Authors: Ben Chaddock & Emma Keating
Today’s post compares Kozma’s (1994) and Clark’s (1994) positions in the Great Media Debate with recent examples of techno-deterministic thinking by pro-tech firms. The Great Media Debate took off in 1983, with Clark’s article summarizing how fundamental learning methods will remain fundamental, despite technological changes in delivery methods or content that may improve efficiency.
Below we review articles about a new learning app for Microsoft teams and a sales-support article from a wifi installation and management firm and overlays Kozma and Clark’s outlook on both.
Article 1: New learning app for Microsoft Teams LINK
This new app allows employers to collaborate all the learning they want their employees to do in one place (Our Training tab), including company-specific training. Users of the app can assign activities to their employees and track who has completed them. Group chats enable peer conversation, and users can share links to media and training with each other. The app also links to Microsoft Learn and LinkedIn Learning for professional collaboration.
Kozma argues that the attributes that make media successful are not consistently present in the various forms of media to be relied upon to assist in learning. For example, in this new Teams learning app, many attributes may impact the quality of the learning, but it is very challenging to isolate a particular component that guarantees success. Moreover, the app does not provide a comprehensive library of modules, contributing to an inconsistent student experience that should not be relied upon for successful learning.
Clark would comment that the new media of the Teams app may not influence learning as it may not consider the cognitive or motivational factors of learning. Although the app includes some social components (chats and inter-user communication), it does little to support those aspects throughout the methods of the actual learning. For example, tracking employee training completion progress may motivate some, but little evidence is available that shows this action will positively influence learning or ensure comprehension and retention.
Article 2: Pro-Techno stance from cloud company LINK
American wireless internet implementation and management firm SecurEdge is in the business of helping install custom wifi systems to schools and companies. This article lists numerous ways that digital tools and classrooms can help students learn. Their claims include that digital classrooms help students of different learning styles, increase student engagement, that “traditional passive learning model is broken… [and] technology transforms the learning experience” (Mareco, 2017).
Kozma (1994) would agree that technology and digital mediums help create objects that generate conservation from an interactionist perspective. The unique features of the students, their beliefs and goals, interact with these digital objects and transform them from inert tools into a host for emerging ideas and hopefully meaningful dialogue between all parties (p. 21). However, Kozma (1994) also claims that traditional teaching models do not acknowledge or accommodate the interplay between media, method, and situation (p. 21); and that they are bound by the tenets of behavioural psychology and shy away from the messy nature of social constructivism (p. 21).
Clark (1994) retorts that any medium, digital or otherwise, that supports learning includes characteristics that cause learning. For example, the difference between a printed textbook and a digital textbook.
Clark (1994) would associate the digital nature of the latter as a surface feature of the learning environment, and that the structural or fundamental element of the resource is the fact that both tools consolidate large amounts of information into a helpful and encouraging format for consumption, or most aptly, comprehension. Further, that the “active ingredient” should be distinguished in the process of assessing the quality of new teaching technology. Otherwise, we may become lost in our evaluation of what is fundamentally impacting our students’ learning (Salomon, 1979, as cited by Clark, 1994, p. 4).
In conclusion, Amara’s law offers an important reminder that “we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run” (PC Mag, n.d.).
References
Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29.
Kozma, R. (1994). “Will media influence learning: Reframing the debate.” Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19.
Mareco, D. (2017, July 28). 10 Reasons Today’s Students NEED Technology in the Classroom. Securedge Networks. https://www.securedgenetworks.com/blog/10-reasons-today-s-students-need-technology-in-the-classroom
Pradeep (2020, July 8). Microsoft reveals the all-new learning app coming to Microsoft Teams (video). MS Power User. https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-learning-app-microsoft-teams-video/
PC Mag (n.d.) Amara’s Law. https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/amaras-law
