6533b871fe1ef96bd12d2598

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Time and the Design of Web-Based Learning Environments

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Introduction Design can be seen as a form of creation, which involves complexity and synthesis (Goel & Pirolli, 1992; Schon, 1987). In a broad sense, anyone who designs is a designer. This means that unlike analysts or critics, designers put elements together and bring new creations into being. In so doing they deal with many variables and constraints, some initially known and some discovered through the design process (Etelapelto, 1998). According to Burgoon, Buller, and Woodall (1996), it is typically human to affect and change one's environment. However humans are affected by their physical surroundings as well. Schon (1987) perceives all human constructive and creative activity as design; artists are clearly designers since they make things, songs, paintings and so on. Thus, design can be seen as a cognitive process characteristic of all humans, as noted in general and cognitive psychology (Goel & Pirolli, 1992; Miller, Galanter & Pribram, 1960). The products of this cognitive process are internal and external representations of how things could be put together. From another point of view (Leppala, Kerttula, & Tuikka, 2003), design is a goal-oriented process, which aims to produce a new technical artifact--a product to be manufactured by industrial methods and on an industrial scale. In this paper we consider that product as a web-based learning environment. We classify the designer of the web-based learning environment as follows: a designer is a person who is actively involved in the design process, plans how the environment is going to be used, affects and can change the environment via design. The design of a web-based learning environment, e.g. for distance education purpose includes (Manninen & Pesonen, 1997) consideration of different learning systems platforms, learning conceptions, didactical ap proaches, special features of the target group (age, education etc.), special features of the web environment used (internet, intranet etc.), content and general focus of education. The design of a web-based learning environment in general starts first with the specification of purpose and definition of the features of the target group. If possible, it is important in design to take into account the planned users' backgrounds, aims, learning skills and conceivable problems in learning. When the aims are defined, it is time to examine the focus of education and find the relevant content to append. In this paper we are interested in the time aspect of information, what is needed in the design and also the time aspect of what is used in learning. The time aspect of information is a part of that information which the designers use as a baseline in design. The time aspect of what is used in learning is a part of information that the learner uses when working with the learning environment. We separate that information into the cognitive content of the student and the learning content of the environment, thus what is represented as content in the learning environment. The underlying thought is if designers design products from a certain baseline, will the baseline affect the learning content and use. We consider in this paper mainly the time aspect of information in the designers' work. For a start, the terms information, learning and their time aspects are briefly described. Then the on-going research with designers and partial results are explained as a base for our hypothetical proposal of tools for designers' work. We end this paper with a discussion and future remarks by highlighting the main points. Information and Learning We start first with an examination of the term information from the area of information technology, especially in the area of information systems, because the term information has been the main denominator in that field and the term is frequently discussed technically and philosophically (Boland, 1987; Capurro, 1996; Capurro, & Hjorland, 2003; Mingers, 1995). …