A New Technology-First Framework for the Future Design of Online Learning

The advent of online technologies such as the World Wide Web has undoubtedly created an increase in the use of distance education as a mechanism for instruction (Dunn, 2000). However, as a field, distance education has yet to find a framework or model that truly takes advantage of the unique capabilities of online technology. Rather, most online courses seem designed to use the technology in ways that are a compendium of existing mediums of video, audio, and text used to recreate the face-to-face classroom (Bernard, Rojo de Rubalcava, & St. Pierre, 2000).

This approach brings with it a certain bias to the design. Most, if not all, online courses appear to employ a classroom motif (Hopper, 2001), with tools, activities, and assessments being online adaptations of face-to-face methodologies. While some of these adaptations are strikingly creative and ingenious, they still fail to take advantage of what makes online technologies such as the World Wide Web unique, which is that these technologies allow for distributed knowledge creation and building.

Perhaps the main reason that this power is untapped in online education is that the developers of online courses do not have a design framework that fully blends technological capabilities with pedagogical methods (Hopper, 2001). However, this may be due to the fact that rather than defining the field of instructional technology by its tools (hardware and software), the field stresses the systematic process and learning theories and strategies as the basis for practice (Ely, 1999). Unfortunately, this leads to designs that are perhaps not as well suited for the online environment as they are for the face-to-face classroom.

While many may argue whether it is a wise approach, in practice the technology shapes the instructional design of any online course. Why then do instructional technologists want to insist on treating the technology as a choice within the systematic design process? The technology should be the starting point of the process, and guide the devising of learning strategies and approaches.

This article will make the case that combining the ideas of distributed learning and a technology-first philosophy for instructional design could produce a new framework that would allow for designing online learning that begins with the nature of the technology as its central assumption. Such a framework would allow designers to break from the limits of the present framework to fully realize the potential of online technologies.

At present, the framework driving online learning design is the virtual classroom. In this framework, the online course environment is meant to mimic the methodologies of face-to-face courses. There are online syllabi, which link to canned video lectures and/or presentations that are meant to approximate the experience of sitting in the class. Class discussions are moved to asynchronous bulletin boards or synchronous chats, which use text-based postings to try to replicate the give-and-take of students and professors talking about a topic or question. These courses often use server-based software that provides tools for all these components in a single online environment.

Examination of the software tools available for online learning shows that current tools are designed to support the virtual classroom framework for online learning (Harvey & Lee, 2001). In fact, Neal (1999) states that those who champion online learning often point out that the technology “replicate(s) the classroom experience.” The primary source of this belief is the ability to conduct online “discussions” amongst asynchronous groups of students. However, this ability to communicate, in and of itself, is not enough to guarantee learning will take place.

For example, asynchronous or synchronous discussions, in their current form as text-based postings, do not appear truly to be discussions as much as they are individual statements (Harvey & Lee, 2001). This leads to the conclusion that the current assumption that the traditional classroom is the most appropriate structure for designing online learning is suspect. One reason for that conclusion is that if the basis for learning in a classroom is indeed effective communication and discussion, then the ways we are presently using online technologies do not appear capable of providing that basis.

Hopper (2001) takes a similar view of what he terms online classrooms, holding that they lack the ability to exact the same kinds of learning as face-to-face classrooms. Hopper argues that the answer to improving the quality of online courses is to create an “authentic online pedagogy.” This argument echoes the conclusion of Dede (1997) that there is a need for alternative design models that take advantage of the innovative capabilities of emerging technologies.

In fact, Dede’s (1996a) definition of distributed learning is an excellent basis for such a model. He suggests that new distributed technologies are reshaping the way we should think about media-delivered instruction. Specifically, he argues that online technologies allow for new ways of representing knowledge for the learner. Perhaps most foretelling was his comment that designers “miss the true innovation” of a technology when they concentrate on using past forms and models in utilizing the new technologies.

Seeking out a new framework is more than just revising our present methods and practices of online course design and development. Current designs merely seek to perpetuate the prevalent framework, while true change requires taking different assumptions concerning instruction and learning and technology. To break free from the old assumptions means looking at the entire premise of existent designs from a new vantage point.

In the case of online learning, Dede (1996b) has held that distributed learning fosters a different perspective on the nature of distance education that requires us to revisit the premises of our instructional designs. Distributed learning provides the best start to developing a new framework for online learning because the World Wide Web, the primary technology used for online learning, was designed specifically to be distributed in nature and structure (Berners-Lee, 2000).

The first step in developing this new framework is to determine the exact meaning of the distributed nature of online technologies. Dede (1996a) uses the term “distributed learning” to connote a distinctive form of distance learning in which learners share in the same virtual experiences via technology. Dede is speaking of situations in which the participants, who are separated from one another in both time and space, communicate by sharing personal representations of the virtual experience in which they are involved. They are provided with learning opportunities via distribution of content by the available media; hence, the term “distributed learning” is reflective both of the learners (distributed across time and space) as well as the technology itself (distributes the experience to the learners).

Using this particular view of online learning, it is possible to see how technologies such as the World Wide Web are distributed in nature. The World Wide Web is filled with not just academics posting their ideas, but persons from all walks of life expressing their personal representations of a given topic or idea. Knowledge on all manner of topics is not housed within a small number of people congregated at a physical space such as a classroom—it is openly and freely distributed across the World Wide Web amongst thousands of personal representations communicated via web pages.

This openness is directly linked to the distributed nature of the technology itself. Not only can users utilize the networked connections between computers to find knowledge, they actually can represent their own knowledge and debate different representations using the same system. This is the power of online technologies: they allow dispersion of knowledge across a wide audience, distribution of personal representations of that knowledge, and a democratic discussion of those representations.

One implication of this distributed nature for designing online learning is that perhaps there needs to be a distribution of the control of the learning space itself. Learners would have a great deal more control over not simply what content they viewed at a given point, but the authority and responsibility for how the course operated would be distributed across those students as well (Dede, 1996b). This is not a new idea: others have reiterated this point as part of the constructivist movement in instructional design circles for several years.

Dede (1996a) notes that distributed learning would still necessitate that someone, usually the instructor, would facilitate the discussions and direction of the course to make the interactions amongst people into an educational experience. However, without working from a framework that embraces this distributed aspect of the technology, then the likelihood is that designers will fall back on more established understandings of the technology as a delivery medium and of instructor-controlled environments as the optimal design. Instructors in such courses control the learning space much as they do in face-to-face classrooms. Certainly, the developers of online courseware tools have used the instructor-controlled modality in the structures of their products.

Distributed learning holds promise as the building block of a new framework that would be an alternative to the instructor-controlled virtual classroom. Conceptually, it is in synergy with the nature of online technologies, and provides a theoretical basis for merging that technology within the contexts of learning and instruction in innovative ways. Yet it is unlikely that distributed learning can overcome the design bias of the courseware tools and developers towards the virtual classroom mentality without a significant shift in perspective amongst those who design online courses. To do this, it is necessary to change the prevailing viewpoint from that of technology serving the design to technology being the starting point for the design.

Ely (1999) notes that the majority of those outside the field of instructional technology and design see the technology—that is, the machines and technical systems, as the defining aspect of the field and its members. Building upon Ely’s point, perhaps a philosophical view of the field rooted in the capabilities of the technology (meaning equipment, not processes) is more appropriate to defining the approach of designers as they devise online courses. While not abandoning the need for basing design decisions in solid theory and research, such a view would mean assessing and interpreting the ideas derived from learning research as we seek to apply them to online learning.

This has tremendous ramifications for how designers approach online learning. Currently, the field of instructional design views technology as tools for achieving various instructional designs. The models used to design online learning often flow from this traditional view. However, those models have been created with the effectiveness of the face-to-face classroom as the primary assumption and, therefore, are unable to take full advantage of the potential for online technologies to distribute knowledge and control as opposed to being mere media delivery mechanisms. This is because traditional approaches to instruction do not see the need for distribution of knowledge and so take a narrow view of the capabilities of online technologies.

Yet, if designers started with the assumption that technology drives the design, it would be possible to conceive of a very different model. The abilities of the technologies would come first and foremost as the basis for the environment in which learning will take place. Rather than seeking to transform the technology into what we need to implement our designs, we instead design for the technology. A different perspective is gained on the theories and practices that underlie the design when technology is seen as defining the environment for learning. This unique perspective in turn permits designers to devise new and powerful ways that may help promote models for online learning that are very different from the virtual classroom model.

This point of view flies in the face of the traditional systems approach (Schieman & Jones, 1996), but is precisely what is needed: a non-traditional perspective that does not merely revise conventional assumptions but replaces them. Models derived from this perspective might incorporate several philosophical and theoretical strands in concert with the technology’s capabilities to achieve the authentic online pedagogy called for by Hopper (2001).

The primary assumption of the proposed technology-first framework is that every person involved in the online course has a valid and somewhat unique knowledge base. Therefore, a designer would seek not to transmit information but to devise ways to share each of these knowledge bases in search of learner understanding. By not just acknowledging or incorporating the various views of students, but by making those the very foundation of the course, a unique approach to online learning emerges.

Put simply, the learners, not an instructor, would be able to exert control over the course content. Learners would provide their personal experiences and knowledge and, most importantly, their interpretations of this knowledge, to the benefit of the rest of the members of the course. Instructors would then be members of the course community alongside the learners, as opposed to leading the course in a hierarchical manner. This technology-first model is much more capable of utilizing the distributed nature of online technology and makes possible a much different format for learning than a virtual classroom.

The model described in this article is clearly not in keeping with either the notion of proper instructional design, nor does it concur with the standard online course designs or development tools currently in use. Yet, if online learning developers do not allow for new perspectives, the field will never see growth beyond the virtual classroom mentality.

Therefore, the article concludes with an admonition for those who are designers of online learning to be critical of the tools that seem to promote virtual classrooms, and try to conceive of novel approaches to how online learning should be structured. Perhaps thinking of the technology first might provide an innovative and novel approach not previously considered.