De Montfort University Institute Of Creative Technologies

Creating a virtual class, using Learning Management Systems (LMS), to promote social constructionism in class. A case study in the Creative Technologies masters course.

MA in Creative Technologies August 2009 Vassilis Angelis

Table of Contents

Table of Contents..................................................................................................................................2 Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................................3 Chapter 2: Literature Review...............................................................................................................6 2.1 Theoretical Background.................................................................................................................6 2.1.1 Piaget's Functional Theory .........................................................................................................7 2.1.2 Papert's Constructionism ............................................................................................................8 2.1.3 Social Constructionism ...............................................................................................................9 2.2 Techniques of Effective Learning ................................................................................................11 Collaborative Learning ......................................................................................................................11 2.2.1 Task Closure & Information Processing ...................................................................................12 2.2.2. Student Apprenticeship ............................................................................................................12 2.2.3 Peer Assessment .......................................................................................................................13 2.2.4 Active Learning ........................................................................................................................13 2.3 The role of reflection ...................................................................................................................15 2.4 Technologies ................................................................................................................................15 2.4.1 Wikis..........................................................................................................................................16 2.4.2 Blogs .........................................................................................................................................18 2.4.3 IOCT MOO ...............................................................................................................................20 Chapter 3: Design Specification of the Virtual Class ........................................................................22 3.1 Design Parameters........................................................................................................................22 3.2 Learning Management Systems (LMS)........................................................................................23 3.3 Virtual Class Design ....................................................................................................................25 Chapter 4: Evaluation Design.............................................................................................................26 4.1 Data collection methodology........................................................................................................26 4.2 Questionnaire Design ..................................................................................................................27 Chapter 5: Evaluation ........................................................................................................................29 5.1 Pre-Test Questionnaire ................................................................................................................29 5.2 Post-test Questionnaire ................................................................................................................35 Chapter 6: Conclusions ......................................................................................................................39 References .........................................................................................................................................41 Index ..................................................................................................................................................42 Masters in Creative Technologies ......................................................................................................42 Master's Aims.....................................................................................................................................42 Learning Outcomes ...........................................................................................................................43 Teaching and Learning Strategies ......................................................................................................43

Chapter 1: Introduction In the last few decades we are witnessing the revolution of the information age and the effects of it in a series of economic and social issues. During the industrial revolution, young people used to learn skills they could use in their work throughout their lives. As a result, they were able to ensure a sustained level of quality in their lives. Nowadays many of those industries (e.g. automotive, manufacturing) are shrinking, even facing bankruptcies and as a consequence unemployment in developed countries increases. The difficulty of jobless people to find a new job in a highly professional environment creates further social consequences such as social isolation, increased population under the poverty limit and criminality. For the years to come, in a fast paced changing world, it is vital to realise the significance of learning new skills, being flexible, and dealing with unprecedented situations.

What is true for an individual is even more true for nations. The competitive strength of a nation in the modern world is directly proportional to its learning capacity; that is, a combination of the learning capacities of individuals and the institutions of the society. [Papert, 1993]

For young people it is important to realise and position themselves appropriately in the world of modern economies. It is critical to realise and think about the differences in regards to the socio-economical context in which career development will be taking place.

In the modern world of the new capitalism (a capitalism based more on knowledge than on industrial assembly lines) we must more and more come to see ourselves not in terms of a linear progression up a 'career ladder' in one single job but as a 'portfolio' composed of the re-arrangeable skills and identities we have acquired in our trajectory through diverse projects inside and outside of workplaces as we move from job to job, project to project, and career to career in a fast-changing world. Learning is best judged by changing participation in changing practices, a change not only in practice but also in identity, crafting identities in practice becomes the fundamental project. [James Paul Gee, Video Games Literacy, 2003]

In order for someone to embrace the aforementioned logic of learning throughout her life, it is useful to understand what learning is. The aim of the study is to provide an insight in the process of learning, and how modern techniques and technologies reflect and assist the above process. More specifically, this is done

by discussing some of the prevailing theories in cognitive psychology related to the learning process, by describing the techniques that put the above theories into practice and by explaining the role of technologies as tools of implementation. The objective is to design a virtual (extensible) classroom, which introduces the students to a series of topics that reflect the above aim. The virtual class will be tailored to the Creative Technologies postgraduate course. Its primary evaluation will be made by some of the students enrolled in the 2008/2009 academic year in the form of pre/post-questionnaires. More specifically the virtual class organises itself around the theory of social constructionism. All the cognitive psychology viewpoints, techniques and technologies reflect the above theory. The main reason to focus on social constructionism is a conviction that this theory can enhance the learning capacity of individuals. According to Shaw (2004) in social and developmental psychology, constructivist models view the subject as a builder of knowledge-not a passive receptor, but an active constructor. These models reflect techniques such as active learning, in which the learner develops critical thinking by constructing the knowledge, i.e learn how to learn. Constructionism highlights the notion that through the construction of shared outcomes and artefacts, a subject engages in a developmental cycle in the social setting [Shaw, 1996]. The use of technologies such as wikis and blogs can assist the construction of the above artefacts. Existing research (see below) focuses in the creation of technologies that promote social constructionism within communities of shared research interests. A description of the technological tools that reflect social constructionism aims to explain not only the technological functionality of the tool, but also how social constructionism is applied, promoted and facilitated by the tool. An example of such tool is the MediaMOO virtual world. MediaMOO is a text-based virtual environment that provides both a shared space (the virtual world) and a shared set of activities (exploring and extending the virtual world). According to the designers the best sorts of interaction occur when people participate in a shared activity and not just in a shared context. The constructionist theory of learning has guided the design decisions made in MediaMOO. This is related to the shared set of activities where each one of the user is encouraged to contribute and shape this virtual world. The simplicity of the virtual world aims to promote active participation of the users. A barest skeleton could inspire users to construct personally meaningful objects and places. [Bruckman & Resnick, 1996] Nowadays the technological advances are particularly promising in the creation of powerful and

sophisticated tools able to assist learning. What is more noteworthy though is the need for users to be the creators and not merely the consumers of the technological tools. Social constructionism's principles are a useful source of instructions in the design implementation of these tools as they are also beneficial in explaining the nature of learning. According to Piaget, knowledge is not a commodity to be transmitted. Knowledge is an experience in the sense that is actively constructed and reconstructed through direct interaction with the environment. In that perspective the following project aims to disseminate the concept of social constructionism among students. The virtual class seeks to inform students about the nature of learning from a cognitive psychology viewpoint, the techniques that promote learning and the technological tools that assist the application of the aforementioned techniques.

Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.1 Theoretical Background The Theory of Instruction and Instructional Design are notions designated to discuss the academic field of pedagogy i.e methods of teaching. A notion introduced by Papert to discuss the art of learning is the term mathetics. The etymology of the word is from the Greek manthanein which means, to learn. In respect of this, one can say that mathetics is the study of learning. With the introduction of this notion, Papert is trying to emphasize the need for promoting the knowledge about learning. He is opposing himself to school's practices in putting more weight to knowledge about numbers and grammar than to knowledge about learning. According to Papert everyone has built up a stock of intuitive (i.e. an empathic, commonsense knowledge about learning). In order to enhance this innate ability it is necessary to identify and believe it, and develop methodologies for reflection about cases of successful learning. Nowadays, occupational activities such as lifelong learning and thinking are becoming highly critical in the current professional world, yet traditional educational practices seem to lack in teaching people how thinking and learning occur. Papert's interest in advancing the knowledge about learning suggests that A central tenet of mathetics is that good discussion promotes learning, and one of its central research goals is to elucidate the kinds of discussion that do the most good and the kind of circumstances that favour such discussions. [Papert, 1993] Of course, the nature of discussion should be taboo free in order to let people interpret what is going on in their minds. Students should be encouraged to expose themselves and speak openly about their learning experiences. One way to succeed in this is to create a communication channel between students that facilitates and promotes discussion about learning experiences and mixes different intellectual styles. An example of this approach in practice is the collaboration between two students (Henry and Brian) after their teacher brought to the classroom a computer with the Logo1 programming language installed. Henry was always interested in maths while Brian was involved in music and dance. In the introduction of the computer, Henry's response was quite enthusiastic while Brian felt a bit apprehensive. Despite Henry's mathematical cleverness being depicted in his displays of complex shapes and patterns of motion, he was disappointed by the overall effect of his work. At that point, Henry felt the need for an intellectual development and later on the answer came to him when he saw Brian dancing. Henry suggested to Brian to

start working together in the creation of screen choreographies. They both started developing a different interpretation of what mathematics represent, they started feeling it was something that could be used to make something purposefully, a source of power in pursuing respected and deeply personal projects. Educational practices promote learning effectively by coexisting with a culture of personal responsibility. Real initiative and a sense that something momentous is done are essential to engage students in a profound way. If only because the students feel they are engaged in a meaningful and socially important activity they really care about. [Papert, 1993]

2.1.1 Piaget's Functional Theory From the analysis above, two main characteristics seem to be beneficial in knowledge about learning. Firstly, the necessity in spending time thinking about how learning occurs and secondly, the need to do this by communicating or/and externalising one's personal insights to someone else. This implicit social extent of learning is examined in different theories of cognitive psychology and supported by social experiments. Piaget's functional theory of assimilation and adaptation can be simplified as a process of closure and openness, where both modes are affecting the way people learn. In the assimilation mode, empirical regularities are responsible for building new cognitive variances. The learner stays 'closed' to his existing perception and according to this, he is attributing meanings to new situations. The existing cognitive variances serve as the lenses through which people attribute meanings. On the other hand, in the accommodation mode people become 'open' due to the inability of existing variances to assimilate new stimuli.

Through accommodation, people 'dive into' situations. Rather than looking at them from a distance, they 'become one' with the phenomenon that captures their attention. The cost of accommodation is momentary loss of control, or disequilibrium. Although, listening to the world allows for change through adjusting one's current views in the light of perceived mismatches [Ackerman, 1996].

This interchange from diving-in and stepping-out facilitates deeper understanding and it should be adopted and applied in educational practices. Latest and most dominant psychology theories in how learning occurs are more likely to reflect and promote knowledge about learning more than current practices in the existing educational system, which has stayed unchanged for more than half a century (instructional

approach). Shedding some light on the way people perceive and attribute meanings (i.e learning) will help them to adopt practices that promote learning. This is also useful in the long term in order to deal with the demands of career development. Traditional educational practices are keen in instructing the cognitive variances and thus limiting the space for critical participation and individualism. The adopted practices are applied collectively to a group of learners with a minimal consideration in different learning styles. Sometimes such practices have even led to social segregation of learners, accompanied by attributing labels such as learning difficulties. Even more, learners that are able to follow such practices and escape from social segregation are limited by the lack of being proactive. Instead of finding the knowledge they need for themselves, they are recipients of a sterilised piece of knowledge. Such practices contradict the Piaget's cognitive model. The accommodation mode above suggests that active participation in situations enables and considers different learning styles and supports individuals with different learning styles. Learners are more in a need of a moral, psychological, material and intellectual support in their efforts. In order for these efforts to take place, there is a necessity of creating micro-worlds where learners are actively engaged and from which they construct knowledge. The MediaMOO and the collaboration of Brian and Henry are examples of such worlds. The construction of such microworlds is central in the tenet of mathetics. According to Papert the construction that takes place in the head often happens especially felicitously when it is supported by construction of a more public sort in the world- a sand castle or a cake, a Lego house or a corporation, a computer program, a poem, or a theory of the universe [Papert,1993].

2.1.2 Papert's Constructionism Papert's approach evokes constructivism whose educational use is described by Piaget's doctrine that knowledge is not a matter of a single transmission or conveyance of a ready made product to another person. Although Papert's contribution is his belief that the creation of actual artefacts, such as those mentioned above, facilitates and supports the development of cognitive variances. As a result the mental constructions become less of a purely mentalist doctrine [Papert,1993]. Papert's approach is in favour of constructing concrete knowledge without denying the contribution of abstract thinking in the formation of knowledge. He claims that practices within the educational system have set aside the importance of concrete thinking. He believes that both the standards adopted by generations of epistemologists in educational practices and the

dominant use of text-based means of learning, have resulted in promoting abstract thinking and ignoring the effectiveness of concrete thinking. He also suggests that the introduction of new media for educational purposes will be an valuable aid in the adoption of concrete thinking and also for its practical application.

The natural context for learning would be through participation in other activities. The praise of the concrete is not to be confused with a strategy of using it as a stepping-stone to abstract. The super-valuation of the abstract blocks progress in education in mutually reinforcing ways in practice and in theory. In the practice of education the emphasis on abstract-formal knowledge is a direct impediment to learning and since some children for reasons related to personality, culture, gender, and politics, are harmed more than others, it is also a source of discrimination if not downright oppression. The point of abstract thinking is to abstract a pure essential factor from the details of concrete reality [Papert,1993]. Abstract thinking has been applied successfully in situations such as the one of Sir Isaac Newton. Newton's abstraction ( in order to understand the motions of the earth and the moon around the sun) was the assumption that each body should be treated as a particle with all of its mass concentrated at one point in order to apply his equations. Many psychologists tried to create a similar science of learning without the expected success. Papert's methodology supports concrete situations and practices in the educational methods. More recently, anthropologists such as Bruno Latour suggest that the actual practice of science is quite concrete and differs from the analytical abstract mode. The latter one has been dominating educational practices and ideologies, though it has been significantly ignored in the actual practices of science. That shows and supports that non-abstract practice is a universal practice adopted by a wide range of people, from children to the most sophisticated people.

2.1.3 Social Constructionism So far I tried to discuss learning from a cognitive psychology viewpoint based on Piaget's functional theory and Papert's constructionism theory. Piaget's functional theory supports that effective learning is taking place while participating and contributing in social situations, from which the learner seeks to attribute meanings in non-assimilated stimuli. Piaget extended this observation by suggesting the notion of constructivism. In constructivism, sound knowledge can be built by the learner instead of being transmitted. Constructivism also supports the existence of a mental model which may or may not facilitate the process of learning. If the mental model is not facilitating the learning process itself, than according to Kuhn (1996) the model should

be re-adjusted. In that case 'accommodation' is employed when the learner perceives that something is wrong with the model: something does not fit (von Glaserfeld, 1995b). Each time the existing cognitive variances fail to attribute meanings in order to explain new stimuli (assimilation), the learner need to reconstruct the model by readjusting the cognitive variances (accommodation). Papert in his theory of constructionism supports that knowledge construction happens more felicitously when the learner engages with the construction of something external or at least sharable. In some cases, those shared outcomes and artifacts could be created within a community of common objectives and needs. Social relations and social activities are defined according to the identity of the community. In social constructionism, both the activities and the relations within the community are responsible for the creation of the artefacts, with which learners engage and gain knowledge. According to Vygotsky's sociocultural approach there is an inherent need to human beings about social interaction and communication in their cognitive development. The effects of social interactions lead to the creation of the artefacts which then trigger the creation of internal mental constructions. According to Papert this social context provides the material for building the cognitive variances. This association of cognitive variances with materials form the basis for the understanding of some conceptual underpinnings.

Concreteness is not a property of an object but rather a property of a person's relationship to an object. Concepts that were hopeless at one time can become concrete for us if we get in the 'right relationship' with them. It is through people's own idiosyncratically personal ways of connecting to other people that meaningful relationships are established. In a similar way, when learners are in an environment in which they construct their personal relationships with the objects of knowledge, these relationships can become deeply meaningful and profound [Wilensky, 1991].

A social setting (e.g classroom) contextualises the social relations. The classroom environment then sets the stage for sociocultural activities and processes through which, artefacts with enhanced social extent (i.e. social constructs) are developed. Some paradigms of social constructs proposed by Shaw () are: Social Relationships Social Events Shared Physical artefacts Shared social goals and projects

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Shared cultural norms and tradition

With the description of social constructionism I tried to highlight the importance of social interaction in knowledge acquisition and learning. The reason for doing this is to create a supportive theoretical framework in which effective learning could be take place within a social context, and bring this approach in the social situation of a specific educational practice. Based on the social constructs proposed in the theory of social constructionism, the following section describes techniques that reflect these constructs and can be applied in educational situations.

2.2 Techniques of Effective Learning Collaborative Learning Many educators and cognitive psychologists support techniques such as collaborative learning to provide effective learning in terms of facilitating knowledge construction. Leidner and Javernpaa (1995) suggest collaborative learning as more effective way of learning compared to individualistic instruction, in terms of improvement in motivation to learn, personal achievement and the ability to socialise more effectively. Activities such as conversation, discussion and debate promote interpretation, explanation and resolution to problems made by students. This results in knowledge construction while the student gains insight into different situations. Interactions among students within collaborative learning also entail knowledge sharing, and apart from the improved learning results there is a psychological gain in terms of achievement and satisfaction. In learning styles such as individualistic instruction, the student develops a subjective perspective of the information, which is depended on his/her personal social background. Intersubjectivity, on the other hand, is the perception that occurs as a result of a collective approach within the community. The result of the social setting in the creation of knowledge is enhanced objectivity. Hightower and Sayeed, they argue that meaning derives from the construction of shared understanding or interactive interpretation by a group of participants rather than merely from the cognition of a single individual [Chou & Chang, 2007]. The capability of the community to foster the awareness of the participants through the establishment of interpersonal relationships has been described in academia as social presence. A useful note for the purposes

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of this research is that non-interactive media are less effective than real-time interaction means of communication in terms of social presence.

2.2.1 Task Closure & Information Processing Task closure and information processing are useful to mention and consider in the development of effective techniques around collaborative learning. Task closure deals with the evaluation of the transmitted information. In order for the communication to be effective, it is necessary for the intended recipients to be present and capable to interact. Information processing is another facet to be considered in the developing of collaborative learning techniques. Media richness theory suggests, group task performance (in terms of uncertainty and ambiguity reduction) should improve provided that a fit or match between the task requirements and the media's ability to convey information is satisfied [Alavi et al, 1995].

2.2.2. Student Apprenticeship The concept of learning by doing suggests that learning should not be abstracted from real problems. Techniques such as student as apprentices reflect this idea. In this case students have to work on a realworld project driven by some expert. In that way students work on a real problem rather than an artificially constructed environment and they get to know how an experienced practitioner is dealing with his work. Collins et al (1989) extend this approach to cognitive apprenticeship to indicate the development of cognitive tasks by working with an expert. The above concept supports the active participation from a novice state of the participant as a peripheral participant to integrate gradually into the community of experts. A community could be any group with which the student can identify, even a group of academics. This process of evolvement from novice to expert is called legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and implies the role of the beginner as a gradually integrated one with the community. In order to facilitate this, academics could communicate and disseminate their research work to their students. By breaking down into smaller cognitive tasks the topic of their research, they could involve actively their students in contributing to the research. In that way, students are able to gain an insight into real research and its processes and at the same time to collaborate and participate in discussions around several topics.

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2.2.3 Peer Assessment Another technique discussed by Brookes & Indulska (1996) and Gehringer (2001) is peer assessment. In this technique students have to think of themselves as if they were the experts and provide feedback to their colleagues.

2.2.4 Active Learning Another model of learning encountered as active learning uses the concept of social constructionism to form an educational model. Active learning emphasises a cycle of starting from a desired outcome (project), planing an approach to solving the problem, applying the plan (action) and reflecting on the outcome [Bunning, 2001].

Figure 1: Active Learning Cycle

and Algorithms' )

(retrieved from

Machanick, P 'Peer Assessment for Action Learning of Data Structures

The feedback cycle emphasizes keeping the learner's experience in the loop. In attempting to learn something, the student tries to formulate a model, does something, and then thinks about what has happened. The emphasis is on the student's experience in encountering the new concept. This experience can include working with a group, or an ''expert'' (an academic or tutor) [Machanick, 2007]. From the description above, the model of active learning embraces the concept of assimilation and accommodation as this was described by Piaget's functional theory. The learner has to adjust the mental

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model either by fitting new information inside the model (assimilation) or by re-adjusting the model itself to fit new information (accommodation). The contribution of the active learning model is dual. Apart from its ability to embrace the concept of constructivism, which is related to cognition, the model also relates to practical aspects of learning, such as team-working, collaboration, equipment's use and communication. Those aspects are highlighted also in the theory of social constructionism as a significant component in the process of learning. Social constructionism approaches knowledge development as a cognitive process and at the same time highlights the importance of interaction in knowledge development. Individuals interact within the community in order to create their own personal understanding. The notion of phenomenology embraced in social constructionism suggests that learning is affected by how someone is experiencing it. The place and the context of a new fact or insight is indispensable in shaping learning. Social constructionism emphasizes the need for radical participation in the knowledge creation. Active learning promotes active participation by working on well defined projects. While working in such projects students develop practices that reflect their learning experiences. The understanding of subjective experiences is correlated and affected by the context in which those experiences are encountered. Active learning creates the social context for those subjective experiences to take place. The subjective experiences or 'phenomena' become internalised by reflecting on them [Husserl, 1971]. Reflecting on the subjective experiences leads to attribute meanings in the experiences. The meaning of the experiences is then fitted to one's mental model. In educational practices and the related educational experiences though, attributing meanings should be reflect the learning outcomes of the proposed course. In that perspective, it is critical to employ reflection methods able to quantify how subjective experiences are becoming internalised, in order to evaluate whether or not the proposed outcomes have been fulfilled. One way to do so is to promote activities that enable the externalisation of the reflection process thus to make it easier to observe, analyse and compare with the proposed learning outcome. Activities to externalise reflection and have already been discussed in the section above are:

Multiple Perspective Activities such as conversation, discussion and debate promote interpretation, explanation and resolution to problems made by students. A rich learning environment encourages multiple learning styles and multiple representations of knowledge from different conceptual and

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case perspectives [Kafai & Resnik, 1996].

Collaborative Learning promotes inter-subjectivity, the consensual meaning that occur as a result of a collective approach.

Authentic Learning where students have to work on a real-world project driven by some expert.

2.3 The role of reflection The necessity to further understand the importance of the reflection in shaping the cognitive variances is explained by Perkins in 1991. Perkins describes that prior knowledge is often based in 'misconceptions' or 'misunderstandings'. When a conflict occurs between an existing perception of a topic and a new approach on the same topic, three possible reactions could occur:

1) Ignore the conflict: Remain with the existing model 2) Conflict Faced: Readjust existing knowledge to accommodate the new piece of knowledge 3) Conflict Deferred: Adopt a new way of thinking

In the two latter cases the learners reflect on the knowledge introduced to them by trying to embrace it as their property. In those cases, the capacity to reflect is more important than the ability to remember. Ideally, the learners should be challenged by having their 'misconceptions and misunderstandings' threatened and at the same time to be supported in their process of reflection. This last section described some of the techniques that could be applied in educational contexts to reflect the idea of social constructionism. This viewpoint suggests educational environments as studentcentred, student-directed, collaborative, supported with teacher scaffolding and authentic tasks and based on ideas of situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeship, anchored instruction and cooperative learning [Karagiorgi & Simeou, 2005]. The following section discusses technologies able to facilitate the actual implementation of the above techniques.

2.4 Technologies Nowadays advances in technologies have resulted in the creation of sophisticated tools that enable the

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implementation of the social constructionism model. Hypermedia environments promote nonlinear learning and increase learner's control in receiving knowledge tailored to his own learning style. Web 2.0 applications facilitate data gathering techniques. Social-networking facilitates researching on complex information, since it is easier to find a person than to search for the information in documents. Apart from finding information in generic topics, students have the opportunity to gain insight in the underlying principles facilitated by discussion between them and the person providing the information. Classrooms that organised around activities can promote the creation of technological artefacts thus to provide students the autonomy to determine, design and manage their own activities (i.e. to develop 'agency'). Graphical programming interfaces and home electronics can be used in the creation of meaningful pieces of knowledge. Technologies such as forums, student blogs and wikis can be used to strengthen the state of knowledge both individually and collectively. Citation and credentials are some of the ways to satisfy the ego-needs of the individual members and at the same time to foster collective knowledge. This section focuses on three technologies which are already part of the curriculum in the Creative Technologies masters. These are wikis, blogs, and the IOCT MOO.

2.4.1 Wikis A wiki is a website that uses a type of collaborative software in order to promote collaboration in the creation of the web pages. Wikis are often used to power community websites and for note taking. In education, a wiki-type open architecture software can be used to promote and support collaborative learning through the use of student-created content. According to Jacobs (2003) students engage deeper with learning through the act of authoring in student-created contents, just because they are more absorbed in the construction of their writings. As it was earlier mentioned there is a trend in creating student-centred and -directed educational environments in which the role of the teacher is more a supportive one. Teachers become learning resources (Harden & Crosby, 2000). Nowadays, social networking spaces such as Facebook and MySpace promotes interaction and collaboration in a more personal style, where students share and exchange experiences and opinions. According to Illich (1970) the current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. Paradigms like the above indicate the ability of social webs to create rich and dynamic collaborative experiences, which should be also

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introduced as part of modern educational practices. This happens because of the nature of knowledge acquisition to rely on the interaction between personal experiences and socially defined knowledge structures (Wegner, 2000). Wiki as a social software tool is increasingly adopted by educators and students as a knowledge creation tool through user-created content. Students develop their own content and become keen in participating in a technologically mediated social space. This practice promotes the creation of communities of practice, in which students collaboratively develop their own meanings, interpretations and knowledge by mixing, editing and synthesising subject-specific pieces of knowledge within a shared an publicly accessible digital space. This is in line with what it was earlier described as inter-subjectivity and enhanced objectivity in the community of collaborative learning. The use of wiki fosters the sense of community and supports independent contribution. The creation of knowledge is treated as a public intellectual property of interests and learning topics. Even students who are not contribute directly in the development of the wiki, they learn just by reflecting on the ideas of their community (Beaudoin,2002). Another notable advantage of wikis, is that there is no restriction in terms of physical presence in order to participate in the development of the learning content. This raises the flexibility for students to approach and contribute in the wiki according to their own interests without being limited in terms of when and where. Despite potential problematic situations related to the accuracy of the knowledge content, recent surveys (Terdiman, 2006) showed that Wikipedia (one of the most popular wiki) is as accurate as Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikis are also vulnerable due to their openness, something that requires advanced supervision from the contributors in order to intervene and clean up unwanted postings. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds are particularly useful to reveal any change in the content of the wiki. Previous approaches in using wiki in formalised education showed that students need some guidance in order to familiarise themselves with the concept of wiki. For some students the wiki activities are a bit unstructured and the presence of guidelines is necessary to help them start. Another issue related to intellectual property is that students feel like protecting their own contributions and receiving the equivalent credits. As it was earlier mentioned in the introduction of this chapter citation and credentials are some of the ways to satisfy the ego-needs of the individual members and at the same time to strengthen collective knowledge. Some technical limitations, due to the infancy state of the present wiki software, observed in situations where two or more contributors are attempting to update the same page. This might result in loss

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of the content one of the contributors is trying to upload. Finally, Wheeler et al (2008) support the idea that part of the module assessment can be fulfilled through contributions to the wiki. This will raise awareness of the use of wiki as a meaningful and systematic tool of educational practice. Transferring some assessment activities to a shared, collaborative space such as a wiki would raise a number of issues of quality, authenticity and plagiarism. The problem of equitable marking of individual work would also require further thought, given the shared and public nature of the wiki [Wheeler et al, 2008].

2.4.2 Blogs A blog (a contraction of the term 'weblog') is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog [Wikipedia]. This section examines the use of blog as an educational tool and its role in the classroom and learning experiences. Blogs in education can be used to publish personal writings, discuss details of class assignments, peer review each other's work and collaborate on projects. A very interesting approach is the use of blogs not only from the student's side but also from the teacher's side. In that later case, the teacher acts as a facilitator and at the same time promotes reflection, participation and collaboration. In the first place, the teacher reflects on its own experiences about the classroom and secondly he comments on student's blogs. Students take turn in commenting on their teacher's views and opinions and in that way they participate in the evaluation and evolution of the class. This commentary interchange enables a collaboration spirit among the classmates.

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Figure 2: Blog related activities: (table retrieved from Educational applications of Web 2.0: Using blogs to support
teaching and learning, Daniel Churchill, 2009)

The 'Pioneering Web 2.0 in Education study' made by Daniel Churchill has revealed that blogging facilitates and contributes to student's learning. The most affective aspects that contribute to learning are accessing and reading blogs of others, receiving comments, previewing completed tasks of students and reading personal feedback. Students expressed a positive attitude while having access to different opinions and perspectives and by being able to track down the work progress of their classmates. The study shows that it is more likely for students to keep blogging when the facilitator requires it or when it is part of the assessment process. Blogs are an effective educational technology mainly because they provide a virtual space where students can create their personal virtual identity. While developing this identity, students are able to take their time in shaping their own opinion. The opportunity to access different perspectives and comment on them anytime after, increases the opportunity to develop critical thinking. The written form of blogs enables access to them after they have been published, which means that students can go back to them and think about the content at their own pace. Receiving comments made by their classmates and their facilitator improves the reflection process and helps to avoid misconceptions in the process of creating cognitive

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variances. The role of blogs in the reflection process is the capacity to publicise and externalise personal reflection. In that way, reflection associates with mutual subjectivity and enhanced objectivity.

2.4.3 IOCT MOO The IOCT MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system within the Institute of Creative Technologies to which multiple users (players) connect at the same time. MOO stands for Multi user dimension ObjectOriented. According to Curtis (1996) MOO is a network-based, object-oriented programmable, interactive system that enables the creation of text-based collaborative software in the form of low-bandwidth virtual reality. One of the most distinguishing features of a MOO is that its users can perform object oriented programming within the server, ultimately expanding and changing how the server behaves to everyone. Examples of such changes include authoring new rooms and objects, creating new generic objects for others to use, and changing the way the MOO interface operates. The programming language used for extension is the MOO programming language, and many MOOs feature convenient libraries of verbs that can be used by programmers in their coding known as Utilities. The MOO programming language is a domain specific programming language. [Wikipedia] As it was earlier mentioned in the introduction, an existing MOO application, the MediaMOO developed in the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and its contribution has been evaluated by several studies (see below). Media MOO is a "virtual reality environment designed to extend to a daily activity the type of casual collaboration that occurs at conferences" (Bruckman & Resnick, 1996). Initially it was formed to attract media researchers but participants end up representing a wide variety of disciplines. One of the main aims in the creation of MediaMOO was to promote discussions of real life and real research interests. In this virtual world, Ray Oldenburg suggests, [...] conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality. An ethnographic study made by Bruckman (1994) revealed that the MediaMOO community provides:

motivation for learning, emotional support to overcome technophobia,

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technical support, and an appreciative audience for work completed.

Regardless the technological literacy of the community users, the opportunity for extending the virtual world by creating new objects and places provided:

an opportunity for creative self-expression, a means to establish a personal identity within the community, a way for individuals to contribute something to the community, a context for social interaction, and an enhanced sense of connection to the community.

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Chapter 3: Design Specification of the Virtual Class As it was earlier mentioned the aim of the study is to provide some valuable insight in the process of learning, and how new technologies make learning more profound. More specifically the study discusses the techniques and technologies adopted in the Creative Technologies course that reflect current cognitive psychology viewpoints in how learning occurs. In regard to this, the focus of the project is to disseminate the above proposition to enrolled students in the Creative Technologies programme. Ideally, this will raise awareness within the student body about the educational value of techniques like active learning and technologies like wiki. The objective was to create a virtual (extensible) classroom, which introduces students to a series of topics that reflect the above aim. Nowadays the use of virtual classes for educational reasons is widely adopted by educational institutions and private corporations. A common software tool able to deliver, track and administer educational processes virtually is the Learning Management System (LMS). According to Wikipedia, in 2005 LMSs represented a fragmented $500 million industry. Although, Coppola & Neelley (2004) suggest that in tertiary education there is a trend in moving away from proprietary software to open source, for e-learning applications. The use of LMS indicates a technological shift in providing educational services in a more sophisticated way than traditional approaches. The need for constant changing and effective learning of new skills promotes the creation of sophisticated technological tools able to deal with the increased demands. A common feature of these tools is their concentration in promoting collaboration by incorporating technologies such as chat rooms, wikis and blogs. Another feature of the LMS is the possibility of using multimedia to provide educational content, whose educational efficiency described earlier in the Technologies section. In regard to this, the use of an LMS for the purposes of this project seemed a practical solution, also because of the opportunity to extend the class in the future. 3.1 Design Parameters Following the current trend in tertiary education, the use of an open-source LMS solution was more appealing than looking for a proprietary solution. At this point, a pilot research initiated in order to test some of the available open-source LMS against two main parameters. These parameters were the ease in developing a web-based class and the potential in extending the class in the future. The first parameter related to the ease in developing the class was set on purpose in order for me to

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reflect on the question of How web 2.0 and open-source community can facilitate my objective in designing a web-based virtual class without being an expert in languages such as html or xml. Even more, I was also thinking as a teacher who wanted to get more literate in using technology as a teaching tool. This is in line with some career aspects of mine in staying in the academia and so, one of the very personal reasons for doing this project was also to familiarise myself with modern practices in teaching methods. The potential for extending the class in the future was fundamental in the conceive of the class. The evaluation of the class in the next chapter provide details about what students thought in having a similar class in the beginning of their study in the Creative Technologies programme. A tool, which is easy to extend and update, can keep up the existence of the class with less effort. 3.2 Learning Management Systems (LMS) The three LMS chosen to be tested were Moodle, eXeLearning, edu 2.0. Of course there are more tools available on the Internet and the investigation revealed a large community of researchers providing opensource solutions for Learning Management Systems. This is quite optimistic in terms of future development of technologies that support educational practices. Another inference is that the use of LMS software in education is increasing, which means that in the following years LMS will be an inseparable part of educational processes. Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a free and open-source LMS designed to assist in the creation of online educational content with the opportunity of rich interaction. Moodle designed from Martin Dougiamas and most of the design specification is based on his PhD thesis "The use of Open Source software to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry". Its pedagogical approach then is based on social contsructionism theories. One of the main features available in the Moodle platform is the use of wikis. Students expected to contribute in the educational experience. This realisation adds validity to this project because one of the main viewpoints is that the Creative Technologies masters reflect the concept of social constructionism. The first contact with Moodle in regards to the testing parameters showed that Moodle satisfies the second parameter for future extension and provides a series of tools, which can be incorporated in the class. On the other hand, the implementation of Moodle demands installation and local server administration. This led to start considering the next one in the series of LMS. The eXeLearning is a free open-source authoring application developed to assist in the creation of

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web content without the necessity of being proficient in mark-up languages. The software is consisted of activities tailored to educational purposes. For example, the creator of the content can incorporate java applets to assist the understanding of an educational topic, wiki pages, conduct surveys and create assignments. This tool seemed to satisfy both the criteria for extensibility and ease of use. In regards to this, a pilot implementation begun in order to check the stability of the software. At some point, a technical problem occurred while trying to create a feature in which students could provide some feedback and save it for future reference and analysis. A question posted in the forum of the community asking for help in overcoming this. While waiting for some response, I started considering the last in the series of LMS. The edu 2.0 is an LMS that uses web 2.0 tools and technologies to transform education in meeting the needs for mobile learners, facilitating formal and informal learning, providing a mission-critical professional development, and creating a culture of collaboration. There are a few things grasp one's attention and create an encouraging feeling related to the usability of this software. The first observation is the 2.0 add in the name of the software. This predisposes to web 2.0, which refers to the second generation of web-development related to user-centered design, information sharing, and collaboration. Indeed, the first webpage seems so well designed that even with a quick look at it, one can get a fair amount of details related to the features available. One of the slogan one can find in the home webpage is Edu 2.0 is like a Mac,

Figure 3: edu2.0 features (retrieved from http://www.edu20.org/) 24

Moodle is like a P.C.. This is just to make the correlation that Mac are popular for their usability and not make any marketing campaign. The main advantage however is that Edu 2.0 is web-hosted, so there is no need to install the software and to have a local server administration.

3.3 Virtual Class Design Considering the implementation of a web-based virtual class using a well-designed software seemed particularly promising in fulfilling the initial requirements. The pilot implementation using edu2.0 to test some of the features revealed indeed a user-friendly environment, easy to implement and extend. After the pilot implementation, I decided to adopt edu2.0 in the development of the class. In this first implementation of the class the content will be primarily based on the secondary research made in this project (see Chapter 2). The class provides three lessons. The lessons refer to the theoretical background, the techniques and the technologies. The class uses text-based and video resources to support the aim of the study. Although this is a fairly unsophisticated use of the available features provided by edu2.0, the following section describes the design of the evaluation process of the class in order to suggest improvements. The class can be accessed in the following two ways:

1) Open the index.html file attached in the cd accompanied with this report and click on the lessons tab.
2) Follow the instructions below:

Follow this link http://www.edu20.org/

In the sign up use: user name: vassang password: 12345678 Next to the "Home" tab click the "Learn" tab Scroll down a bit and click in the "Social Constructionism in the IOCT" This is the overview. Click the "Lessons" tab and follow the lessons.

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Chapter 4: Evaluation Design In order to evaluate the usefulness of the virtual class, there is a need to design procedures for obtaining feedback from the users. In literature the process of planning, structuring and defining the investigation strategy to get answers to research questions or problems is described as research design. Research design contextualises the study by providing guidelines in order to identify: the population, the contact methods, which methods of data collection and why, administrative tasks and logistics, and ethical issues In this project the population is the students enrolled in the Creative Technologies Masters (2008/2009) in the IOCT. In the index section, there is a description of the Creative Technologies educational vision. This vision corresponds to the educational practices that reflect the theory of social constructionism. In that perspective, the creation of the virtual class seeks to promote and disseminate the above vision to the students of the Creative Technologies programme. Research design informs the process of obtaining feedback from the students in a formalised way. I am doing this by referring to the literature of current research methodologies.

4.1 Data collection methodology In regards to the methods of data collection, I used the technique of before-and-after or pre-test and post-test design. This design helps to detect potential changes in attitudes. For example I might be able to state whether the class has helped students to realise the educational usefulness of technologies such as wikis. A before-and-after design can be described as two sets of cross-sectional data collection points on the same population to find out the change in the phenomenon or variables between two points of time [Kumar,2005]. In this study, those two points in time correspond to the period before the introduction to the class and the period after students have finished the lessons provided. This technique is the most commonly used in evaluation studies. Another element needs to be defined in the process of data collection. This is related to the approach

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the researcher uses in order to gather information about a situation, person, problem or phenomenon. Data could be already available, and only subject to extract them. Sometimes data need to be collected. This classifies data in two main categories, secondary and primary data respectively. In this project, I gathered primary data in order to evaluate the usefulness of the class. There are several methods to collect primary data. Observation, interviews and questionnaires are just a few of them. In this study, I have chosen to use questionnaires for data collection, mainly due to the ease of managing and administrating them. Online survey creation tools provide the opportunity to create questionnaires quickly and easily. These tools facilitate the design of the survey, the collection of the responses and the analysis of the results. The researcher only needs to provide a link to the survey via email without any need of physical presence in order to hand out printed versions of questionnaires, gather the participants e.t.c. Online questionnaires simplify the administrative and logistics tasks, plus they provide practical tools for statistical analysis. Another important reason I used questionnaires is the anonymity they offer. Anonymity helps to increase the likelihood of obtaining accurate information. This is useful when participants are asked to evaluate the class where some comments can lead to improvements of the class. By using questionnaires I wanted to enable the participants to provide non-biased feedback. This style of feedback will help me to reflect on the effectiveness of the class and eventually try to suggest improvements.

4.2 Questionnaire Design In the design of the questionnaire both open-ended and closed-ended questions were used. The closed-ended questions were mainly used to evaluate the class. In this kind of questions, the answers are predetermined. Using a before-and-after strategy with similar questions will provide comparable data for the purposes of evaluating the class. In the post-test design, I used open-ended questions. In open-ended questions the possible responses are not given. Including open-ended questions in the post-test design enable the participants to comment on their experience using the class. These comments were used to inform the reflection on the evaluation of the class and how to improve it. I did this hoping to gain an objective approach in the process of evaluation, mainly by referring to the different approaches and viewpoints of the participants. The formulation of the questions is based on some general guidelines. The use of language is simple. Ambiguous and leading questions and questions based on presumptions have been avoided. Both pre-test

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and post-test design include questions based on selected responses. The simplest form of selected responses is those require no more than a yes/no response. Such factual questions enable the researcher to obtain personal information. In this study, the interest is to measure the extent to which participants are aware of specific educational theories and techniques, and to evaluate the usefulness of the class in raising awareness about the theories above. In the post-test design key open questions (open ended) have been included in order to trigger subjective responses.

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Chapter 5: Evaluation The following chapter includes the responses from the pre-test and post-test questionnaires. The results from this primary research are the main source of information in the evaluation of the class. The questionnaires were distributed electronically using the SurveyMonkey online survey tool. The reasons for using this software described in the previous chapter. The administration of conducting the data collection included emails and social networking tools (Facebook). Facebook was useful in order to inform the students that the questionnaires were virtually handed-out. In this post, students were asked to check their email accounts. The email list was created by referring to the IOCT Masters 08-09 Google group. Facebook was also useful in chatting to the students while online, in order to provide additional information and detailed instructions, and also for reasons of thanks to their participation. The link to the survey stayed open from Tuesday the 28th of July till Monday the 3rd of August. Thirteen (13) students were invited to participate in the research. From this group, nine (9) students responded to the pre-test questionnaire and six (6) to the post-test questionnaire. A possible explanation for this inclination might have been the fact that the first email included an attached zipped html folder of the class and some students reported that they could not open it. In response to this, a student account created (user name and password) and given to the students, so they could have access to the class online without having to download anything. A discussion of the results along with the questions is following.

5.1 Pre-Test Questionnaire Question 1.

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In this first question students were asked to confirm the activities they have been involved throughout their Creative Technology programme. Team working with 88.9% is the dominant activity over the year. Referring back to the literature it was mentioned that the use of wikis, blogs and Moo technologies support team working and promote collaborative learning. Although students considered team working as their principal activity, it can be inferred that the use of technologies such as the above was almost absent, apart from a 44.4% in using blogs. A reason for this might be the fact that the contribution in these activities was not part of the assessment processes. Referring back to the literature, just to remind that a research showed that students are more keen in participating in such activities if they are part of the assessment process. This can be further supported by the 88.9% of the team working, where working in groups was part of the assessment process in some modules.

Question 2.

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In this question students were asked to evaluate the contribution of those activities in their learning process. A 77.8% agrees that such activities were helpful in their learning process. The comments mainly refer to team working, and students realise that working as part of a group brings out new perspectives. This is in line with what it was earlier described in the literature, that collaborative learning enhances objectivity. Moreover this feedback is encouraging for the creation of the class.

Questions 3 & 4. The following two questions included in order to assess the level of importance the students attribute in the above activities. The fact that a 77.8% percent of the students spent some time before and after the activities have taken place, indicates that students take these activities as a vital part of their workload. Spending some time to prepare indicates that some ideas are formed in advance in regards to the team working task. The students are then sharing their ideas and after the activity is finished, they spent time in reflecting. This way of working reflects Piaget's functional theory. In the beginning, students attribute meanings (assimilate) thinking by themselves and then while working all together, they attribute meanings collectively (accommodation). Right after the team-working session has finished, the students spend some time in reflecting to the session and attribute meanings based on the collective approach.

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Question 5.

In this question students were asked if it is useful to explain how these activities contribute to their learning process. A 77.8% of the students thinks that it will be useful to explain the educational role of these activities. This is quite encouraging for the purposes of this project. The main aims for the creation of this class is to contextualise a series of activities and explain their educational role by referring to cognitive psychology viewpoints.

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Question 6.

The response to this question indicates the prior knowledge the students have to the theories that mainly inform this research. It is important to notice that three out of the nine participants skipped this question. In order to represent more precise the final results, the response percent should be multiplied by 0.66. In this case, the 100% of Social Construction theory means that a 66.6% percent of the students is aware of the theory. The underlying importance of this question is that if students are informed in regards to these theories, it can be assumed that it assists to value the educational role of the activities described earlier.

Question 7. In this last question students were asked their opinion in regards to whether the Creative Technologies programme uses educational practices other than the instructional approach. A 55.6% gave a negative response. That means that either the students are not informed in regards to the different educational approaches or perhaps think that they do not exist. The first case can be reflected in one of the responses in which a student replied don't know or rather, it has not been explained. This response adds validity to the creation of the virtual class with which students can contextualise the vision of the Creative Technologies programme. The second assumption (other approaches do not exist) is difficult to support, mainly due to the lack of a solid structure in the question. I could have also asked to provide a comment in case of a negative response.

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5.2 Post-test Questionnaire Note This is the questionnaire handed out after the students being introduced to the class. Question 1. In this question students asked whether the Creative Technologies programme reflects the tenets of social constructionism as these were described in one of the lessons of the class. Two out of three students responded positively. Students' comments reveal also elements of reflection, in how social constructionism assisted their learning process. A lack of structure in the question is the absence of asking students to provide feedback in case of a negative response. In that way, it is impossible to say if the problem was in the design of the virtual class to explain the correlation with the social constructionism theory or indeed the Creative Technologies programme does not reflect the tenets of the social constructionism and why.

Question 2. The following response showed that students responded negatively by 60% when asked to evaluate the use of the theoretical background (lesson no.1) in their reflection process. Again this question fails to request feedback from the students who responded negatively in order to understand why did they think this. On the other hand, a positive feedback supports that by knowing the mechanisms of learning is useful in the reflection process, as it puts in context the actual decisions made by the students.

Questions 3 & 4. The following two questions are quite positive in the evaluation of the class. All the students responded that the class explains and supports the educational use of activities like blogging and wiking. Moreover, a 83.3% agreed that the educational use of the above activities became clearer after the class. This response reflects one of the aims of this project to disseminate the educational role of the above technologies.

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Question 5. In the following question, students asked to say if a similar class would be useful in the beginning of the academic year. The response though is a bit contradicting compared to the 77.8% (Q.5) in the pre-test questionnaire stating that it would have been useful to explain the educational role of the activities that contribute to the learning process. It also contradicts the positive response of the two previous questions (Q.3 & Q.4), in which students agreed that the class provides some insight in the educational role of the proposed activities. In this last question, a 50% of the students stated that it is not useful to have a class like that in the beginning of the year. It would have been useful to include the comment option in the question, asking the reasons why the students believe it would not be helpful.

Question 6. In this question students were asked to think of their experiences during the year and say if they match the social constructionism techniques as those described in the virtual class. The purpose of this question is to quantify whether the virtual class assists students in the contextualisation of the activities. Half of the students agreed that social constructionism techniques were part of the course. A feedback section should have been included in order to infer the reasons.

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Question 7 & 8. In the following two questions, students were asked to provide a general characteristic of the class, suggest improvements, make comments and criticise. Students thought of the class mainly as informative, which makes sense due to the dominance of text-based means throughout the lessons. A useful suggestion is to contextualise the proposed theories and techniques by matching experiences the students have undergone in their studies. The use of video gained a positive feedback. Another student suggested that an interactive environment would have been more useful. The rather text-based style attributes a paper-style character to the class. An improvement is to include interactive Java applets that explain some of the concepts. In fact, this was initially considered but difficulties in finding the source code to embed, led to postpone this implementation. The educational role of multimedia was also supported in the literature.

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Chapter 6: Conclusions This project suggested educational practices based in the concept of social constructionism by bringing together research related to cognitive psychology, educational techniques and educational technologies. The creation of a virtual class was targeted to the students of the Creative Technologies masters after the observation that the course reflects the tenets of social constructionism. In that perspective the class was aiming to promote and explain the concept of social constructionism in order for the students to benefit as much as possible from their studies in the Creative Technologies course and develop the skills necessary in the world of modern economies.

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The evaluation of the class revealed some interesting views related to the use of available technologies. More specifically the use of technologies like wikis is very limited. Even if the technologies are already implemented they do not used from the students. Also, students found the class helpful in explaining the educational role of those technologies and maybe this will prompt them to get involved more actively in the future in similar situations. The development of the class is very basic as it mainly uses text-based sources. Some students noticed that the text was complicated to get the meaning of the concept. In regards to this the class need to include interactive elements and use examples in order to disseminate more effectively its concepts. The textbased nature might have undermined partially the aim of the project. The evaluation design was quite useful in providing different viewpoints before and after the class. In fact, elements of the questionnaires provided some validity for the development of the class. The main disadvantage though was the absence of asking for a feedback in the case of negative responses, something that will be considered in future developments. Personally speaking, this project provided me the opportunity to reflect on my educational experiences this year. Some uncertainties related to some tasks have been now contextualised and appreciated. Moreover, as it was earlier mentioned, I wanted to have a more detailed opinion about education in general, cause a possible career of mine might be within the academia where teaching might be one of the job tasks. In this case I wanted to familiarise myself with current developments in educational technologies and gain an insight in the educational research, something which I will continue to follow in my leisure in the following years.

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References
Ackermann, E (1996) 'Perspective-Taking and Object Construction: Two keys to Learning', Constructionism In Practice, Y.Kafai & M.Resnick, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Bruckman, A & Resnick, M (1996) 'The MediaMOO Project: Constructionism and Professional Community', Constructionism In Practice, Y.Kafai & M.Resnick, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Chou, S & Chang, Y (2007) 'The impact of media on collaborative learning in virtual settings: social construction and social presence perspectives', International DSI
Harden, R. M. & Crosby, J. R. (2000). The good teacher is more than a lecturer: the twelve roles of the teacher. Medical Teacher, 22, 334347.

Jacobs, J. (2003). Communication over exposure: the rise of blogs as a product of cybervoyeur ism. Cited in J. B.
Williams and J. Jacobs (2004), Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 20, 232247.

Karagiorgi, Y., & Symeou, L. (2005). Translating Constructivism into Instructional Design: Potential and Limitations. Educational Technology & Society, 8 (1), 17-27. Kumar, R (2005) Research Methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. London: Sage Publications Ltd Machanick, P (2007) 'A Social Construction Approach to Computer Science Education', Computer Science Education Vol 17, No.1, pp 1-20 Machanick, P 'Peer Assessment for Action Learning of Data Structures and Algorithms' Papert, S (1993) Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Idea. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Books Papert, S (1993) The Children's Machine: Rethinking School In the Age of Computer. New York: Basic Books Scardamalia, M & Bereiter, B 'Pedagogical Biases in Educational Technologies', Educational Technology Shaw, A (1996) 'Social Constructionism and the Inner City: Designing Environments for Social Development and Urban Renewal', Constructionism In Practice, Y.Kafai & M.Resnick, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Vygotsky, L (1986) Thought & Language. London: The MIT Press Weeler, S., Yeomans, P., Wheeler, D. (2008) 'The good, the bad, and the wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning' , British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 39 No 6 2008 987995
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Index The Institute of Creative Technologies (IOCT) The Institute undertakes research work in emerging areas at the intersection of e-Science, the Digital Arts, and the Humanities. A network of research centres across the university and the main laboratory are providing the infrastructure for students to move in and access a range of facilities including state of the art technologies, labs and communicate with academic researchers. The IOCT houses a number of key projects, all of which cross the traditional disciplines and a cohort of research student working in a variety of fields. The IOCT aims to pioneer national and international research into creative technologies using three methods central to its ethos; collaboration and cooperation, creativity and innovation and trans/inter/multi discilplinarity. The Institute supports activities including showcase events, lectures, seminar, performances (music,dance,readings), workshops, broadcasts and exhibitions.

Masters in Creative Technologies The IOCT MA/MSc in Creative Technologies is placed at the intersection of three faculties: Art & Design, Computing Sciences and Engineering, and Humanities. The Creative Technologies Masters brings together eScience, the Digital Arts and Design and Humanities in a way that will cross traditional disciplines and boundaries, encouraging innovation and developing new models of collaboration in eScience and digital arts research. The central vision of the IOCT Masters, therefore, is one of convergence and trans/inter/multidisciplinarity, enabled by the new technologies. Throughout the year students receive one-to-one tutorial support, participate in lectures, seminars, workshops and other practical sessions and, in some modules online learning. Students also have the opportunity to create collaborative projects. The course encourages reflection on creative technologies and practical expertise through offering a range of project-based modules.

Master's Aims to develop and enhance personal creativity and innovation

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to provide a prestigious addition to career portfolios in eScience, the digital arts and the humanities bringing together disciplines to make new and exciting breakthroughs

to open up new opportunities for existing creative practitioners, offering them opportunities to work together in emerging areas at the intersection eScience, the Digital Arts and Design and Humanities

Learning Outcomes 4) Show critical awareness of the nature of creative technologies 5) Demonstrate appropriate analytical, critical and discursive skills 6) Gather, analyse and interpret information from a wide range of sources to inform creative and critical practice 7) Demonstrate originality in the application of knowledge in creative technologies to critical and creative practice 8) Be critically self-reflective 9) Demonstrate an ability to cooperate and collaborate across traditional areas of study 10) Demonstrate self-direction, independent learning and originality in solving creative problems

Teaching and Learning Strategies The teaching, learning and assessment strategies in the Masters in Creative Technologies seek to promote active, participatory, reflective and independent learning. They are designed to: enable students to identify, share and then build on existing knowledge and experience challenge students to critically examine their own creative values and practices in constructive, creative environment Assessed work on the Masters in Creative Technologies aims:
to be an integral part of the learning process for students to confirm and develop their knowledge and practice

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