e-ducation

Abstract

e-ducation is a study of information technology use in higher education. The aim of the research is to improve educational practice with information technology. The modern educational system was developed to teach the students the skills necessary and the facts applicable to survive in the industrial society; facts that would be true and skills that would be useful throughout their entire life. Today, schools need to help students develop conceptual tools to be self directed learners capable of learning new things and adopt to an increasingly dynamic, and also complex, work situation. Many educators believe in the immense potential of information technology as learning tools, but for the information technology to bring about a real and substantial change, its introduction must be accompanied by improvements in our understanding of learning and teaching. The research approach applied has been a “design oriented study of information technology use with the intention to contribute to the development of both the use and the technology itself.” This has been done through action research and experiments in educational settings. The thesis consists of six papers and an introduction. The main results in this research are the following four: (1) The education framework which can be used to understand important current trends in education. (2) The PIE approach (problem based learning, interactive multimedia and experiential learning), developed to enhance the problem based learning methodology. (3) The philosophy of Thematic Modules (TM), developed to structure collaborative educational activities in information technology based environments, such as asynchronous learning networks (ALN). (4) Concrete examples of alternative forms of computer supported assessment of learning and examination.