Educational technology's metaphors

This article starts from an assumption that the essence of technology is a realm of discovery. Within this realm, humanity and the tools of technology are engaged in a dialogue. The author challenges the objectivism of technical rationality which fragments this dialogue and replaces people's creativity with rigorous, but often useless, propositions. It suggests that, at least in the field of education, it is time to break away from technical rationality and its accompanying focus on mastery of information.
The author looks at some of educational technology's metaphors and discusses how they reflect determinism and consumerism. She explores an alternative approach, the musical metaphor (Hlynka & Nelson, 1986), which encourages both rigour and creativity. She concludes with an appeal to researchers in the field of educational technology to grapple with new metaphors to help us cope with the exponential growth of information. She further suggests that educational technology need not be limited by the legacy of positivism, but can ally itself with communications technologies and the fine arts.     

Student peer review: enhancing formative feedback with a rebuttal

This study examines the use of peer review in an undergraduate ecology programme, in which students write a research proposal as a grant application, prior to carrying out the research project. Using a theoretical feedback model, we compared teacher and student peer reviews in a double blind exercise, and show how students responded to feedback given by each group. In addition, students wrote a rebuttal for every feedback point before re-drafting and submission. Despite students claiming they could tell if the reviewer was a teacher or student, this was not always the case, and both student and teacher feedback was accepted on merit. Analysis of feedback types and rebuttal actions showed similar patterns between students and teachers. Where teachers differed slightly was in the use of questions and giving direction. Interviews with students showed the rebuttal was a novel experience, because it required a consideration of each comment and justification as to why it was accepted, partially accepted or rejected. Being a reviewer helped students to learn about their own work, and it changed the way they understood the scientific literature. In addition, some students transferred their new peer review skills to help others outside of the ecology programme.     

A Web adaptive educational system for people with hearing difficulties

In this paper we present a web adaptive educational tool for the Greek Sign Language. The design and the implementation of the tool were partially funded by national bodies. The paper presents the architecture of the tool, in an abstract way and briefly describes its functionality. The interaction process followed is also presented.     

Editorial

In this article the authors explore a language and literacy community mapping project carried out by public school teachers in southern California. They chronicle the knowledge produced by teachers about the depth and diversity of language and literacy resources present in the neighborhoods surrounding their various urban school sites.