信息技术的作用发生了吗——用学习分析技术刻画学习行为印记

Does ICT Work:Create Behavioral Profile with Learning Analytics

信息技术不断融入教育的进程中,关于"技术是否促进学习"的争论始终困扰着人们。研究者试图刻画学习者的学习画像,给予学习者一个客观的评价。然而早期受限于技术条件,只能从最终的节点处窥探学习者学习的结果,并不能完整地呈现学习的全貌。而学习是一个不断获取认知的过程,认知的转变涉及的要素远远不是一个固化的分数所能解释的。因而人们开始寻求更为全面的证据来解释学习者的学习。学习行为印记是能够反映学习者学习过程、具备内在关联和逻辑的数据集。相较于零碎的节点数据,利用信息技术捕获相应的学习行为印记,可以更全面地评估学习,更客观而长远地回答"信息技术的作用发生了吗"这样的诘问。"微视频"的两个教学试验也证明,学习分析技术可以多维度地捕获与量化学习过程数据,刻画学习者的学习行为印记,促进学习者概念转变以及学业成就提升。同时,探究学习行为印记与学业表现之间的逻辑关联,有助于客观地评估信息技术作用于教学的效果。

The impact of ICT in education is controversial.While there are evidences of ICT in supporting teaching and learning,there are on the other hand opposite finding showing different stories.It raises questions deserving further investigation,within which is how to assess the impact of ICT from a more appropriate and broader way.This paper tries to create a behavioral profile for students with the technology of learning analytics,to draw a more comprehensive picture of student learning behavior.With this profile,the question of ＂does ICT work＂ can be answered in a more comprehensive and thorough way.Firstly,literature of indicators of ICT impact in education was reviewed,resulted with a framework of indicators targeted to the learning behavior in a blended learning environment.Then,two research cases were analyzed to showcase the method of using this framework from a particular perspective,to capture the learning behaviors with the technology of learning analytics,from the perspectives of learning of ＂concept change＂ and ＂engagement of learning＂.The findings of these two cases that can be interpreted with the framework were also briefly introduced,that is,the technology used in these two cases was working by affecting the learning engagement of the students,and therefore to affect the final learning results.This paper concludes with the suggestion that the study of ICT impact should be focused on looking for the appropriate learning behaviors that can indicate how ICT works or not,and then provide better learning design based on the findings.