Welcome to Volume 30, Issue 1! CJLT / RCAT, in its new format, is now 2 years old and going strong! This issue also marks another step toward developing the journal as a fully bilingual publication. I am pleased to welcome Dr. François Desjardins from the University of Ottawa as our new Associate Editor responsible for working with our French-speaking contributors and reviewers. Francois’ introductory editorial follows this.
Bienvenue à la première parution pour l’année 2004! Il me fait un très grand plaisir d’introduire à nos lecteurs notre nouveau rédacteur en chef adjoint, François Desjardins. François est engagé comme professeur à l’Université d’Ottawa et sera responsable pour travailler avec nos contributeurs et notre comité de rédaction francophone. Veuillez lire son éditorial d’introduction.
This issue also marks the end of the first year that CJLT / RCAT has been published online as well as in print! For those who were not aware, the new URL of the journal is: www.cjlt.ca. On the journal website, you will find a variety of features, including the abstracts of this, the current issue, the full text articles for all back issues, and instructions for authors wishing to submit manuscripts. You will also find a link to the AMTEC website, where we have provided, in PDF format, most of the issues of the journal as published under its former name, the Canadian Journal of Educational Communication (CJEC). Traffic on the website was very strong during the first year. In the period from March, 2003 to date, the website has received 23 387 visits, with 47 290 pages accessed. Not surprisingly, the special issue on Learning Objects (Volume 28, Issue 3), which was released online in February, 2003, drew the most traffic through the first 4 months. While interest in that issue remained strong throughout the year, the range of access varied more widely during the remaining months.
In this issue, we present four engaging articles on a variety of different topics in Educational Technology. The first article, Identifying and Measuring Ill-Structured Problem Formulation and Resolution in Online Asynchronous Discussions, by Elizabeth Murphy, provides readers with a promising new methodology for assessing learners’ problem-solving behaviour in online learning environments. Murphy’s paper reports on a study involving the development and application of an instrument to identify and measure ill-structured problem formulation and in online asynchronous discussions. The instrument is based on Jonassen’s (1997) model for solving ill-structured problems and was tested in a web-based learning module called Solving Problems in Collaborative Environments (SPICE), designed to help practitioners such as social workers, nurses or teachers advance their practice through a process of collaborative problem formulation and resolution. The second article, Transforming Tensions in Learning Technology Design: Operationalising Activity Theory, by Mike Dobson, David LeBlanc, and Diana Burgoyne, provides both a theoretical and practice treatise on ways in which Activity Theory could be applied to the design of technology supported learning environments. The authors describe three of their own design cases - evaluating a peer to peer interface for learning objects, designing an on-line school, and rethinking a public science centre - to illustrate three methodologically different ways that the theory can be successfully used. The third article, The Framework of Knowledge Creation for Online Learning Environments, by Hsiu-Mei Huang and Shu-Sheng Liaw, discusses the burgeoning literature on knowledge management and argues that knowledge creation provides a competitive advantage over knowledge management. The authors propose a framework for knowledge creation in online learning environments and discuss the features and issues of knowledge creation in such environments.
The fourth article, “I don’t like hearing Angel and not seeing her! Why did we do that?” An exploration of students’ media literacy development through production, by Michele Luchs and Winston Emery, reports on another in a series of studies by Emery and his colleagues intended to evaluate the success of media education curricula and teaching in developing in students’ critical literacy. In this exploratory casestudy, they focus on Québec Secondary V students and look at student media production to find out what students know and have learned about the media through production work. The authors use a media education conceptual framework developed by Dick (1993) as a means of describing the day to day media learning of a group of ten students, four girls and six boys, producing a video documentary on rape.
Finally, in this issue, you will find a Call for Papers for the Fall, 2004, issue, Volume 30(3). This will be a special issue on E-learning Standards - Looking Beyond Learning Objects and will feature Solvig Norman, an Instructional Development Coordinator with the British Columbia Open School, and Elizabeth Childs, an Educational Consultant and Doctoral Candidate at the University of Calgary, as Guest Editors. In closing, I want to encourage both our Canadian contributors and our colleagues from elsewhere to let us know how we are doing and to get your articles in to us!
Dick, E. (1993). A media education model. In R. Shepherd, Elementary media education: The perfect curriculum. English Quarterly, 25(2-3), 35-38.
Jonassen, D.H. (1997). Instructional Design Models for Well-Structured and Ill-Structured Problem-Solving Learning Outcomes. Educational Technology: Research and Development, 45(1), 65-95.
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