Archive for July 24th, 1996

24 Jul

The Role of Student Tasks in Accessing Cognitive Media Types

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Education. Tagged: , , .

We believe that identifying media by their cognitive roles (e.g., definition, explanation, pseudo-code, visualization) can improve comprehension and usability in hypermedia systems designed for learning. We refer to media links organized around their cognitive role as cognitive media types (Recker, Ram, Shikano, Li, & Stasko, 1995). Our hypothesis is that the goals that students bring to the learning task will affect how they will use the hypermedia support system (Ram & Leake, 1995).

We explored student use of a hypermedia system based on cognitive media types where students performed different orienting tasks: undirected, browsing in order to answer specific questions, problem-solving, and problem-solving with prompted self-explanations. We found significant differences in use behavior between problem-solving and browsing students, though no learning differences.

Read the paper:

The Role of Student Tasks in Accessing Cognitive Media Types

by Mike Byrne, Mark Guzdial, Preetha Ram, Rich Catrambone, Ashwin Ram, John Stasko, Gordon Shippey, Florian Albrecht

Second International Conference on the Learning Sciences (ICLS-96), Evanson, IL, July 1996
www.cc.gatech.edu/faculty/ashwin/papers/er-96-03.pdf

24 Jul

Exploring Interface Options in Multimedia Educational Environments

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Education. Tagged: , .

Multimedia technology presents several options to the developers of computer-based learning environments. For instance, it is common to organize information by its physical characteristics. However, organizize information based on how users understand the material might improve comprehension. This theory of cognitive media – media organized by cognitive characteristics – was examined in studies using the AlgoNet system, a multimedia learning environment (Recker, Ram, Shikano, Li, & Stasko, 1995). To explore several interface options, AlgoNet2, a second version of AlgoNet, was created with the same domain information, but several new interface concepts. Students in an introductory programming class used AlgoNet2 to solve a problem involving graph theory. Students’ performance and comments suggest that many students lack effective learning strategies and those that do employ effective learning strategies are unaware of them.

Read the paper:

Exploring Interface Options in Multimedia Educational Environments

by Gordon Shippey, Ashwin Ram, Florian Albrecht, Janis Roberts, Mark Guzdial, Rich Catrambone, Mike Byrne, John Stasko

Second International Conference on the Learning Sciences (ICLS-96), Evanson, IL, July 1996
www.cc.gatech.edu/faculty/ashwin/papers/er-96-02.pdf