Previous Activities 2006

After a successful meeting in Tübingen in 2004, the SIGs on Instructional Design and
Learning and Instruction with Computers once more joined forces to organise a joint
meeting. The meeting was organised in Leuven on the occasion of the retirement of Joost
Lowyck one of the co-founders of the SIG on Instructional Design. More than 100
scholars from around the globe (Europe, Africa, North- and South-America, and Asia)
discussed the need to consider complexity with respect to the design and development of
education, educational environments and the use of ICT therein in about 50 papers and
posters. As invited speakers Richard Clark addressed the issue of automated knowledge,
Joost Lowyck the spiral nature of research on instructional design and educational
technology, Danae Stanton-Fraser the richness and diversity of computer applications
invented in practice and Mike Spector the need for and possibility of modelling
complexity. All papers and posters are bundled in the book "Clarebout, G., & Elen, J.
(Eds.) (2006). Avoiding simplicity, confronting complexity. Advances in studying and
designing (computer-based) powerful learning environments. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense
Publishers." A selection of papers will be published in a forthcoming special issue of
Computers and Human Behaviour.