Comparing Simple and Advanced Video Tools as Supports for Complex Collaborative Design Processes

Working with digital video technologies, particularly advanced video tools with editing capabilities, offers new prospects for meaningful learning through design. However, it is also possible that the additional complexity of such tools does not advance learning. We compared in an experiment the design processes and learning outcomes of 24 collaborating participant pairs (dyads) using 2 contrasting types of video tools for history learning. The advanced video tool WebDIVER supported segmenting, editing, and annotating capabilities. In the contrasting condition, students used a simple video playback tool with a word processor to perform the same design task. Results indicated that the advanced video editing tool was more effective in relation to (a) fostering student understanding of the topic and acquisition of cognitive skills, (b) the quality of student design products, and (c) the efficiency of dyad interactions. The implication of our experimental findings for constructivist design-based learning is that mediating functions of video tools may be used as cognitive and social supports, for example when students learn by solving design tasks in school.     

Workshop for Graduate Teaching Assistants

There are limited studies with conflicting results examining textbook use and student performance at the university level. To learn more, we surveyed instructors and over one thousand students in 12 undergraduate introductory science courses. The majority (77%) of the students reported reading the textbook either “often” (>75% of the assigned reading) or “sometimes” (25%–75% of the assigned reading). Those who read “often” had better final marks those who read “sometimes,” but surprisingly, those who reported “rarely” reading the textbook did as well as those who read “often.” Perceptions of the usefulness of the textbook were generally more favorable in courses in which some marks were based solely on the readings. We conclude that there appears to be different types of learners: some may need to read the textbook “often” to do well, while others do not.     

General Works on Mass Communications

Russel B. Nye's The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (Dial Press, $12.50)

Otto Friedrich's Decline and Fall (Harpor & Row, $10.00)

“The Sociology of Mass Media Communicators,” The Sociological Review Monograph No. 13 (University of Keele, Staffordshire, England, January 1969, $4.60 including air mail costs)

Audio Visual Marketplace: A Multimedia Guide (Bowker, $12.25)

Jerry Della Femina's From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor (Simon and Schuster, $6.50)     

Evoking Knowledge and Information Awareness for Enhancing Computer-Supported Collaborative Problem Solving

Computer-supported collaboration by spatially distributed group members still involves interaction problems within the group. This article presents an empirical study investigating the question of whether computer-supported collaborative problem solving by spatially distributed group members can be fostered by evoking knowledge and information awareness, i.e., awareness of a group member with regard to both their fellow collaborators’ domain knowledge and information underlying this knowledge. The study (N = 30 triads) confirmed the efficiency of this approach by comparing (a) an experimental condition in which an environment for fostering knowledge and information awareness was provided and (b) a control condition without such an environment, with regard to communication and cooperation aspects, the quality of the group maps (needed for solving the problems), and the problem-solving performance.     

‘EDUCATION AFTER AUSCHWITZ”— PERSPECTIVES FROM GERMANY

This article reports on questions of “education after Auschwitz” in Germany. It focuses on the open questions that addressing the Shoah in education raises—vis‐a‐vis the sequence of generations after 1945, political issues, moral philosophy, and Christian‐Jewish relationships. The point is not to spread skepticism or to discourage educators, but to point out the challenges which an “education after Auschwitz” must address.