Lesson 7 - Choosing Media

6.3. Skills Development

Skills development in a computing environment will once again depend very much on the epistemological approach to teaching. Computing can be used to focus on comprehension and understanding, through a behaviourist approach to computer-based learning (present/test/feedback). However, the communications element of computing also enables more constructivist approaches, through online student discussion and student-created multimedia work.

Thus computing can be used (uniquely) to:

• Develop and test student comprehension of content through computer-based learning/testing.
• Develop computer coding and other computer-based skills.
• Develop decision-making skills through the use of digitally-based simulations and/or virtual worlds.
• Develop skills of reasoning, evidence-based argument, and collaboration through instructor-moderated online discussion forums.
• Enable students to create their own artifacts/online multimedia work through the use of e-portfolios, thus improving their digital communication skills as well as assessing better what they have learned.
• Develop skills of experimental design, through the use of simulations, virtual laboratory equipment and remote labs.
• Develop skills of knowledge management and problem-solving, by requiring students to find, analyze, evaluate and apply content, accessed through the Internet, to real world problems.
• Develop spoken and written language skills through both presentation of language and through communication with other students and/or native language speakers via the Internet.
• Collect data on end-user/student interactions with computer and associated equipment such as mobile phones and tablets for:
• Learning analytics, which can be used to identify weaknesses in the design of the teaching, and student success and failure regarding learning outcomes, including skills development, as well as identifying at-risk students
• Adaptive learning, offering learners alternative routes through learning materials, providing an element of personalization
• Assessment (including monitoring)
• Automated or human feedback

These affordances are in addition to the affordances that other media can support within a broader computing environment.