Lesson from the past that I can apply to my work:
The quality of media use matters. Reiser (2001, p. 58) identifies that much of the reason that instructional television began to lose its momentum as an educational media was that the instructional quality was poor. Poorly designed materials are poorly designed materials, no matter how expensive, interesting, modern or cutting edge the delivery method is. Shoehorning poor pedagogy or andragogy into a new delivery method will not make a good lesson.
Really this is very relevant in my work. As instructors, we need to remember that the first thing in the 1994 Association for Educational Communications and Technology definition of field categories for Education Technology is design. Taking time to first design a lesson, prioritizing the learning outcomes over the media through which we are working with students is paramount to finding ways to use technology effectively. My current strategy is to think through, “what are the things I need the students to come away with?” Then to look at the educational media tools at my disposal to see which one best delivers the information and allows for student input and feedback.
Lesson from the past that conflicts, contradicts, or causes problems with my work:
Reiser (2001, p.59) talks about how the early work done in computer-assisted instruction from the 1950s did not change the way the information was being delivered to students, and that education practices remain the same – just that tech has become the media through which that teaching happens. I’d like to see that, at my institution, we can move beyond replicating the classroom experience to the virtual realm, to do more than videotape and post lectures. I am currently part of a committee that is developing a course, and much of the suggestion has been around filming in-class to create video lectures, enabling us to translate the course from a face-to-face setting to an online setting. My concern is that there is no room in this model for student feedback and relationship to the material. There is a prevailing attitude that putting it online is easy, that additional development does not need to be done. I would argue that 1950s attitude about what educational media can do for us and our students is still prevalent in my post-secondary institution today.
Reference
Reiser, R. A. (2001). A history of instructional design and technology: Part I: A history of instructional media. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(1), 53-64.