Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology

296 Pages·2014·1.44 MB·English

by  Michelle D. Miller

Minds Online

Minds
O nline
TEACHING EFFECTIVELY WITH TECHNOLOGY
MICHELLE D. MILLER
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland 2014
Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-P ublication Data
Miller, Michelle D., 1968–
Minds online : teaching effectively with technology / Michelle D. Miller.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0-6 74-3 6824-8 (alk. paper)
1. Computer- assisted instruction. 2. Internet in education.
3. Educational technology. 4. Teaching— Computer network
resources. 5. Learning, Psychology of. I. Title.
LB1028.5.M548 2014
371.33—dc23 2014006755
For my father,
Thomas Clay Miller, Jr.

Contents
Preface i x
Chapter 1: Is Online Learning Here to Stay? 1
Chapter 2: Online Learning: Does It Work? 19
Chapter 3: The Psychology of Computing 4 2
Chapter 4: Attention 64
Chapter 5: Memory 88
Chapter 6: Thinking 1 17
Chapter 7: Incorporating Multimedia Effectively 148
Chapter 8: Motivating Students 165
Chapter 9: Putting It All Together 1 96
Notes 237
Ac knowl edgm ents 2 69
Index 273

Preface
I
N 1978, most kids had never seen a computer up close, let alone
been allowed to touch one. But stashed away in a back room of my
elementary school there was a PLATO terminal, a device designed
to present interactive tutorials on mathematics, typing, foreign lan-
guages, and the like. We students each got just one hour a week of
PLATO time, and for fi guring out how to get started or work through
the lessons, we w ere pretty much on our own. Even so, for me, a ten-
year- old seriously bogged down in fi fth-g rade math, this was a novel
and utterly engaging experience. I credit it with setting me on a life-
long path of curiosity about minds, machines, and learning.
PLATO’s 16- by- 16 touch-s creen grid enabled direct and intuitive
communication between user and computer, and it was able to show
not just text but also blocky, single- color graphics. It spent each of
my one- hour sessions patiently presenting round after round of a pet-
store- themed game designed to teach fractions. PLATO was even
capable of fl ashing a little wit, admonishing “Shelly, you have a fi sh
on your fi nger!” when I failed to drag and drop exactly one- third of
my goldfi sh inventory into a customer’s order.
Luck and an unusually well- funded school district made me one
of the few people of my generation who experienced cutting- edge
instructional technology from the student perspective. Now nearly
four de cades later, you’d be hard pressed to fi nd an educational in-
stitution that doesn’t use instructional technology in one form or
another. Within higher education, the impact has been especially