Should E-learning be a part of Educational Curriculum?

Abstract

An examination of the interplay between e-learning and curriculum must be sensitive to alternative views of curriculum—whether curriculum is conceptualized as a defined body of content or as a set of thinking, analysis, and communication practices that characterize a field of study . Equally important is the over-arching purpose of those seeking to link technology with curriculum—whether the goal is to improve implementation of system-sanctioned content and instruction or to fundamentally change educational practice. In this chapter I will suggest that these two dichotomies—between content and process and between status quo and radical transformation—have been around since the earliest efforts to apply computer technology to schooling. I will describe how today, as in the past, technology is employed by some as a tool for transmitting the approved curriculum and by others as a means of transforming both what gets taught and how it gets learned.

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Introduction4

Discussion and Analysis4

Technology and Curriculum Today7

Technology Supports for Curriculum as Content8

Conclusion9

Works Cited11

Should E-learning be a part of Educational Curriculum?

Introduction

Over the last 2 decades, educational improvement efforts have placed increased emphasis on curriculum standards and on having the multiple parts of the education system reinforce each other as part of an aligned system. An outgrowth of this trend has been a renewed interest in linking technology and curriculum. The notion of technology as the conduit for better curriculum is not new, however. Enthusiasm for this linkage dates back more than 50 years.

Discussion and Analysis

In theory, early computer-assisted instruction was neutral with respect to curriculum debates as to what should be taught; it was essentially a method that instructional designers viewed as applicable to any curriculum content. In practice, this technology of instruction tended to be allied with an academic rationalist view of curriculum. Instructional designers began their work with a set of learning objectives, which were the things identified as important to learn with respect to the particular subject at hand (Mageau, 22).

This rationalist approach broke subject matter down into small units, and these were often classified as to type (e.g., facts versus concepts) within a hierarchy of learning goals. A key assumption in this instructional design approach is that higher-level, more abstract types of learning build on lower-level, more basic facts and skills.

Curriculum designers did not try to prioritize concepts at the same level in the learning hierarchy in terms of their relative importance or try to stress the relationships among concepts within the same level as later cognitively oriented learning researchers would do.

The descendents of these early computer-based instructional systems—the Integrated Learning Systems (ILSs) of the 1980s—were made possible by advances in microcomputers and computer networking. In terms of the curriculum and instruction the systems conveyed, ILSs carried on the heritage of programmed learning and drill and practice. Their software included not only tutorial modules but also instructional management software, which would keep track of each student's progress through the instructional objectives and provide the teacher with individual and class reports.

ILSs were typically sold ...