINGS

General Directions: Answer each question to your satisfaction and submit according to the course schedule. Although I encourage you to respond in as much detail and at as much length as you find appropriate, please edit the documents that you send to me so that I receive comprehensive responses of no more than about 500 words for any single question. (Please note that 500 words is an absolute UPPER LIMIT for those who feel that they NEED to write that much. I'd much rather you submitted MUCH shorter responses, on the order of a paragraph or so per question.)

Jonassen, D. (Ed.). (1996). Handbook of research for educational communications and technology. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-864663-0. Chapters 10, 12-14, 16-17

Chapter 10: Postmodern and poststructural theory

Question 1: How do the authors of this chapter define the principles of postmodernism? What IT practices are founded upon postmodern principles?

Question 2: What are the issues for postmodernists with regard to instructional technology?

Question 3: How should curriculum and text be designed according to postmodernism?

Chapter 12: Research on Research with emerging technologies.

Question 1: What are the “emerging technologies” that are presented in this chapter? How do they differ from older, prevalent technologies? What do these differences mean for instructional design?

Question 2: Discuss the underlying theories and issues (e.g. locus of instructional control, situated cognition, generative learning) that provide the basis employing emerging technologies in the manner presented in this chapter.

Question 3: How must IT research methods be changed to be able to study the effects of using emerging technologies as proposed in this chapter?

Chapter 13: Distance Education

Question 1: What has been the history of research on distance education? What kinds of questions have been investigated? What have been the theories that supported those questions? What have been the findings? What can be said about the quality of this research?

Question 2: What are the issues currently emerging in distance education as IT enters the internet era?

Question 3: What new research questions should be asked and what methods should be employed in future research on distance education?

Chapter 14: Computer-mediated communication

Question 1: What is computer-mediated communication? What are its defining characteristics?

Question 2: What type of research has been investigated in the area of CMC? What kinds of questions have been investigated? What have been the theories that supported those questions? What have been the findings? What can be said about the quality of this research?

Question 3: What should be the agenda for future research on computer-mediated communication?

Chapter 16: Visual Literacy

Question 1: What is visual literacy? What are the defining concepts?

Question 2: What are the issues surrounding visual literacy and verbal literacy?

Question 3: What are the areas of visual literacy research that need further investigation?

Chapter 17: Educational games and simulations: a technology in search of a (research) paradigm

Question 1: How are games and simulations the sane and how are they different? What is the difference between an experiential and symbolic simulation?

Question 2: What are some of the instructional designs implications to be derived from research on games and simulations?

Question 3: What are some of the recommendations for future research in this area?