Blog # 9: School's Out-Will hyperlearning replace public education?

Isn’t it Ironic?

Lewis Perelman describes in his 1993 article, Schools Out, a learning opportunity called Hyperlearning, as the upcoming replacement for pubic learning which is supposedly the “last great bastion of socialist economics”(L. J. Perelman, 1993). The irony is that his very suggestion that all citizens may learn to levels previously unimagined through hypermedia, telescom broadband communication, smart environments, and sensory technologies of brain tech is quite likely only possible in a society and world culture where resources are available to all and equally distributed. This describes a true socialist concept, not a capitalist venture. Indeed to continue further, L. Perelman’s’ suggestion to remove the status of education or credentialism, much as the socialists suggested and the Marxist communists did motivation for stature within the system would only shift to the new “caste currency.”

Attempting to support his controversial "Call to Hyper-Arms" L. Perelman suggests privatizing the educational process but not in the economic manner most imagine. Instead of placing education into non governmental agencies to increase completion as Michael Perelman suggested in his March 2006 article Privatizing Education (M. Perelman, 2006). L. Perelman instead advocates use of micro-vouchers to access information and resources. These are interesting concepts however unless the socioeconomics and politics of our culture are transformed the impetus to compete in such a setting may not be obvious for those who struggle to find motivation to learn without structure providing direct feedback and potential reward.

Grasping the concept of real-world learning in a manner which is quite inappropriate and convoluted L. Pearlman suggests the tech/ real world based education system make “mindcraft” the major commodity. Focusing on individual know-how, continuous assessment and feed back are key to his argument, he suggests we can restructure the entire economic system to focus on true achievement not academic goals. Student centered attentions and learning are not new concepts; Quintilian suggested this in 95 A.D.(Kasper, 2005). However, the supposition that problem solving skills and relationships can be developed in the reality he vividly describes would, in my mind, create a world which is alienating, one missing emotional and environmental connections. Elimination of the current social context in which many children do indeed learn, as demonstrated through extensions of Vygotsky’s work in Zone of Proximal Development and other social learning constructs would likely produce students unable to cope with adversity and diversity thus reducing problem solving and networking ability. Different is much easier to ignore or discount if the exit is just a click of the mouse. Our new world needs citizens who have connection and association with others; without this we will not have the motivation to learn or take action.


Kasper, B. B. (2005). EDUCATIONAL REFORM 1983 - 1994: New Ideas or the Rebirth of Quintilian's Ideologies? American Educational History Journal, 32(2), 175.
Perelman, L. J. (1993). School's Out: The hyperlearning revolution will replace public education. Wired Magazine(1.01).
Perelman, M. (2006). Privatizing Education. Monthly Review, 57(10), 45.

Blog # 8: Rethinking Assessment and Educational Reform

Priorities

Ask the majority of Americans how they think their favorite sports team should improve their defense or offense and you’ll receive detailed analysis of past performance, current team status, statistical analysis, suggested improvements and predictions correlating outcome with or without said improvements. Similar detailed and analytical discussions are modeled daily by media outlets in relation to “star” status, cosmetics and fashion, automobiles, and commercialized food items. Awash with sound bites, blaring advertisements and dedication supported by like minded peers our attention is drawn to what our public is told they should desire, what will help them improve their lives. The advertisers most successful are most often those making “personal connections” with the best placement, best design and coincidentally the most funding.

Perhaps this is why issues regarding education reform and the environment often are overlooked by the media and pubic. Who is writing the press release, sponsoring the selling tour, and designing the campaign? Education entities are facing a crisis in silence. Schools as they are currently designed are not able to adapt their philosophies and concurrent methods rapidly enough to assist their charges with appropriate critical thinking skills. Students in today’s day-and-age must to acquire and adapt new knowledge and skills to wade through the flood of information (accurate and not). This is a recognized concern in the field of education but few in the general public realize the impact on their daily lives. Thus the issue slowly slides away with the undertow caused by the overlapping flow of popular trends.

Educational standards are being designed to ensure a common learning and content background. Unfortunately these standards are being utilized, more often than not, as a mechanism of design for assessment rather than an instructional guide. Through out this week’s reading Critical Issue: Rethinking Assessment and its Role in Supporting Educational Reform, we see call for a coordination of content, instruction and assessment. Paralleling this coordination request is societies expectation that students will learn, while in school, the skills they need to survive in the real world. I contend that, to some extent, the students and public already have these skills, as demonstrated by the sports analysis. The problem is that there is no personal context or connection that would cause the students to creatively apply his or her attentions and analytical prowess to in truly significant social and environmental issues or education. We as educators have not made that sale.

Compounding the lack of consumer interest curriculum and assessment designers are passing mixed signals to knowledge facilitators and learners. Current forms of assessment are not modeling critical thinking. Students who do have opportunity to explore in constructivist schools are frequently then assessed with traditional ‘multiple-guess” formats. Bybee and Stage (2005) identify several potential problems: too much time is being spent on how to test, instruction via multiple tunnels of single disciplinary topics, unrealistic “real-world” connections, and disconnect between philosophical ideals and actual application. Bybee’s suggestions for our nation to overcome these faults…embrace innovative science and mathematics programs that examine fewer topics but each to a deeper depth, design accountability assessment to test deep understanding not surface knowledge, and enhance professional development efforts to support and entwine our teachers. By moving toward more detailed understanding both our students and teachers will be exposed emotional and intellectual factors which initiate concern and buy-in necessary to develop respect for themselves and the social and science issues rising in our world.


References and Suggested Readings:

Becker, William E., Jr. (1982). The Educational Process and Student Achievement Given Uncertainty in Measurement. The American Economic Review, 72(1), 229. Retrieved , from Research Library database. (Document ID: 936559).

Bond, L. A. (1995). Critical issue: Rethinking assessment and its role in supporting educational reform. Retrieved April 7, 2006, from: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as700.htm

Bybee, Rodger W & Stage, Elizabeth (2005). No Country Left Behind. Issues in Science and Technology, 21(2), 69-75. Retrieved , from Research Library database. (Document ID: 782479861).

Pearlman, Robert (1993). Designing the new American schools. Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM, 36(5), 46. Retrieved , from Research Library database. (Document ID: 83859).

Tam, Maureen (2006). Assessing quality experience and learning outcomes: Part I: instrument and analysis. Quality Assurance in Education, 14(1), 75-87. Retrieved , from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1016440941).

Blog # 7: Cultural Diversity and Evaluation

Says Who?

Investigations addressing the issue of cultural diversity in the world of evaluation, school based, have been prevalent since the advent of IQ testing. Reeves 1997 article “an evaluator looks at cultural diversity” identifies intricate differences and issues, which can compound results of evaluatory assessments dramatically. Western phrasing and symbols so prevalent in common assessment tools hold different meanings in many cultures.

The Reading Eagle, a local Berks County paper, recently headlined an article relating to the PSSA’s and proficiency levels for seniors in the Reading School district, Reading, Pennsylvania. The Reading District is comprised of over 50% “minority” designated students with nearly 25% in some category of language remediation. In an attempt to address poor PSSA performance has imposed a requirement for all seniors to attain proficiency in the tested areas or they will not graduate. Students who do not attain the appropriate score are required to complete extra work, a packet of about 250 pages of content and worksheets. At this time based on this criteria only 34% of nearly 700 students have attained “proficiency” in both math and English; the remainder must complete the extra work to graduate.

Why are students in Reading having such problems? Could the issue be merely a local cultural issue? Schools in surrounding areas have much higher rates of proficiency. Locally there has been a good deal of pointing fingers, specifically targeting minority families and students. I contest these innuendos and point out the fact that the percentage below proficiency well exceeds the number of minority students even if every minority student did not test successfully, which is certainly not the case! Are these failures to be attributed to the school system and curricular designs, the students or the standardized test structure? Jost et al (2005) have identified core issues of educational inequality such as race, social justice, and diversity curriculum. Many educators only marginally understand the impacts of these issues, and those who claim to be enlightened also blind to the resultant impacts. Students are to be provided appropriate access to educational resources within reason; should not the assessments also be presented in the same spirit.

Many educators think they can create evaluations using the concepts of Universal Design, which embrace the need to recognize different physical needs and adapting tools and materials to be inclusive. In ‘parallel” testing issues for bilingual students we see the overwhelming compounds of dialect just in the Spanish language thus, applying the now simple concepts driving universal design may be impossible (Huempfner, 2004). With this acknowledgement the question arises- “How do we address unique societal complexities, cultural and historical experiences and at the same time evaluate students’ knowledge-base on “western based” content which is not necessarily inclusive?” How do we accommodate differences in lifestyle and responsibilities in these generalized testing situations?




References:
Huempfner, Lisa (2004). Can One Size Fit All? The Imperfect Assumptions of Parallel Achievement Tests for Bilingual Students. Bilingual Research Journal, 28(3), 379-399,494. Retrieved , from Research Library database. (Document ID: 911821441).

Jost, Muktha, Whitfield, Edward L, Jost, Mark. (2005). When the rules are fair, but the game isn't. Multicultural Education, 13(1), 14-21. Retrieved , from Research Library database. (Document ID: 898561911).

Blog # 6: Mastery Perspectives

Perspective

Building expertise or mastery has many definitions, all of which are dependent on the evaluation and evaluator. Chapters 5 and 8 in Kallick’s Information Technology for Schools demonstrate well the varying perspectives of what determines expertise. Short term and long term goals for students and teachers, administrative focus, classroom and lesson structure, and expected student performances all gauge what personal and administrative lenses show us to be a level of expertise.

Ultimately it is the understanding acquired by learners through each level of development and training that the goal is to gain new skills, knowledge and proficiency which in turn reveals we only have more to learn at the next level. Once this understanding is embraced one has finally reached the temporary level of expertise. In this new age of learning with technology Holvig and Crisci look in two directions to explain “The Changing Pursuit of Knowledge” Teachers must now become a coach, demanding synthesis, analysis and critical thinking to solve problems and investigate issues. The mind set of regurgitation must be eliminated; development of new ways to learn and understand must rise to the front.

Many tools are available to assist students in their quest for knowledge. Proficiency in assessment of these tools and resources must be modeled by the teachers, but at the same time the teachers must realize that the amorphous masses known as the internet and education are constantly expanding, connecting and refiguring. Use of the basic critical analysis tools must too remain ever fluid. Teachers and trainers must learn to understand there will never be the ultimate eureka experience; instead they should look to expect a series of epiphanies serving as an indicator of a level of proficiency. Being able to roll along and continue to ask appropriate questions, look for new learning opportunities and resources, search for new twists and interdisciplinary ways to facilitate learning are goals semi-technology literate teachers should be aspiring to reach.

Attempting to understand how to use the software, websites, and technology tools to support student investigations reveals that there is more to learn and someone always knows more and presents a sinuous path to mastery for all involved. Students, innovative industry, new pedagogical research, and in-school resource availability can present teachers with the discouraging feeling of floating in Dante’s new version of technological purgatory and can inhibit teachers’ creative attempts to aid their students. Just as understanding of how and why is within reach we are often thrown back 3 steps after having taken two.

These images and emotions can be overwhelming to teachers and students in even the best mindset. To those who thought the learning was through when their classes were over it can be so intimidating that they begin to avoid the technology and look at it as a hindrance, something extra that distracts from what they can “make kids learn.” It is this “the teacher teaches students” philosophy which must be creatively transformed to one of coaching or transparent guidance. Through support and ongoing spiraling evaluation our school systems can develop into communities that facilitate understanding.

Rising to the level of expertise in any discipline should allow for new development and understanding must be modeled from all quarters of the support corps. Districts, teachers, and the community must understand there is no stopping point, the support and training must be ongoing reaching expectations. By demonstrating that learning is expected to continue educators can avoid the equation of expertise equaling end of new roads to travel.

References
Bloom, B. S. (1968). Learning For Mastery. Instruction and Curriculum, 1(2), 12.
Holvig, K. C., & Crisci, G. (2001). Using Technology to Promote Classroom Innovation. In B. Kallick & J. M. W. III (Eds.), Information Technology for Schools (1 ed., pp. 121). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kallick, B., & III, J. M. W. (Eds.). (2001). Information Technology for Schools: Creating Practical Knowledge to Improve Student Performance (1 ed. Vol. 2001). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Blog # 5: A level playing field

Does use of “Mindtools” really level the educational playing field?

Educators are constantly searching for technologies (tools of the trade) that enable students to develop higher levels of understanding, application and creativity. Computers and their applications, it is hypothesized if used correctly, provide learning venues which promote the ability to visualize abstract concepts, develop sophisticated expressions of knowledge and create unique methods to categorize, analyze and interpret newly acquired information. Jonassen (1998) categorized a variety of software and Internet based applications as Mindtools (semantic organization, dynamic modeling, information interpretation, knowledge construction, conversation, and collaboration) implying use of these tools engage students in advanced critical thinking as they work to present their knowledge (Jonassen, 1996).

Elimination of the need to conduct traditional processing methods in mathematics or the dangers of experimentation are examples of benefits often sited by proponents of Mindtools. Expert systems and modeling tools enable students to simulate real world situations by designing or collecting datum to be incorporated in the package’s processing through editing programs. Through these virtual worlds and those programmed into video microworlds students can control and manipulate variables to create visualizations of abstract concepts or phenomena not accessible to most students. Additional Mindtool bonuses include the potential for increased communications, community reach, and potentially creative collaboration efforts. In theory use of these technologies should be providing opportunity for visualization and conceptual awareness that may have been lost in the “process” as students become overwhelmed with methods instead of concept application.

At the surface this appears all well and good, but since we are discussing critical thinking we must investigate the quality of learning through computer-supported efforts. Are we supporting the development of deep or surface learning by skipping the basic techniques when we move quickly past prerequisite skills right to creative and critical problem solving efforts? Are we indeed providing the necessary interaction with the information involved in the decision process (Newman, 1997)? By assuming the artificial intelligence found in microworlds, simulations and expert systems provide the “best” analysis methods and representations of information could we be digging holes in our critical thinking field? Are we disabling students’ ability to develop their own concepts webs in their personal language or forcing them to use the accepted form of expression?
Kayuga and Sweller’s (2004) discussion of expertise reversal effect serves to place greater divots and mounds on our playing field. Ironically use of technologies and multimedia and to reduce cognitive load on working memory creates positive, efficient learning in learners with less initial knowledge while knowledgeable learners find it more difficult to process the “canned” information if it does not conform with their schema for the content area.

Suddenly our level field is not as easy to negotiate as Jonassen and other proponents of Mindtools may lead us to believe. As with most educational trends any misuse or unawareness of pitfalls, can lead instructors and their students right off the edge of the cliff like lemmings. Critical thinking development should not merely be a goal of educators for their students but also for themselves as they are introduced to new technologies and movements.



References

Jonassen, D. H., Carr, C., & Yueh, H-P. (1988). Computers as Mindtools for engaging learners in critical thinking. TechTrends, 43(2), 24- 33.

Kalyuga, S., & Sweller, J. (2004). Measuring knowledge to optimize cognitive load factors during instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(3), 558-568. Retrieved from Research Library database. (Document ID: 737347421).

Newman, D. R., Johnson, C., Webb, B., Cochrane, C. (1997) Evaluating the quality of learning in computer supported co-operative learning. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48 (6), 484-495

Walker, S. (2005), Role of Education and Training in Agricultural Meteorology to Reduce Vulnerability to Climate Variability, Climatic Change, 70 (1 – 2), 311 - 318

Blog #4 - Growth from Within

Logic and practice often elude each other. This phenomenon is ever so clear for individuals learning the English language. Faced with holes and conundrums students of English jump between forms of conjugation and roots of diverse linguistic origin noticing lack of linguistic patterns. Frequently individuals new to English find these deficiencies frustrating and will carry past language terms into current practice to provide relevant terms for their experiences. We, as a culture, create and preserve words that emphasize interests and priorities and ignore subjects or ideas falling beyond our periphery.

Papert identified in his commentary A Word for Learning education’s this tendency toward egocentric language development. For eons those in charge of education were not the students but the “professionals”…those trained to teach. The locus of control was centered over the act of teaching not the students’ reception of knowledge.

Introduction of the computer and self directed learning into the “teaching” toolbox destroys the method-centric education schema and inserts many educators into a world of constructionist and constructivist approaches. Allowing students to direct knowledge quests on guided yet creative whims permits links between areas of knowledge thus delivering students to higher levels of cognitive process. Students are able to, on their own terms, confront personal misunderstandings much like Papert did in his flower example. The computer and other learner-centered technologies encourage nontraditional learning environments and promote increased levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy. (Clark, 2005) “Because non-formal learning environments are not constrained by the structure and policies of traditional schools, they allow participants to see the relevance of their learning efforts based on things that are important to them.”


Reference:
Ausburn, L. J. (2002). The freedom versus focus dilemma in a customized self-directed learning environment: A comparison of the perceptions of adult and younger students. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 26 (30, 225-235).

Clark, K. (2005). SERVING UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES WITH INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES: Giving Them What They Need, Not What You Want. Urban education, 40(4), 430-.

http://sfx.lib.lehigh.edu:9003/sfx_local?genre=article;sid=ProQ%3A;atitle=SERVING%20UNDERSERVED%20COMMUNITIES%20WITH%20INSTRUCTIONAL%20TECHNOLOGIES%3A%20Giving%20Them%20What%20They%20Need%2C%20Not%20What%20You%20Want;title=Urban%20Education;issn=00420859;date=2005-07-01;volume=40;issue=4;spage=430;pid=Kevin%20Clark

Blog # 3: Breaking Free from our Chains of Thought

Presentation of a visual analogy comparing linear though process to a chain with one point of connection on each side of a link and multi-dimensional though process to the image a spider web with multiple points of connection both direct and indirect lends well to this discussion of the capacity of students living in this high tech world to “think deeply.” As our learning society, based on Western or American educational philosophy, shifted to the linear process of content presentation and development of literacy skills we have historically removed students motivation to create their own links to contextualize new information in ways meaningful for their culture and interests. The ability to for students to conceptualize abstract connections between experience and areas of unique interests, which in the past have inspired creativity and innovation, was slowly whittled down to fit the prescribed way of connecting new and old knowledge bases. Coupled with this linear means to accumulate new knowledge we have also removed varying cultural influences such as story and song teaching new with old beliefs or “historical” remembrances, which may or may not encourage diversity in problem solving methods. I ask a counter question to Tarlow and Spangler, the authors of our reading: Did the era which incorporated “linear” and “traditional” methods of presenting and analyzing information from which we appear to be emerging ever provide the skills and tools to enable the citizen majority to think deeply? As they themselves suggest “The attitude adjustment which we must make is to accept and respect this multi-dimensional thinking that is not part of our psyche (Tarlow, 2001).”

As an Environmental Education specialist working primarily in non-traditional settings I am called daily to force myself from habits of prejudgment as to the path of connection, prescribed solutions, students capacity for understanding complex themes, and what indeed is an “appropriate” level of understanding for various ages and “abilities.” Literacy is not disappearing or being replaced by technology use and its surrounding cultural practices, instead it is enhanced. True, critical thinking does require time to development awareness and process perspectives, consider effects, and build relationships (Dwyer 1987; Lin & Dwyer 2004). However this linear sense of required time to reach a level of deep thought or metacognition may not apply in the same capacity in a multi-dimensional approach which utilizes technologies to facilitate learning and enable access to previously “unreachable” (from a student’s viewpoint) information. As we know in our past cultural dimensions neither time nor presentation means ensured deep though or even comprehension, in part perhaps due to individual difference in learning style, media preferences, or processing direction. Could our high tech students be prating problem solving skills, which inherently and intuitively bypass extraneous information to enable more meaningful personal connections and solutions represented in their own cultural language and in their own required time frame?

Utilizing the chain/ web analogy to support the manufactured ideal of sufficent time necessary to reach a level of critical though I offer the following visualiztions. Chains can be looped and woven about but travel along the route designed is still linear, movement from one link to the next must happen sequentially, stepping off the line is not conceptually possible unless it happens at a point of intersection. To embellish this vision think of a “food chain” One animal eats another, and another becoming prey to another in turn eats the prior predator. Although we know that each object in this study may indeed eat other foods or be eaten by other predators we are not encouraged to make these outside connections. Time to move to critical thought about the entire process is determined by the length of chain and loops of thought only closed when the particular circle closes. The concept of multi-dimensional thought as represented by the concept of an orb like spider web with spoke emanating from a central point, with multiple connections linking each spoke enables virtual travel between viewpoints, information and themes. Complete understandings of concepts entwined within the web can develop with more depth accommodating now for the permission to travel in brachial directions. The accessibility of information through media outlets and the Internet allow for this very type of multifaceted knowledge quest. At times the path will be shorter, others longer, some more in depth or shallow; these variables of time for acquisition and depth of knowledge or thought are dependent on the various short-cuts or side-stops a student in this high-tech era decides to make since multi-dimensional creative thinning is indeed in their Psyche.



References

Dwyer, F. (1987). Enhancing visualized instruction: Recommendations for the practitioner. Pa. Learning Services.

Lin, C-L., & Dwyer, F. (2004). Effects of varied animated enhancement strategies in facilitating achievement of different educational objectives. International Journal of Instructional Media, 31(2), 185-198. Retrieved , from Research Library database. (Document ID: 716033351).

Tarlow, M.C. & Spangler, K. L. (2001, November). Now more than ever: Will high-tech kids still think deeply? The Education Digest, 67(3), 23-27. Retrieved February 22, 06, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 85508168).

Blog #2
Thoughts...McLuhan’s Tetrad on Educational Technologies

What is a community? Abstracted from the ecological definition, a community consists of biota such as flora and fauna interacting with abiotic or non-living factors. The biotic components survival is affected by availability of nutrients, water, shelter and space. Over eons the organisms that comprise the living compliment in the community have developed adaptations in attempt to utilize the nonliving influences. Those with beneficial adaptations, those that encourage survival, have flourished. Organisms with inappropriate adaptations or those with the inability to adapt behaviors to changing circumstances quickly become obsolete in their community thus move to extinction.

Communities change as the abiotic factors are altered, whether through natural influence or manipulation. Through the development of adaptations such as the Internet, communication/collaboration tools, tutorial and simulation software, videogames, and productivity tools educators and software developers have again changed the community. Many within the community had relinquished former adaptations thought to be of bygone days. These analytical thinking and questioning tools are again becoming critical for survival in our fast-paced information, rich-environment. Planning for present and future uses of technology are absolutely necessary to prevent inundation of negative applications and to keep progress directed in a line to promote thought and literate citizens.

The “new” abiotic factors that have become integral in the “community infrastructure,” as we know it, provide extensions that expand the reach of nearly all human activities, both positive and negative. Communications are no longer bound by proximity, mobility of though between different populations as Sayed stated in his Wiki entry. “…with cars people {literally] move less but their cars move them a lot so their mobility is extended.” If used correctly these tools enable students to contact and experience cultures and events from which they would have previously been isolated. Accessibility to new thoughts and opposing viewpoints fosters development of analytical thinking skills which include the ability to not only question others perspective but evaluation and confrontation of one’s own thought and misconceptions.
Access to expertise is an outstanding benefit of the technological changes to the abiotic component in our community. In both the video shown and class discussion on February 8 reference was made about conducting brain surgery long distance. Although the technology is still developing we see great steps being taken in that very direction. For example in the field of dermatology as with many others, training had jumped Online through the use of real-time video and time zone independent communications such as store-and forward. Benefits include easy access to second opinions, something that can be critical in the case of aggressive cancers, and also diagnostic training for identification and treatment “exotic” conditions such as parasitic infestations (Burg, et al., 2005).
Acknowledging warnings and predictions presented by our classmates in the sections “What becomes oblsolete?” and “What does technology revert to if it is overextended?” I counter that we now have opportunity as a community to once again develop our critical thinking tools (adaptations) that became atrophied well before the advent of television and the Internet. Members of the community can now use the masses of information to hone and strengthen our questioning of choices and information that have been provided. Options for information are now at our fingertips available at the blink of an eye. It’s time for “Alternative news and Views” to borrow from the title of a Berks County cable program produced by Robert Millar, a good friend and political science professor. Of course dangers do lurk in our “community” however if skilled and literate our students and citizens will be able to successfully wade through the mire and find additional relevant and beneficial abiotic factors which will aid in their survival.

Reference

Burg, G., Hasse, U., Cipolat, C., Kropf, R.; Djamei, V., Soyer, H. P., Chimenti, S. (2005). Teledermatology: Just Cool or a Real Tool? Dermatology, 210(2), 169-173. Retrieved
February 15, 2006, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 796791381).

Blog Reflection 1: Does or Will Media Effect Learning?

Are we asking the correct questions about the influence of media on learning?

Richard E. Clark ignited a firestorm of discussion and laid open may potential research venues when he broached the topic of learning and media in his 1983 position paper Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media. Since that first publication Clark and Robert D. Kozma have been at odds challenging and conceding unwillingly to various points of conflict. Underlying the discord are the very definitions of what defines media, learning success and what divisions can be made to eliminate confounds such as teaching method. In 1994 Clark and Kozma again took to battle with reformulated arguments in their articles Media Will Never Influence Learning and Will Media Influence Learning: Reframing the Debate.

Key to Clark’s argument is his assertion that the definition of instructional method must be autonomous from that of a medium or delivery technology and the confusion of technologies impedes proper research and evaluation. By contending, “when a study demonstrates that media attributes are sufficient to cause learning, the study has failed to control for instructional method and is therefore confounded” Clark ultimately opens even more confounds for exploration. In his attempts to oversimplify the influences of media on learning he ignores the fact that various tools are better suited for completing a task. The fact that a tool not be necessary for instruction or task completion should not translate and define the potential usefulness of the tool. Absent from the Clark discussion are not only the attributes specific to the selected media which lend it to a particular but also external circumstances which must be acknowledged in a thorough evaluation of media efficacy in learning outcomes. Borrowing from Clark and Kozma’s example of analogy use to demonstrate this point of interdependence I offer this example. To understand a forest we need not only to understand each of the individual species internal systems and individual worth but also understand the ecological or external attributes of each organism and how these affect interactions between species and the system as a whole.

In May 2005 Nancy Hastings and Monica Tracey published yet another summary/ rebuttal to the Clark-Kozma argument, Does Media Affect Learning: Where are we now? By immediately addressing Clark’s long standing determination that the only effect media has had on learning is “cost and distribution (of knowledge),” and not increase learning outcome they raise awareness about the direction of research inquiry to date. Clark’s arguments sit upon skill and drill outcomes instead of cognitive process, social value and accessibility to resources. Instead I suggest we begin to evaluate media not merely as tools for replication as a surrogate for “traditional” methods to present content but as channels for development of new instructional methodologies.

Perhaps the question we should ask is…which combination of instructional method and media integration best increases a student’s learning potential defined by successful acquisition and application of knowledge to novel situations?

Added 2/15 (realized upon review of comments my bilographic reference did not make the "cut and paste first time round)

Hastings, N. B., Tracey, M, W. (2005). Does Media Affect Learning: Where Are We Now? TechTrends, 49(2), 28-30. Retrieved February 15, 2006, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 841258651).