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You
are here: Learning by Design:
Integrating Technology into the Curriculum
Through Student Multimedia Design Projects
by Ted M. Kahn, Ph.D. and Linda K. Taber Ullah, M. Ed.
Consuming culture is never as rewarding as producing it. – Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi, Creativity
Computers, telecommunications, and multimedia can be powerful tools for enriching student learning. They are also an essential part of preparing students for a world characterized by knowledge, work, global communications, and continuous learning and change. But in order for technology to be effective in today's education system, it needs to be intelligently integrated into a rich, meaning-centered curriculum. Accomplishing this goal requires designing new kinds of creative learning environments involving the collaboration of all the stakeholders in educational reform -- teachers, students, administrators, parents, researchers, the business community, curriculum specialists, and technology developers.
Student design projects are effective frameworks for integrating technology into the curriculum. Design projects often require effective use of multiple intelligences, develop students' higher-order thinking and problem solving skills, sensitize students to creating a product for use by a real client or user audience, and enable diverse forms of collaborative learning in engaging some students whose talents or knowledge are often not recognized in more traditional classroom environments.
Design projects also encourage making connections across curriculum areas. For example, in the Institute for Research on Learning's (IRL) Middle School Mathematics through Applications Project (MMAP), students use computer simulation and tools to design dream homes, develop various research stations for scientists living in Antarctica, develop encryption and decoding systems for secret messages, or model population growth of animal species within different ecological systems or habitats.
Rick Berg and Shelley Goldman from IRL recently summarized why effective mathematics learning opportunities emerge from a design context:
Design is reflexive: Each new change or addition to a design opens up more opportunities for student participation, feedback, and discussion.
Design requires multiple representations: MMAP design projects involve mathematical, graphic, and verbal representations, as well as extensive social discussions.
Design requires tools: Students seek out technology and tools to help them with their designs. Thus, technology is not an add-on, but an inherent requirement for accomplishing their design goals. In the Multimedia Makers project, we have recently extended this design framework into using technology to support students' collaborative design of their own educational multimedia content. We believe that the greatest learning involving multimedia actually occurs when students create their own multimedia products -- that is, the learning is in the making. Multimedia Makers is a collaboration between IRL, the Broad Alliance for Multimedia Technology and Applications (BAMTA) -- a global public- private alliance formed to accelerate development of networked multimedia technologies and applications -- and eight initial K-12 schools in California. Multimedia Makers is using the schools' connections to the Internet (supported partially by Pacific Bell's California Research and Education Network Trust [CalREN] ), to create a virtual educational multimedia design studio among participating schools.
Two of these schools, Edenvale and Frost Elementary Schools in the Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California, began their virtual collaboration based on a local project that integrates history and social studies with other disciplines through a carefully planned thematic curriculum. Edenvale Productions had been created as a student multimedia design company structure within Edenvale School to enable students to collaborate and assess their projects as in real world product design.
Students have produced a variety of important products using available technology. Leveraging their past experience in producing the first written history of their local community in south San Jose, Edenvale and Frost students began to collaborate in finding ways to integrate science and math concepts with local history. The project that emerged was to trace how "high technology" emerged as a major industry from what used to be a highly agricultural region in Silicon Valley.
Seven project teams were formed. Projects included integration of the ArchiTech™ design software from IRL's MMAP project to design, cost out, and build a model of a local mansion; use of HyperStudio™ (Roger Wagner Productions) and Avid VideoShop (Strata) to create interactive multimedia and video presentations on the changes in ecology and technology since the area was first settled; the mathematical concepts employed by the American Indians; and the development of the computer in Silicon Valley.
IRL designs and uses technology in schools/ workplaces, informal settings -- and for our own research. We believe that technology
- is not a panacea for restructuring and is no substitute for creating a true learning environment
- is more than computers
- should be co-designed with real users and integral to their learning, teaching, and work practices -- not just an add-on
- should provide true access to knowledge-making resources and practices of diverse communities -- not just connectivity
- should support diverse modes of communication and collaboration - - not just enriched information delivery
- should enable "learning on demand," as well as reflection and changes in practice -- not just direct instruction
- should provide authentic enjoyment in learning through extended inquiry and social engagement with real problem situations -- not just fun or "edutainment"
- should support individual and group participation in the growth and interaction of lifelong learning communities
About the Authors
Dr. Ted Kahn is a Learning Technologies Strategist and a senior member of the research staff at the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) in Menlo Park, California. He has been actively involved in using technology for enhancing creative learning in schools, homes, corporations, and museums for more than 25 years.
Linda Taber Ullah has been a teacher in the Oak Grove School District in San Jose for many years. As a resource teacher and director of the gifted and talented program at Edenvale Elementary School, Linda has pioneered integrating technology with thematic learning in several interdisciplinary projects.
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