Discuss Learning Problems and Issues Here

The first step in designing educational technology is to identify the learning problems that your students are facing and that you as an educator want to help in resolving. Are the students having problems working together? Completing assignments? Visualizing complex phenomena? Acquiring a set of procedures or skills? Understanding a theory or methodology? It is important at the outset to establish the kind of learning that you hope to achieve. The question that can start this process is:

Do you want them to know about something orknow how to do something?

The answer to this question will profoundly impact the system design you adopt. Knowing about something implies knowledge at a conceptual level. Mechanical engineering students, for example, are expected to know the Laws of Thermodynamics, architecture students the conventions of design representation and computer science majors the algorithm that achieves a "quick/sort" operation. An effective system to support this level of learning or knowlege development could present the material using multimedia. The desired learning outcome would be awareness of or familiarity with specific methods, concepts, or theories.

This contrasts sharply with a learning outcome that would require the student to demonstrate the ability to use a method or to apply a theory. This kind of learning implies knowing at a different level. In this type of scenario, ME students would know how to apply the laws of thermodynamics in design in order to calculate mathematically how those laws will impact on designed artifacts. Architecture students would be able to enact or use representation conventions in communicating with their instructors or design juries. And finally, CS majors would know when and how to implement the quick/sort algorithm in the design of a database. This knowing how to do demands more of the learner and the system than knowing about a concept. Such a system needs to be interactive to the extent that the learner engages in application activity or practice using the tools and conventions they are to learn. This is not just presentation; it is the student engaged in prototypic activity that promotes acquisition of a skill. The table below illustrates the the relationship between learning issues/outcomes and system type.

	Learning target	Learning target
	Procedures,methods routines	Theories,concepts, propositions
Know about	System type Presentation Mode	System type Presentation Mode
Know how to do/ how to apply	System type Interactive, hands-on mode	System type Interactive, hands-on mode