Table Of ContentNew Frontiers of Educational Research
Ronghuai Huang
Kinshuk
J. Michael Spector Editors
Reshaping
Learning
Frontiers of Learning Technology
in a Global Context
New Frontiers of Educational Research
Series Editors in Chief
Zhongying Shi,BeijingNormal University, Beijing, China
Zuoyu Zhou, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Ronghuai Huang, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Editorial Board
Chengwen Hong, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Cynthia Gerstl-Pepin, University of Vermont, Vermont, USA
David Osher, American Institute for Research, Washington DC, USA
Felix Rauner, University of Bremen, Germany
Huajun Zhang, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Jonathan Michael Spector, University of Georgia, Georgia, USA
Kenneth Zeichner, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
Kerry Mallan, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Levin Ben, University of Toronto, Canada
Liyan Huo, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Mang Li, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Qi Li, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Ronghuai Huang, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Shinohara Kyoaki, Gifu University, Japan
Susan Neuman, University of Michigan, Michigan, USA
Wei Kan, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Xudong Zhu, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Yan Wu, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Yanyan Li, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Yaqing Mao, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Yong Zhao, University of Oregon, Oregon, USA
Zhikui Niu, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Zhiqun Zhao, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Zhongying Shi, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Zuoyu Zhou, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
For furthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/10795
Ronghuai Huang Kinshuk
• •
J. Michael Spector
Editors
Reshaping Learning
Frontiers of Learning Technology
in a Global Context
123
Editors
Ronghuai Huang Kinshuk
Faculty ofEducation Faculty ofScience and Technology
Beijing NormalUniversity Athabasca University
Beijing Athabasca, AB
People’s Republic ofChina Canada
J.Michael Spector
College ofInformation
Universityof North Texas
Denton,TX
USA
ISSN 2195-3473 ISSN 2195-349X (electronic)
ISBN 978-3-642-32300-3 ISBN 978-3-642-32301-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-32301-0
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Foreword
As I sat down to gather my thoughts for the foreword to Reshaping Learning,
I found myself reflecting on the momentous times we have lived in the past few
years, andhowharditwouldhave beentopredictsomeoftheeventswehaveall
experienced in that time, even just a half dozen years ago. That learning is
changing to me is self-evident. All I need do is to look at my own experience, or
thatofmyownfamily—weliveinaworldwherethetoolsandresourceswehave
in our pockets have made learning something that truly happens any time, in any
place—withnoparticularneedforaconnectiontoschools,orcourses,orprograms
of study.
Notonlydowehaveever-presentaccesstotoolsthatoncecouldonlybehadin
a lab or a studio, we use those tools constantly to enrich our communications, no
matterhowsignificantormundanetheymaybe.Thereislittleneedtoletaclaim
gowithoutaquickInternetfact-check,andwelaughaswedoit,knowingthatthe
answer to almost any obscure question is seconds away. Social media is ever-
presentaswell,withapowertoinfluencethecourseofeventsnotonlywithinour
daily lives, but globally, in ways that few of us truly understand.
Itis easy toforgetthatit wasonly about ahalf-dozen yearsagothatFacebook
wasopenedtothepublic.Whoamongusthencouldhaveforeseenthatfouryears
later, a page entitled ‘‘We Are All Khaled Said’’ would be created there to
commemorate the death of a young Tunisian in protest against an oppressive
government.Whowouldhavepredictedthen,thatinthespaceofjustafewdays,
hundreds of thousands of people would be motivated, at great personal risk, to
traveltoTahrirSquaretojoinintheprotest,tosay‘‘nomore’’?Facebookwasthe
mediumtheyusedtoensuretheworldwaswatching,andtheyultimatelytoppleda
government that had been in place for three decades—who saw that kind of
influence coming from social media? By the time this book sees print, Facebook
will likely have more than a billion users, spanning virtually every country and
regionontheplanet.Morethananyothersingleplatform,Facebookhadredefined
how we think about not only our personal stories, and has become very much a
part of business, government, entertainment, science—and yes, even learning.
v
vi Foreword
Sixyearsisbothnotimeatall,andalongtime,dependingonyourperspective.
For kids in school today, six years is equivalent to the time between when they
wereinmiddleschoolandwhentheyenteredcollege.Imagineaworldwhereyou
grewupinthesetimes?Thereislittledoubtthatyourexpectationsofwhatschools
couldorshouldbewouldbebasedonyourexperiences,andthoseoftheworld,in
those six years. There is little doubt that a young adult entering university has
everyexpectationthattheirlearningenvironmentwillbetotallyconnected,totally
global, and always on. For them, the past six years represent a third of their
lifetimes, a long while indeed. The changes in the world, in technology, in the
wayswecommunicate,havebeenformativepartsoftheirexperiences,somuchso
thatitisimpossibleformostofthemtoconsiderhowitmusthavebeeninaworld
without mobile telephones.
Sixyearscanseemlikenotimeatall,however,toafacultymemberorschool
teacherwhoisbalancingwork,family,andmore.Technologiesthatseemmodern
andveryup-to-date,likee-mail,theWeb,andofficeproductivitytools,havebeen
withusforfarlongerthansixyears.Whiletheymaystillfeelup-to-datetomostof
us, these tried-and-true tools are often viewed by our protégés as too slow, or too
hard, or just too clunky to be of much use to them. It is all too easy to think we
have it all figured out, all sewn up, when in fact, the kinds of technologies most
used, most important to the people in our classrooms, are rarely part of their
learningexperience—andalltooeasyaswelltoexpectthemtobecomeproficient
on the technologies that have been part of our experience.
In this dichotomous landscape, our internecine battles over hybrid and online
learning approaches can seem almost quaint in a world where the new vision of
onlinelearningisordersofmagnitudemoreexpansive,withmassivelyopenonline
courseswithtensofthousandsofstudents,andfewifanyboundariesbetweenwho
is teacher and who is learner among them. At an almost breathtaking speed,
previously incontrovertible constraints like the credit hour are being openly
questioned at the highest levels of our institutions. Presidents and trustees of our
most vaunted universities are actively considering new models of certification,
ideas like micro-credits, and even concepts from social media like badging.
ThisistheworldReshapingLearningwaswrittenfor,aworldinwhichchange
is not only given, but everywhere, and proactively embraced. A world where the
ability to manage change is seen as a distinct competitive advantage, and the
learning marketplace full of alternative models. The premise of this book is that
theworldaroundus,thewaysinwhichweliveoureverydaylives,theconnections
we make, the increasingly global community we live in—all of these are inexo-
rably changing the ways we learn as well.
We can no longer confine learning to schools. Avocation and vocation are
blending, and the ways we learn informally are influencing the ways we are to
learn formally. Learning is not only in the midst of change, as the authors of the
papers that follow so clearly describe, it indeed has already changed and in sig-
nificant ways. The roles of teacher, professor, mentor—even students and par-
ents—have become more important, and more challenging than ever.
Foreword vii
Those are the kinds of changes examined here, and it is no accident that the
reflectionsherehaveadistinctlyglobalflavor.Someofthegreatestchallengeswe
faceineducationareunfoldinginwhat,foraNorthAmericanaudience,willseem
likefarflungpartsoftheworld.Nonetheless,thereiswidespreadagreementthatit
willbeinplaceslikeChina,India,Asia,andAfricathatwearegoingtoseesome
ofthemostdefinitiveinnovationsinthecomingyears;itisinthoseplacesthatthe
challenges are the greatest.
Indeed, it is these sorts of challenges on which this book focuses, and it is on
these sorts of challenges that we must place our focus as well. Huang, Kinshuk,
and Spector have provided an outstanding analysis of what the imperatives of
learning are, and what is not only possible, but key to reshaping learning. It is to
us, now, that the gauntlet falls, and to us to ensure that our campuses and class-
rooms reflect the world as it is and as it will be.
Let’s make the most of it!
Author Biography
Dr. Larry Johnson is an acknowledged expert on emerging technology and its
impacts onsocietyandeducation, andhas writtenfive books, seven chapters,and
published more than 60 papers and research reports on the topic. He speaks reg-
ularly on the topics of creativity, innovation, and technology trends, and has
delivered more than 100 keynote addresses to a long list of distinguished groups
and organizations all over the world. He is the founder of the Horizon Project,
which produces the acclaimed series of Horizon Reports that are used by over
1.25 million educators in 150 countries.
Preface
Inthistechnology-mediatedpost-modernworld,changesinthewaysandmeansof
living and working are so rapid that the world in which we live is dramatically
differentfromwhatitwaswhenwewereadolescents,andourchildrenwillsurely
inherit a quite different world. We live and work in an environment, where
technologyisubiquitouslyavailable,highlysupportive,andfullypenetrative.Not
onlyhaveinformationandcommunicationstechnologies(ICT)becomepartofour
life, but ICT also has exerted considerable impact on the world in which we live.
First, the boundary between physical and virtual worlds has become blurred
(Huang etal.2010).Bothworldsare interdependentandinteractive;increasingly,
things previously clearly designated as virtual are becoming an everyday part of
ourphysical existence. An everyday example is looking up amenu item on one’s
smartphoneinarestaurantpriortosettlingonone’sorder—theInternetdescription
oftheitem isvirtualbutoneisabouttoeatthereal thing.Theword‘virtual’ first
appearedinconnectionwithvirtualcomputermemory,referringtorandomaccess
memory (RAM) that only existed as RAM when needed or referenced, residing
physically on a hard disk storage device. Virtual in that context meant something
that appeared to be RAM but was not actuallyRAM. The term has more recently
appliedtoclassrooms—virtualclassroomsarenotphysicalclassroomsbutconsist
ofgroupsofpeoplewhoareconnectedviatheInternetorothermeansandperform
the same kinds of activities performed in physical classrooms. At some point,
however,virtualclassroomswillorhavebecomesocommonandsopervasivethat
the distinction between physical classrooms and virtual classrooms loses its use-
fulness.Theboundarybetweenthephysicalandthevirtualbecomestransparentor
vanishes entirely.
Our life is more and more marked with e-things, such as ‘‘e-business,
e-commerce, e-government, e-mail, e-education, and all the other e-something’’
(Bengtsson n.d., p. 1). Second, information continues to be created at an expo-
nential rate. We have entered a knowledge explosion era. New things come out
endlessly, and knowledge is made available more than we can consume (Huang
etal.2010).Third,thepaceoflifehasbecomequickerthanever.Theavailability
ofspeedytransportationaswell asInternet-basedtelecommunication ismaking it
ix
x Preface
quickerstill.Ourworldhasbecomesmaller,andourlifehasalsobeentransformed
toanextentthatourancestorscouldneverimagine.Toalargerextent,technology
has changed, the world has changed, and life has changed.
Education has changed as well. As Johnson (2005) put it, ‘‘New technology
cultivates active learning, provides new ways for students to learn, and renders a
more authentic, outcome-driven, performance-based type of learning’’ (p. 2).
Technology ‘‘has transformed both what young people learn today and how they
learn’’ (Wagner 2008, p. 178). In the years to come, we will witness a new
generation of learners, who are largely digital natives (Prensky 2001). These
learnersarecharacterizedbyadifferentmentalitythanthatoftheircounterpartsof
older generations. They view learning differently from their teachers who are
largely digital immigrants (Prensky 2001). In the eyes of many digital natives,
learning is more than just going to lectures and relying on textbooks; rather,
learning involves engaging in technology-mediated learning activities such as
doing research on the Internet, searching, finding, and analyzing a variety of
resources available in the virtual world and bringing into their own lives. Digital
nativeswouldprefertostayconnectedtoothersvirtuallyratherthanbeimmersed
in stacks of library books (Wagner 2008). Also, digital natives view learning as
discoveryandcreationprocesses(Wagner2008).Theyhavedevelopeddistinctive
learning styles, which ‘‘involve a preference for multi-tasking, multimedia, bite-
sized content and high levels of social interaction’’ (Ellis and Goodyear 2010,
p. 21). For these Net-Generation (Net-Gen; a.k.a., digital natives) learners,
learning is technology-dependent. Their learning contexts, expectations, and
practiceshavechanged.‘‘TheincreasingavailabilityofICThaswidenedtherange
of places in which students can learn, and they now expect greater flexibility in
educational provision’’ (p. 21). There is no doubt that learning less and less fre-
quentlytakesplaceasitdidintheageofdigitalimmigrantsandpriorgenerations.
This change towards the virtual requires immediate attention of educational
researchers and practitioners to investigate how educators can best ensure effec-
tive,efficient,andengaginglearninginordertobettercatertotheneedsoflearners
and knowledge workers everywhere in the new millennium.
This book is timely to educators and educational researchers across the globe
for three reasons: First, the book deals in detail with the nature of learning
exclusively in a technology-mediated context. Second, this volume represents the
wisdom and most current research of recognized international educators and
researchersinthefieldofeducationaltechnology,allofwhomparticularlyaddress
the critical and pressing educational problems that we are facing today in the
digital era. Third, this volume is both informative and transformative in terms of
theconceptualandpracticalimpactoftechnologyoncurrenteducationalpractices.
The book is structured into five thematic parts. Part I deals with the ‘‘New
Shape of Learning’’ and sets the stage for the other parts of the book. It presents
the emerging learning mode and emerging dimensions of learning in the era of
transformation. It also provides the changes in schools. Part II includes chapters
that present the latest research on ‘‘New Sights of Future Students’’ so that the
reader can understand how students have changed today. Part III covers the
Preface xi
developing trends of learning content and cases of learning content development.
Part IV discusses various ‘‘New Dimensions of Learning Technologies’’. Part V
introduces the ‘‘Emerging Trends in Learning Technologies’’; as a result, readers
will discover the trends of technologies in education and the cases of how to
integrate these technologies into learning.
Part I: New Shape of Learning
Thefirstpartofthebookconsistsofthreechapters.RonghuaiHuang,GengChen,
Junfeng Yang, and John Loewen’s chapter proposes a new learning mode (con-
nected learning) in today’s information society and five laws of technology
enhanced learning. It also identifies how to smoothly transform form traditional
learning into connected learning.
ThechapterbyErkkiSutinenintroducesaschemewheretechnologycanserve
as a vehicle to combine the assets offormal and informal learning into a creative
tension towards transformational learning.
The chapter by Victoria J. Marsick, Karen E. Watkins and Sarah A. Boswell
draws on trends, research, and experience in organizations broadly conceived to
examineschoolsaslearningcommunities,withemphasisonworkplace-basedand
field-based learning.
Part II: New Insights of Future Students
The second part of the book consists of three chapters. Chris Jones’s chapter
critically examines student characteristics in light of the popular discourse which
describesstudentsaspartofanetgenerationofdigitalnativeyoungpeople.Atthe
endofthechapter,itarguesthatthereisnooneshapeforstudentsandthatdigital
technologies open up a range of opportunities and choices at all levels of
education.
ThechapterbyLindaCorrin,SueBennett,andLoriLockyerreportsonastudy
whichaimstofurthertheunderstandingofthemotivations,attitudes,andpractices
of young people in relation to technology.
The chapter by Margaret Martinez explores the use of adaptive learning tech-
nology,strategiesandmodels,learningorientations,learneranalytics,professional
development,andtheneurobiologyoflearningresearchtofindinnovativewaysto
adapt and improve learning and enhance educational, workplace, and career suc-
cess for future generations.
