Review by: Dreier, Matthias (2004-08-18)

Gary A. Berg reviews the literature on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with respect to educational environments. He describes the history of HCI and illustrates how different disciplines contributed to the field of HCI. The author then defines key concepts of HCI and provides pointers to useful literature. Covered topics include direct manipulation, metaphors, hypertext, animations, agents, simulations, and creativity.

Berg concludes that principles of Human-Computer Interaction need to be better incorporated in educational software. Particularly important are learner-centred approaches. Future learning environments should be more interactive to allow a constructivist way of learning. The use of animations and collaboration techniques are promising, as well.

Future research, as Berg points out, should focus on the computer as a medium instead of a tool. Current educational software tends to simply automate typical classroom tasks. However, the specific characteristics of the medium “computer” allow entirely new educational applications.

This article is a helpful introductory reading for people who want to get acquainted with HCI. Berg systematically defines and explains relevant topics and concepts of HCI. He is rather optimistic in terms of artificial intelligence applications such as agents, automatic text filtering or predictive text generation. Maybe the author overestimates the notion of computers as a medium. He often mentions the history of films and television as a new medium. But the history of films as an educational application shows that films did not change education fundamentally.