Courseware development at the crossroads?

✍ Scribed by Jef Moonen

• Book ID: 104305424
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1989
• Weight: 592 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-9287
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-9287(89)80018-4

✦ Synopsis

Considerable effort is being made to produce more courseware of better quality. Different strategies have been used to support the courseware development and production process, examples of which are: individual, team, and industrial approaches. In general, the quality of courseware is improving and the number of courseware products is growing. However, development and production costs remain high and, although schools have many computers, use of courseware in classrooms is still limited. Is it that available courseware does not provide for the needs of teachers and students?

Perhaps inappropriate courseware is being produced as a result of poor analysis of how to use courseware in schools. Do we proceed by stressing formative evaluation during the development process? And if so, how do we include evaluation activities in the development process? Or should we use other strategies, such as the stimulation of design choices which reduce the need for formative evaluation?