Information and Communication Technologies for Formal Learning

Domains of ICT Use

Historically, ICT integration and research have focused on two major domains, with a third domain emerging during the past decade:

• 1.
  In class usage involves the use of ICT to support and enhance traditional classroom instruction.
• 2.
  Online usage involves the use of ICT in the delivery of instruction for distance education contexts.
• 3.
  Blended usage involves the use of ICT to support the integration of both online and in-class instruction during a course or learning activity.

Each of these domains includes a rich literature base for K–12, higher education, and corporate training contexts. Within the technology integration domain, Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler have proposed a conceptual framework called Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), which has attracted a significant amount of interest and attention in the research community. The TPACK framework builds on Lee Shulman’s concept of pedagogical content knowledge by adding the component of teacher technological knowledge to content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge in the model.

In distance education, ICT has enabled progression considerably beyond the correspondence model of instruction, including interactions between the learner and the instructor, peers, and content that are independent of both time and place. The synchronous and asynchronous interactions made possible by ICT led prominent researchers such as Michael Moore and Randy Garrison to start thinking about distance education in terms of educational transactions. Garrison subsequently developed a theoretical framework called the community of inquiry that allows exploration of social, teaching, and cognitive presence in ICT-mediated settings.

During the past decade, significant exploration has occurred with learning environments that blend the online and in-class uses of ICT. Heather Staker and Michael B. Horn, of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, have done seminal work in identifying K–12 blended learning models with widely varied use of ICT. Additionally, The Handbook of Blended Learning documents blended learning models across the globe in higher education and corporate training settings.

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