LRNT523 Unit 3 Activity 7
Authors: Chad FLINN, Beata KOZMA, Dorothy SIDHU, and Danielle STOKES.
Kozma cited Simon (1981) and Glaser (1976) and claims that educational technology is a design science (Simon, 1981, Glaser, 1976 as cited in Clark, 1994), not a natural science. Kozma (1994, p. 2) expresses that we, the people, the instructional designers need to ‘forge’ the connection between media and learning. If we don’t their educational contribution will be minimal at best.
In both his articles, Clark (1984, as cited in 1994, p. 2) claimed that “media not only fail to influence learning, they are also not directly responsible for motivating learning.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (“Influence | Definition of Influence by Merriam-Webster,” n.d.) defines ‘Influence’ as “the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways”. Clark’s arguments seem to miss the meaning of ‘influence’ as our articles reveal.
Both Clark (1994) and Kozma (1994) acknowledge that instructional methods and the chosen media must be aligned to facilitate meaningful learning. In the summaries of the articles below, it can be seen that both Clark and Kozma have valid arguments in the field of pedagogy. As we see, the evolution of media (Virtual and Augmented Reality) has shifted its use and potentially a shift in the authors’ views. While there was a time when media may have been no more than a glorified video lecture we are now seeing media influencing assessments, connections, personalized learning, and construction of knowledge.
The following four articles support and question Clark and Kozma’s arguments and lead to a continued debate on the use of technology and learning and what the future may bring in this field.
Is Digital Technology Changing Learning & Teaching? The Big Debate from Digifest 2017
With clear opposing viewpoints and strong positional stances between Clark (1994) and Kozma (1994) on the debate of independence versus interdependence amongst learning and media Clark has claimed, “30 percent sample of the studies he used and found that when the same instructional design group produces Computer Based Training (CBT) and presents the live instruction with which it is compared in many studies, there is no achievement difference between CBT and live conditions” (1994, p. 23). Kozma responded with, “knowledge and learning are neither solely a property of the individual or the environment and rather they are the reciprocal interaction between the learner’s cognitive resources and aspects of the external environment (Greeno, 1988 et al. as cited in Kozma, 1994, p. 9) and this interaction is strongly influenced by the extent to which internal and external resources fit together” (Snow 1992 as cited in Kozma, 1994, p. 9).
In the article, Is Digital Technology Changing Learning & Teaching, a similar debate continues a decade and a half later in 2017 between Neil Morris, who argues FOR that digital technology is fundamentally changing learning and teaching and Amber Thomas, who argues AGAINST the motion.
The three main points included by Morris in favor of learning and teaching are changing due to technology are the flexibility and accessibility of learning, way learners gain knowledge, and interaction with others. Morris suggests, “None of these were even imaginable before we started to integrate digital technology into education” (Morris, 2017, p. 4). Morris sees these three points as interconnected to digital technology changes in learning and teaching. In Morris’s first point on flexibility, he describes how learners are able to access learning from anywhere, anytime and any pace. The options between blended, hybrid and fully online allow learners to have a choice and they can integrate it as seen best into their lives. This, in turn, sees several benefits which could include; increases in enrollment, greater participation, higher motivation and satisfaction. His second point explains how learners are gaining competencies through the use of technology, where they are expected to not only use technology but as well as hone in on skills around massive amounts of information and ability to search, refine, categorize and understand (Morris, 2017). These are all directly useful for future employment, as these are some of the skill seeked out for tomorrow’s workforce. The third point Morris discusses is how learners are able to interact with peers and teachers residing globally, in turn enabling advocacy around inclusion and diversity, cultural awareness, and globalization.
Furthermore, Morris describes these changes give educators more diversity in their approach to support learners and provide more opportunities to be more inclusive in their teaching methods. Additional benefits raised by Morris is with digital technology, educators can create more interactive, engaging, flexible learning materials in a variety of digital and multimedia formats, as well as make them online and compatible with mobile devices. Finally, the ability to communicate as educators through the use of digital technology allows for higher and greater interaction with learners, communicating in more ways and not limited to classroom and meetings face to face.
Amber Thomas sees things in a similar viewpoint as Clark. She expresses that, “drivers for change in teaching and learning in higher education are socio-economic, related to the way student fees are funded, changes in the job market, the currency of a degree and the skills people need. As a result of those drivers, we see technologies used in particular ways” (Thomas, 2017, p. 8). Thomas takes a pretty clear stance that digital is the endpoint and the real efforts are within the design and development by instructional designers and architects of the content to create a great digital course, emphasizing it’s about the real structures in the learning designs, course objectives, and learning outcomes.
She continues to emphasize that the learning is about conversations with academics and educators around what the course is about, how the learning is designed, what is it designed to do, how teams will be structured and allocation of time put aside for running an activity. Thomas explicitly went on to say, “Those are not technical concerns and can be quite disappointing for those who believe that we have the magical pixie dust of technology to scatter of their courses for them” (Thomas, 2017, p. 12).
The tensions between interconnectedness and interdependence between technology, media, digital and learning versus them as stand-alone and a silo pillar continue to be debated a decade later. As we continue to see greater exposure with technology in the space of learning, more demands for mobile learning, personalized learning plans, alongside with artificial intelligence and classrooms and training facilities outfitted with advanced systems and technologies for learning, it will be interesting to see if this necessary and inevitable relationship finds a cohesiveness where designing and developing great learning goes hand in hand with digital technology.