Professor Brian Fisher

IAT201 D100 Spring 2014

1. Describe how a Course Management System (e.g. WebCT, Canvas, or Sakai) might be designed from 3 different perspectives on distributed cognition.

A Course Management System, otherwise known as a “CMS”, can theoretically be made with a variety of different perspectives on distributed cognition. I have chosen three potential designs, in the contexts of “smart seeing and projecting”, “offloading cognition to external processes”, and “socially distributed cognition”.

A CMS from a smart seeing and projecting perspective might be designed in a graphic way for the user to draw a more complete understanding from, and visualize his or her way through something. For example, a student would see a calendar with due dates, assignment times, and tests, etc. Then the student would be able to visualize the time they can allocate to efficiently use their time to prepare. In addition, a campus map can also be used from a smart seeing and projecting perspective, if a student needs to plan their route for example: class, a cafeteria, their teacher’s office, and their next class.

Another perspective for a CMS is offloading cognition to external processes. This is where the student takes a step out of their cognition process to unburden their mind with extra work, by letting things, like technology, simplify steps for them. An example would be computing the ‘weight’ of a specific project in comparison to one another, for tests, projects, or quizzes. This would let students avoid having to look up a syllabus or calculate it themselves. Another example would be a search function connected to the school library, so a student could find their book and where it was located in the library. This lets students go straight to the library and get their books without spending precious time searching or troubling librarians.

A final, alternative perspective is socially distributed cognition. This is where collaboration from other people can work toward a stronger understanding. A CMS would be able to implement this by having a forum where students could collaborate on projects; each project would have its own separate page, for organization. If there was unclear instruction or complications for projects, or necessary collaboration, students could take advantage of an easy to use centralized social hub. Another example would be for the students to have the ability to link their personal email service into their SFU CMS. The combination of students’ personal emails and school content will lead to an increased usage of the CMS website, and act more like a single social portal for a student’s average day.

2. Which one would you choose? Why? Compare and contrast these alternatives and clearly explain which one you would use for a CMS based on your knowledge of human cognition and design.

I would personally be most inclined to choose the distributed cognition perspective of socially distributed cognition, for my Course Management System. I believe this is the most effective perspective, because the learning environment is inherently a social atmosphere. From our early years as children we learn by being taught by others, as we progress through the school system we have teachers and teacher’s assistants who guide us to learn new concepts and evolve our own. Eventually, we learn enough to begin teaching ourselves new things; some people teach themselves a new language; some people teach themselves how to use a computer. We can learn by reading instruction manuals when we set up our TV, or following pictorial diagrams when we build our IKEA tables, so we commonly learn by ‘smart seeing and projecting’ methods. We, of course, also learn new concepts by simplifying more basic steps, like how in mathematics we begin by learning simple addition and multiplication but when we enter into algebra and calculus we offload those steps to a calculator or computer. This allows our mind to be unburdened with things it understands and free to learn the things it does not. But both of these methods are supplementary to an acquired prerequisite knowledge of the basic foundations on which they were learning. For example, when you learn algebra or calculus you have a grasp of basic math first; and when you program your TV you must know the basics of cables, power, and plugs. I argue that a social environment is the best because it is proven to be the most effective for people who have not much or any previous experience (as in primary and secondary school). I also argue that in a university environment, someone could very easily learn just as much from their classmates as they can from their teachers. Sometimes our university classmates are older than our teachers, and they might be very experienced; sometimes our classmates might have had a job where they learned techniques that could assist us in our learning. By collaborating with our teacher and the accumulative knowledge of dozens, if not hundreds, of fellow students, the online resource of a CMS can be enhanced by a greater collective intelligence that we as students could benefit from, compared to the more visual or technical simplification of information.

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