Yes, this post has been rather a long time in coming but I’ve been up to my eyeballs in wee, poo and sick. No, I haven’t been on one of my fabled benders, I have in fact become a father. My son Noah James was born on Tuesday 25th January weighing in at 3.8kg (that’s 8lb 6oz in old money).

So, interactivity. Is it a useful notion for elearning?

I read three papers that examined the role that interactivity plays in learning.

Yacci (2000) aimed ‘to provide a structural definition of interactivity’ (p6) and based his analysis on models of communication and the area of information theory. He posited that interactivity should be viewed as a message loop from one entity to another and then back to the originating entity, ‘similar to the way electrical current must make a complete circuit’ (p7). His model appeared to be student centred in that it stated that the initiation and closing of the message loop should always be viewed from the perspective of the student (see image below).

Yacci's Interactive Message Loop

Yacci stated that interaction in educational terms resulted in two distinct output types; content learning, where students are working towards achieving a particular educational aim and affective benefits (such as emotions) that influence (both positively and negatively) the achievement of these aims.

The final key characteristic in Yacci’s definition of interactivity is that messages in a loop must be mutually coherent. In other words, the messages that are sent and received by both entities in a message loop should be related to one another and share meaning. If somebody asks you “what day is it today” and you reply with “Rooney to score first, 2-1 to United” then the message loop you are part of has little shared meaning and would be deemed to be little in the way of mutually coherent and therefore redundant educationally.

Yacci’s definition of interactivity could be accused of being oversimplified and too reliant on comparisons to electrical currents but I feel it should be applauded for its attempt to encourage educators to view the success of interactions from the perspective of the student.

Where Yacci focused on two-way interactions between people, Muirhead and Juwah (2004) appeared to move away from the concept of a loop and instead focused on one-way interactions between people and between people and objects (even, metaphorically, the course itself). At first I found this notion to be quite absurd until I came to write this post.

Something that had been missing for me in the articles that I looked at was the notion of educational  stimulation. Surely a student could have an interaction with an object such as a textbook if that object stimulated them to learn more, to dig deeper, to keep reading. Could this be similar in nature to Yacci’s affective benefits where he notes the poor understanding of  ‘the mechanisms by which a student learns to value subject matter’ (p10). Just as interactions with people can motivate a learner, so too can interactions with objects (a well written book chapter, a refreshingly simple yet highly explanatory diagram (I’m looking at you Mr. Yacci) or even a whole course of study). Muirhead and Juwah themselves state that ‘interactions are critical for enhancing motivation, communication, a diverse range of skills and intellectual development in the educational process’ (p16).

Much has been made of the amount of information that is generated, flows and is stored online and how people who have access to it can use it to their advantage. Sabry and Barker (2009) highlight the struggle that educational institutions have with (a) providing education that is tailored to individual students and (b) keeping courses current, from the perspective of information accuracy and also relevant to individual students (see (a)).

Sabry and Barker (2009) clearly love their acronyms (ICT, DILS, CML, DIG, INVU4URAQT (OK I added the last one)).

The main thrust of their paper was that we live in the Dynamic Information Generation (DIG) where information is, well, dynamic. Traditional systems of education are not suited to rapid information change and dissemination. They propose a Dynamic Interactive Learning System (DILS) that consists of learners, course material, educational technology and pedagogy. The key to the DILS is that information relating to each component is constantly updated and fed into the system. This then determines the nature of many interactions within the system (e.g. a particular student sees a particular version of the course materials dependant on factors such as their achievement to date and their prefered learning style(s)).

Sabry and Barker’s DILS model certainly appears to support a highly student centred approach, one that focuses on each individual learner and their very specific needs and abilities. Their model appears on paper to be technically possible but crucially relies on the creation, maintenance and availability of a large amount of information. Is there model a utopia for tutors and students alike?

The DILS model got me thinking about the future painted by Sabry and Barker. Having recently become a father I wonder what my son’s education and life more generally will be like in the DIG described by the authors. How many ‘interactions’ will he be a part of on a daily basis? With who/what and how will these interactions occur? Maybe he’ll have a hoverboard, maybe he won’t.

Future Marty Mc Fly & his hoverboard minimate by bratislabat on Flickr

So, interactivity. Is it a useful notion for elearning? I’d say it was a useful notion to learning full stop.

References:

Muirhead, B., & Juwah, C. (2004). Interactivity in computer-mediated college and university education: A recent review of the literature. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (1) 12-20

Sabry, K. & Barker, J. (2009) Dynamic interactive learning systems. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46 (2) 185-197

Yacci, M. (2000) Interactivity Demystified, a structural definition for distance education and instructional CBT, Educational Technology, 40 (4) 5-16