5th WSEAS / IASME International Conference on ENGINEERING EDUCATION (EE'08), Heraklion, Greece, July 22-24, 2008

Transforming Engineering Learning via Technogogy

ROZHAN M. IDRUS
School of Distance Education
University Sains Malaysia
11800 USM, Penang
MALAYSIA
rozhan@usm.my; http://pppjj.usm.my/page%20prof%20rozhan.html

Abstract: - Technogogy is defined as the convergence of technology, pedagogy and content in the
transformative use of technology to foster learning. The power of multimedia computing makes it possible for
technology to cater for the needs of pedagogical elements that can be viewed from the standpoint of
technology. The application of technogogy will now witness the presentation of content in a continuum rather
than a segmented approach for a specific cohort., each level taking into account the learner characteristics,
learning styles and preferences and the production of a variety of appropriate media components to support,
complement or for the purpose of teaching and knowledge retention in engineering education.

Key-Words: - Technogogy, Technology, Pedagogy, Content, Learner characteristics, Learning styles

1 Introduction
Thus far, the power of multimedia computing has
not been exploited to its fullest potential, with usage
that merely skimmed the mundane issues such as
patterns of interaction in videoconferencing [1] and
multimedia design for learning [2] and repeated
works such as in problem-based learning [3, 4],
constructivism principles into online classes [5],
why students are not learning in online courses [6]
and reflective learning practices [7].
Then on, many aspects of the computer mediated
environment were ventured, whether in a stand
alone fashion, online, offline, synchronous,
asynchronous, virtual reality or any blended model.
Educational technology has overtaken us in terms of
the provision of a transformative learning
environment. Learning management systems (LMS)
as well as learning activity management systems are
now made available to us for immediate use, leaving
us to further interject with more transformation in
the educational environment to foster learning. It is
time that we apply fully the immense versatility,
diversity and depth that technology can muster and
honour the very rich interplay from, and intersection
of technology, content (the subject-matter) and the
pedagogy (the means of teaching it). Too, e-learning
which is a vehicle that covers a wide range of
technology-delivered instruction to enhance
traditional approaches to learning can be elevated to
a new level of excellence in the learning
environment.
2 A Matter of Learning Styles
“Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn
from the learner. Put yourself in his place so that
you may understand what he learns and the way he
understands it” (Kierkegaard)
This bring us to the ever crucial area of how do
we educate on students. Put succinctly, teaching and
learning do not improve because of improved
technology [8]. Specifically, content is meaningless
without context. And context is not created by
sitting in front of a computer reading content [9].
Learning is improved when it is grounded in
practical learning theory. By itself, more technology
will not make education more efficient. For these
reasons, it is imperative that the learning
environment of the digital era is developed or the
present environment be redesigned so that it is
relevant to the power, potential and versatility of the
gamut of educational technology available today.
Different students have different learning styles
and this occur in a wide variety of ways, including
the types of instruction to which they respond best,
the ways they approach their individual studies
(strategies to studying and learning approaches), and
their perception and attitudes about the nature of
knowledge and their role in constructing it
(cognitive levels). For example, Broberg et al. [10]
found that the learning styles of electrical and
engineering technology students are as active, highly
visual, sequential learners.

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 5th WSEAS / IASME International Conference on ENGINEERING EDUCATION (EE'08), Heraklion, Greece, July 22-24, 2008
An objective of education should thus be to help
students build their skills in both their preferred and
less preferred modes of learning. The learning
theories provide good frameworks for designing
instruction with the desired breadth. The goal is to
make sure that the learning needs of students in each
model category are met at least part of the time.
When mismatches exist between learning styles of
most students in a class and the teaching style of the
teacher, the students will ‘disengage’ from the
educational environment.
Until today, we are still trying to determine the
exact nature of the learning styles of the learners
when their style can change and Felder and Soloman
[11] even identified that “everybody is active
sometimes and reflective sometimes.” Despite the
lip service paid to individual differences different
learning styles of the learners, the instructors are still
ignoring this fact [12].
Perhaps we should cease to endure these
matching processes as one could never know the
learning modalities, preferences and styles of a
student, as much as one could never know the
preferences, inclination and approaches of the
teacher. Any one research on the learning
characteristics of one particular cohort would be
rendered useless against the next cohort. We need a
different approach where the direction, preferences
and development evolves through the facilitation of
educational transaction, with technology playing a
pivotal function in the integration of the pedagogy,
content, teacher and the learner. We need to work on
the preferences and strength of the students through
a variety of learning models. In this way, the
students have the choice to pursue a learning
preference while subtlely being redirected to a
higher level on a natural progression; a maneuver
that require an astute pedagogical approach by the
teacher and utilising many forms of information and
communication technologies and learning strategies.
2.1 Transforming Learning
The transformation of the learning environment is a
crucial element in the definition of technogogy as it
signifies the power and function of information and
communication technologies and its use in the
teaching and learning process. Coming back to the
use of educational technology, we always view the
functionality of technology from the standpoint of
the student on the pretext of it being learner centred.
Together with this notion, we adopt the concept of
facilitation and transmission of learning that we
contend are not an effective approach as we
subsume a lot of the initiative and creative use of
technology on the student’s characteristics
ISBN: 978-960-6766-86-2
(supposedly). There is no concrete direction of
encouraging an individual to engage in practices that
will result in meaningful learning, due to the
incapability of the students to venture beyond what
is presented by faculty.
The primary benefit of educational technologies
is not the focus on the content but the focus on the
learning practices and engagement that technology
enables. In spite of the blended approaches that are
integrating technology in the teaching and learning
processes, it could be an ignorant way of viewing
the possibilities and potentialities of technology. In
truth, we should not be using technology to
duplicate what we can already do (such as lectures,
textbooks and courseware’s), but we should design
uses of technology that enables us to participate and
engage in teaching and learning practices that we
cannot do given our current constraints. For
example, we can create virtual case studies, support
communication and collaborations among
geographically distanced individuals and groups and
create texts or artifacts from the interaction that take
place thus fostering more learning. In essence, we
are moving from mere infusion or integration (as a
natural buy-in) but are approaching the
transformation of the learning environment in its
entirety. The students (from childhood to
adolescence and into adulthood) should benefit from
all known learning theories and models as well as
learning styles and strategies. We should not be the
determinant in fixing the recipe for the students as
we do not absolutely know how, when and where
students learn.
3 Technogogy
The power of technology, as portrayed in a
convergent mechanism via multimedia computing
and the Internet must go beyond presenting facts
with more razzmatazz, colour, audio, visual,
simulation and animation, but must have the
capability to converge in the educational
environment transaction, the function of the teacher,
the needs of the students, the learning styles, the
learning theories and the various pedagogies and the
different functioning technologies.
Idrus [13] initially presented technogogy as the
transformative use of technology to foster learning
to describe the focus on technology-driven
pedagogy in the learning environment. Nonetheless,
it seeks to address the pivotal role of technology in
presenting a learning object that has taken into
account the relevant pedagogies and learning
modalities.
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Shulman [14] and Koehler and Mishra [15]
presented the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)
and the technological pedagogical content
knowledge (TPCK), respectively in a Venn
Diagram, as in Fig. 1, that showed the logical
relationships between the three components of
technology, pedagogy and content. Koehler and
Mishra [16] went on to argue that true technology
integration, is understanding and negotiating the
relationships between these three components of
knowledge.
Fig.1 The components of technological
pedagogical content knowledge by M.J.
Koehler & P. Mishra [16]
Technogogy is the three-dimensional intersection of
pedagogy, technology and content (learner focused),
the meeting point would result in a technogogically
articulated learning object or a technology pivoted
learning object. This learning object is in fact akin to
the pedagogical content knowledge, where Shulman
[14] proposed that a conceptual analysis of teacher
knowledge would incorporate both the categories of
teacher knowledge, and the forms for representing
that knowledge. Further, Mishra and Koehler [17]
incorporated technology into the pedagogical
content knowledge, calling it the technological
pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK), proposing
the interplay of the three main components of
learning environments: content, pedagogy, and
technology.
Since we are pivoting from the viewpoint of
technology, we are able to peruse the learners in a
continuum, from childhood to adolescence and into
adulthood. Appropriate technologies can be
empowered to facilitate for the design of a learning
object based on learner characteristics. Then,
technogogy as the convergence of technology,
pedagogy and content [18] will give rise to a techno-
centric learner continuum environment. The
relationship between technology, pedagogy and
content in a converging role must be deliberated
from a three-dimensional perspective to give rise to
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its depth and volume in the creation of learning
objects. Hence, the relationship framework is
visualised in the form of a cube known as the
technogogy cube as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig.2 The technogogy cube
Each dot in the technogogy cube will represent its
own triple-point parameter of (x,y,z) of pedagogy,
technology and content resulting in the design of a
specific learning object taking into account the
learner-focused content, relevant pedagogy and
appropriate technologies. The y-technology axis is
labeled with the very basic technology to the
emerging e-learning technologies and learning tools;
the x-pedagogy axis is labeled with all known
pedagogies, traditional end electronic and the z-
content axis is labeled with content focusing on the
learner cohort-inherent learning theories and
strategies.
4 Implications of Technogogy
The application of technogogy will now witness the
presentation of content in a continuum rather than a
segmented approach for a specific cohort., each
level taking into account the learner characteristics,
learning styles and preferences and the production of
a variety of appropriate media components to
support, complement or for the purpose of teaching
and knowledge retention. We can now witness the
design of content (learning object) for the learning
environment that is based on many learning theories
such as situated learning, multiple intelligences,
experiential learning, constructivist theory, cognitive
load theory as well as connectionism, to name a few.
The technogogy cube can also be viewed from
many different parameters, by keeping one of the
axis as a constant. Let us consider a scenario on the
cube with constant content, as shown in Fig. 3. We
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can then formulate how this content can be
presented in various pedagogies utilizing the
appropriate technologies available. This will enrich
the learning environment and conform to the needs
of the students.
Fig.3 Constant content relationship
Conversely, we can also keep the technology
constant which will give rise to the teaching of a
course employing various pedagogies by using the
same technology. A constant pedagogy scene is
shown in Fig. 4 with positions of points in space as
learning objects and the plane of learning
environment to describe the relationship at a given
pedagogy.
Fig. 4 Constant pedagogy, learning objects and
plane of learning environment
5 Technogogy Learning Environment
Imagine a scenario where a student logs on to the
computer and is assessed for his learning style
before being directed to the most appropriate
learning environment design based on the learners’
preferences. There the student is served with a buffet
of learning that has been laid out to choose or try in
his educational transaction; the logistical difficulties
in creating learning experiences to suit every
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situation and learning style, notwithstanding. This
will give rise to new paradigm in the design of the
learning environment and experiences in technogogy
that pivots on technology for the presentation of a
pedagogy-rich learning environment. Among the
paradigms and focus that will be in play are (to
name a few);
• The use of intelligent and pedagogical agents
• More robust pre-and post test/assessment
softwares
• Preparation of learning objects
• Design of artificial intelligence
• Multiple/cross disciplines
• New learning theories
• Interoperability of systems
• Sharable/Reusable learning objects
• Resource repositories
• Intelligent tutoring system
• Innovative portal development
• Collaboration softwares and webwares
• Data management and data mining
Stephenson [19] pinpointed the technical
innovations that are likely to push the next
generation of online teaching and learning more
towards learner managed learning where technogogy
fits the bill as the learning support environments will
now provide easy access to online support from
tutors, mentors or external specialists, open chat
facilities, special interest groups, one-to-one
exchanges with a personal supervisor, tracking and
personal log services and links with other
frameworks and activities; altogether a
transformation to foster learning. Ally [20]
identified among the use of strategies to allow
students to process the information at a higher level,
include activities for students to transfer the
knowledge and skills to new situations, provide
opportunities for real life applications and specify
activities for constant upgrading.
There are already many endeavours that conform
to the concepts of technogogy; a concept that seek to
converge content, pedagogy, learning styles and
preferences as well as interactive technologies. This
idea has been captured to some extent by Harmelan
[21] in his presentation of the personal learning
environment. Assis, et al [22] investigated
optimising instruction via adaptive hypermedia and
Bourguet [23] is testing the prowess of technology
with bilingual education in mainstream classroom.
However, technogogy is not limited to the computer
mediated communications; whether synchronous or
asynchronous, but seek to redress the application of
educational technologies by reinventing, upgrading
or blending multiple traditional technologies such as
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audio-graphics, audio books and browser-based
stand alone CD content design.
6 Concluding Remarks
Technogogy is defined as the convergence of
technology, pedagogy and content in the
transformative use of technology to foster learning.
The power of multimedia computing makes it
possible for technology to cater for the needs of
pedagogical elements that can be viewed from the
standpoint of technology. Technogogy will allow for
a continuum from childhood to adolescence and into
adulthood in a way that addresses both learning
needs and activities. The concept of technogogy also
conforms to the framework of Web 2.0 and e-
Learning 2.0 [24] towards a ubiquitous learning
environment platform for engineering learning.
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