Network Education Application (Zhu Zhiting)

Author: Zhu Zhi Ting
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: This series of teaching materials is a research outcome of the sub-project "Research and Practice of Educational Technology Professional Reform" under the "Reform Project of Teaching Content and Curriculum System for Higher Normal Education Towards the 21st Century" by the Ministry of Education. It covers eight core courses currently widely offered in China's educational technology programs, namely: "Educational Technology," "Instructional Systems Design," "Research Methods in Educational Technology," "Distance Education," "Educational Information Processing," "Information Technology and Education," "Network Education Applications," and "Theory and Practice of Instructional Media." The common characteristics of these eight core course textbooks are: new content and a new system. The writing team strives to follow the theoretical framework formed by the new developments in the field of educational technology since the 1990s. For example: "Educational Technology" is structured based on the internationally recognized "1994 New Definition of Educational Technology," completely breaking the traditional model that treats "theory and application of media" as the fundamental content of educational technology. Another example is the research on instructional systems design. Currently, both domestically and internationally, this course focuses primarily on "teaching" — emphasizing how to help teachers teach — while neglecting how to enable students to learn actively. "Instructional Systems Design" incorporates the recent applications of constructivist theory, adding substantial content focused on "learning-centered" instructional design. It also strives to integrate the two types of instructional design mentioned above, making them complementary and forming a brand-new theoretical system of "balanced teaching and learning." Among the eight core courses, some are new courses that fill gaps, such as "Research Methods in Educational Technology." In the past, universities' departments of audio-visual education or educational technology often adopted the "Research Methods in Education" textbook from education departments for this course, which neither reflected the characteristics of the educational technology major nor met its developmental needs. This time, we newly compiled "Research Methods in Educational Technology," which not only fills the gap but fundamentally changes the aforementioned passive situation, also establishing educational technology on a more solid theoretical foundation. Additionally, courses like "Distance Education," "Information Technology and Education," and "Network Education Applications" are new courses introduced in response to the deepening development of informatization and networking since the 1990s. Currently, domestic universities do not yet have formal textbooks for these courses. The other two books, "Educational Information Processing" and "Theory and Practice of Instructional Media," also feature numerous innovations in content and writing style. Especially "Educational Information Processing," closely integrating specific teaching aspects such as teaching processes, testing and assessment, and textbook development, conducts in-depth quantitative analysis and research on various educational information involved, and provides corresponding processing methods, thus possessing high academic standards and practical value.