EDUCATION USING DIGITAL LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES

This section summarizes what was found in the literature search, and in discussions with some educators at the University of Southern California, by answering the following questions:

  1. What are the roles that digital libraries can play in education?
  2. What are some unique characteristics of online materials and some important reasons for excitement about digital libraries and education?
  3. Will digital libraries mean education and learning as usual; or, can digital libraries change the ways in which people are educated?
  4. Are there fundamental questions regarding guidelines and design standards for teaching and learning materials to support inquiry using digital libraries, or through other online resources?
  5. What are the technical problems that need to be overcome to make education using digital libraries a reality?
  6. Are there any cautionary messages?

While some would argue that the Web is not equivalent to digital libraries, it is generally agreed that the Web is and will be the deliverer of digital libraries to people; hence, at some point the distinction between digital libraries and the Web blurs. This is especially true when the definition of digital libraries is broadened to include digitized materials not found in any "conventional" library, e.g., NASA's remote sensing records, student-generated articles that result from using already-existing digital libraries, etc. Hence, some of the following comments are taken from articles that focus a lot on the Web and digital libraries.

What Are the Roles That Digital Libraries Can Play In Education?

There seems to be general agreement that digital libraries can play three roles in education (e.g., Masullo and Mack 1996):

What Are Some Unique Characteristics Of Online Materials and Some Important Reasons for Excitement About Digital Libraries and Education?

The University of Michigan Digital Library Web page (UMDL n.d.) and Wallace, et al. (1996) succinctly summarize the following six important features of digital libraries that make them significantly different from traditional libraries in ways which support student learners:

To this list can be added re-use of teaching resources. This is the feature being focused on by the EduPort project, whose goal is to support re-use of teaching resources by reflecting teachers' experiences with materials acquired from digital libraries (Masullo and Mack 1996). Masullo and Mack maintain that "real value added comes from reuse. Teachers do excellent work of bridging materials to create rich learning experiences. It is very difficult, however, to share the results with other teachers, and only a handful of students receive the benefits of unique exemplary teaching in each case. Opened and networked digital libraries offer that opportunity."

Hoadley and Bell (1996) maintain that "... structuring Web pages based on 'content' (through keywords or topics) and 'context' (e.g., social group who produced it, discussion that gave rise to the ideas) may prove to be one of the most important features digital libraries could afford. Currently, traditional libraries and social networks coexist, but are not the same, intersecting primarily through authors' names. In the future, these information networks and social networks may be more deeply integrated, allowing us not only to follow our favorite author, but trace works that have influenced him or her, institutions that an individual participates in, and so on."

Edelson and Gordin (1996) mention that "NASA ... has a number of ongoing efforts to make their extensive online databases of remote sensing data into a valuable resource available to education at all levels." They then ask the question, "Why would [this] be good for education?" Their answer includes:

According to Edelson and Gordin, the "goal ... of the adaptation of expert resources for learners is: Take resources that enable experts to extend their knowledge and turn them into resources that enable learners to develop some of the knowledge possessed by experts by performing personally meaningful tasks."

So we see there are many reasons to be excited about the interplay between digital libraries and education.

Will Digital Libraries Mean Education and Learning as Usual; or, Can Digital Libraries Change the Ways in Which People are Educated?

The National Research Council's 1996 report, National Science Education Standards, states that "Inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is [should be] the central strategy for teaching science." Constructivists (Honbein 1996) maintain that this should be the basis for teaching just about everything. Wallace et al. (1996) state: "Digital libraries offer a unique and unprecedented resource through which teachers can facilitate student inquiry." In the recent National Research Council publication quoted above, "... emphasis on inquiry is pervasive. Yet, when it comes to textbooks and curricula as they exist today, the clear emphasis is on learning science content disconnected from experience. Although digital libraries can't change pedagogy or textbooks, they can make it possible for students to have access to scientific information and data which interests them, a fundamental requirement for authentic inquiry. Digital libraries can provide teachers with a feasible way to let students pursue their own interests within the bounds of the curriculum and without creating an enormous amount of extra work in providing students with materials to support their investigations."

The Wallace article explores the ways in which digital libraries can support inquiry learning. It concludes "... in themselves, digital libraries will not make a change in education without changes in the tasks students are asked to perform and in the support provided to students and teachers." The UMDL Web page (UMDL n.d.) also claims that online inquiry materials may also share the following important learning characteristics with inquiry based materials: authentic questions (i.e., the questions must be meaningful and important to the student for learning), flexible questions, and open-ended and divergent answers.

Soloway (1996) mentions that as of 1996, the National Research Council's new standards for science education resonate with those recently put forth by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, namely: "the emphasis in science classrooms needs to be on inquiry, rather than on didactic instruction and memorization; rather than being exposed to a broad range of content materials, students need to pursue a few science topics in depth." He then goes on to say that "... the still evolving concept of a digital library may well be the missing piece [for accomplishing this], bringing networked collections of digital resources (e.g., primary sources, current information, multimedia formats) together within a coherent and accessible framework. Still further, unlike their physical cousins, digital libraries afford students the highly motivating opportunity to publish their findings for all to review."

Although a lot of research into how digital libraries can be used in education is directed at science, there is also a substantial effort directed towards the humanities. Tally (1996) states that "the Library [of Congress] has asked [the] CCT [Center for Children and Technology] researchers and curriculum designers to help them understand what roles these kinds of online resources can play in history and social studies classrooms, and what kinds of support teachers and students need to use them well." He notes that "On-line historical archives invite teachers and students to confront new kinds of materials, new perspectives on historical events, and a new need for historical context. Ultimately, using these resources to advance a more dynamic, inquiry-based approach to history teaching and learning will require creative teachers to collaborate with each other3/4perhaps using the Web itself3/4and share lesson plans, teaching approaches, and assessment methods."

Humanities Web sites have been collected (http://edsitement.neh.fed.us) on "Top Humanities Web sites," where they are cataloged under four categories: literature, art history, foreign language, and history. Many of the Web sites that appear under each category are cross-listed in two or more categories. History, for example, had a list of 16 Web sites as of April 15, 1998, including one called The Digital Classroom, established by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Its stated purpose is "to encourage teachers of students at all levels to use archival documents in the classroom." It "... provides materials from NARA, methods for teaching with primary sources, and sample lesson plans."

Are There Fundamental Questions Regarding Guidelines and Design Standards for Teaching and Learning Materials to Support Inquiry Using Digital Libraries, or Through Other Online Resources?

According to the UMDC Web site "The University of Michigan Digital Library (UMDL) Project provides guidelines and design standards for teaching and learning materials to support science inquiry through on-line resources." (For additional discussions on the UMDL approaches to inquiry-based learning see Atkins et al. 1996). Although their work seems directed at public schools and public libraries, and science education, they raise questions that are so fundamental that this author believes they are applicable to all levels and types of education (K-12, higher education, and continuing education) and all types of libraries. The questions are grouped into four categories: structure of the online materials, student learning, teacher use, and implementation issues. Because of the fundamental nature of these questions, they are repeated, slightly modified, here (as given in UDML n.d.). In some of the questions parentheses have been added around the word "science." Doing this does not seem to change the fundamental nature of these questions.

Structure of the Online Materials

Digital resources provide students with unprecedented access to information, but unstructured material may result in information overload; hence, these questions must be considered:

  1. How are the large amounts of information structured in the digital library in order for students to take the most advantage of it?
  2. How can information searching be embedded as part of a learning environment to promote inquiry?
  3. What kind of information is best represented in various media?
  4. How do the media complement each other to help students learn?
  5. What are the types of scaffolding that are most appropriate for digital library technology?
  6. What are the issues in developing interfaces that implement such scaffolding strategies?
  7. When should scaffolding be folded as student expertise in using the digital library increases?
  8. How does one avoid the exponential learning curve typical of technology?
  9. Because the digital library will be used as an integral part of classroom activities, what scaffolds are needed to make this use effective?
  10. How are students enabled to publish their own documents in the digital library and share them with others?

Student Learning

One needs to study carefully the influence of using the digital library on student learning; hence, the following questions:
  1. Does the use of online teaching materials help students develop deep understanding of (science) content and process?
  2. What understanding of (science) concepts do students develop by using the digital library?
  3. How does student motivation toward learning (science) change by using the digital library?
  4. How does student thoughtfulness change by using the digital library?
  5. How do students use online learning materials?
  6. What types of artifacts are created and published on a digital library?
  7. What types of interactions occur as a result of online publishing and what types of changes result?

Teacher Use

The use of digital resources has the potential to change classroom practice and the way in which teachers go about the practice of teaching; hence, the following questions:

  1. How do teachers use online teaching and learning materials?
  2. How do teachers make use of the various media and different parts of the digital library?
  3. How does the digital library influence practice?
  4. How can online inquiry be embedded as part of inquiry-based learning?
  5. How does the use of online projects impact teaching?

    Implementation Issues

    Although the use of digital resources has the potential to change classrooms, past experience and research has shown that just giving teachers access to the materials or telling them how to use them is not enough. Teachers, too, need to be active learners in the process; hence, the following questions:

    1. What initial supports do teachers need to use online resources?
    2. What continued support is necessary for teachers to effectively use online materials?
    3. What types of hardware configurations allow for effective use of online resources?

    Again, these 25 questions have been taken from UMDL Web page (n.d.).

    What are the Technical Problems that Need to be Overcome to Make Education Using Digital Libraries a Reality?

    According to Masullo and Mack (1996), "... key problems are capturing ... material in digital form (e.g., digitized videos, scanned text, descriptions of videos and images), organizing it so it can be found, and developing some level of tools for re-using this material in new pedagogically relevant ways." Wallace et al. (1996) note that, "Current search engines and Web browsing software are not adequate for learning environments. Web browsers encourage breadth-first searches, and are often extremely frustrating for students." Tally (1996) states that "The most commonly discussed challenges of teaching with online resources are practical3/4access to good quality information, speed of downloading, the time necessary to find and make good classroom use of the material. All of these hurdles must be faced with electronic primary source archives."

    Other chapters in this report focus on all these technical issues, but do so outside of the context of what is probably the most important application for digital libraries: education. Education has its own special needs, as captured by the 25 UMDL questions just given. Technical solutions for scanning texts, describing videos and images, etc., must therefore be driven by educational requirements.

    Edelson and Gordin (1996) state that "The value of digital libraries is in the authentic activities that they can allow learners to engage in... To capitalize on their potential, these digital libraries need to be made accessible for learners through a variety of bridging strategies. ... supportive interfaces, activities design, resource selection and organization, and documentation ... designed to provide learners with enough of the hidden context and knowledge that experts bring to their tasks to enable students to use the digital resources as learning resources. These bridges require additional effort above and beyond the construction of experts' digital libraries, but they take the form of value-added support that leverages the initial investment. The addition of these bridges can transform these resources into invaluable resources for education, and can make digital libraries a common ground that provides a meaningful link between scientific researchers or other expert practitioners and the educational community. Creating such a common ground will increase the likelihood that the graduates of our educational system will be prepared to make sound decisions informed by results from the scientific community. ... The key to adapting digital libraries designed for experts is creating a bridge between the learner's goals, abilities, and knowledge, and the requirements for productive use of the digital resources." Once again, the problems seem to involve a strong interplay between technology and education.

    Any Cautionary Messages?

    Wallace, et al. (1996) caution against using the digital libraries to answer very specific questions, because students become frustrated sifting through lots of material looking for a single piece of information; these can be answered more easily using an encyclopedia.

    As an aside about encyclopedias, some are already available either online or in CD-ROMs, and incorporate text, audio, graphics and video. They serve a very useful purpose, in that they present "knowledge" as distinct from "information." They also come in different varieties for different age groups. Their possible drawback is that some group has made the decision about what is knowledge versus what is information, and the group's extracted knowledge may very well be presented from its biases or those of the publisher of the digital encyclopedia.

    Digital libraries may someday contain source materials from which anyone could create a digital encyclopedia, although this may not be very practical. What may be more practical is for the companies that already have a digital encyclopedia to tap into the vast resources of digital libraries, making their existing products even better, by including links into television sound-bytes, news reports, journal articles, etc.

    Hoadley and Bell (1996) note that "Multimedia representations did not lead students to cite more 'correct' scientific ideas, although it did encourage them to cite more ideas in general, which can be helpful in encouraging a group of students to brainstorm and consider alternative explanations for phenomenon."

    No doubt, there are other cautionary messages that can be found in the literature, but the search performed did not find them. Certainly, one of the most important considerations is one already mentioned in Chapter 2 of this report by Raj Reddy: authenticity/veracity of material found on the Web.

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    Published: February 1999; WTEC Hyper-Librarian