From my point of view, it is a fundamental and core topic in this course. The trends and issues in instructional technology are always what we need to keep attention all the time. The seven primary areas of emerging learning environments and technologies summarized by Florence Martin, Vanessa P. Dennen and Dr. Bonk covered as follow: social media, massive open online courses, special education technology, mobile learning, game-based learning and gamification, adaptive learning and learning analytics. Among these areas, mostly are heard to me excepted the special education technology. Thanks for these scholars’ contributions of this overview on development conditions for each area. This systematic reviews presented me both breadth and depth in the range of research being conducted on emerging learning environments and technologies. I feel greatly fortunate to witness the waves of technological progress occurring during the past few decades.
What I am mostly interested in is the area of informal learning. From the Martinez and whiting’s guide, I got the definition of informal learning and learned to distinguished the differences between it and formal learning. Informal learning is defined as the pursuit of any knowledge, skill, or understanding that occurs outside a formal or non-formal learning event, such as a classroom, training facility or eLearning course (Dirksen, 2015). Meanwhile, formal learning refers to a type of learning program in which the goals and objectives are defined by the training department, instruction designer and instructor. This concept also refreshed my cognition towards informal learning. I have always been thinking the informal learning as the special application of learning media or tools outside the classroom under the traditional school education mode such as private training, home education, public lectures or seminars and so on. Learning becomes an unconscious by-product during the informal process. It happens without intention. It is exactly the great distinction apart from the formal learning always having a fixed learning setting with the fixed goals or methods.
In addition, the principles put forward with by Martinez and Whiting introduced me into the effective guides when designing an environment conducive to informal learning. Among them, my most impressive principle is to leverage the benefits of gamification and playful competition. It reminds me of a case of “Paul” in the ID case book, which introduced a case of integrating the video games into the instruction of history subject in a local high school by a project-based learning approach. It is indeed the gamification is helpful for learners to engage in the classroom engagement, we still note to design a competition environment with a balance of entertainment and motivation.
Reference:
Martin, F., Dennen, V. P., & Bonk, C, J. (2020). A synthesis of systematic review research on emerging learning environments and technologies. Educational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D), 68(4), 1613-1634.
Martinez, S., & Whiting, J. (2021). Designing informal learning environments. In J. K. McDonald & R. E. West (Eds.), Design for learning: Principles, processes, and praxis. EdTech Books.
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