Collaboratively written by Melissa Miller & Zac MacDonald 

Wong, W. (2018, April 2). School STEM Labs Inspire Students, Power Innovation. Ed Tech Magazine. https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2018/04/school-stem-labs-inspire-students-power-innovation

The Bullis School in Maryland opened a $25 million-dollar STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) center in 2017. The state-of-the-art building includes Creston control panels in each classroom, a 3D VR computer lab, a digital media room, and a maker space with robotics and 3D printers. The facility was built to facilitate the growth of STEM course offerings for students from K-12.

Unique classroom setups in the Bullis School allow students to collaborate in groups and share their screens with their groups by plugging into a shared display screen. The school claims that the setup allows for collaboration and project-based learning, specifically for subjects that are not usually associated with project-based learning, such as math (Wong, 2018).

Likely, Kozma would argue that the technology is part of the learning process. Kozma shared this quote in his 1994 article,

Rather, learning is an active, constructive, cognitive, and social process by which the learner strategically manages available cognitive, physical, and social resources to create new knowledge by interacting with information in the environment and integrating it with information already stored in memory (Shuell, 1988, as cited in Kozma, 1994, p. 3).

Kozma’s perspective would likely be that the technology is part of this process and therefore is influencing learning.

Clark, would likely make the “replaceability” argument that the same instructional methods could be used with learners collaborating and sharing their work without the technology therefore the media is not influencing learning the instructional methods are.

The school’s STEM Coordinator states that “It’s making sure that technology is not the thing that takes over. The priority is the pedagogy and ensuring that we have the technology to support what we are trying to accomplish” (Wong. 2018, Discovery Center Lets Educators and Students Explore section, para. 8). Clark would appreciate this acknowledgment by the school that the technology is there to support learning and the technology without the pedagogy would not accomplish the learning goals.

Babich, N. (2019, Sept 19). How VR In Education Will Change How We Learn And Teach. XD Ideas. https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/principles/emerging-technology/virtual-reality-will-change-learn-teach/

Adobe is a large computer software company that creates a multitude of programs, many of which are used in Ed-Tech. How many times have we seen job posts in the Ed-Tech field noting you must know Adobe Captivate? Adobe’s XD Idea site is an article space focused on the practice, business and impact of design. In the article the author stated the bold topic “How VR In Education Will Change How We Learn And Teach”.

The author makes multiple claims regarding Virtual Reality (VR) and that it is the next natural step in the evolution of education. VR is generally used in the form of a motion-tracking headset with video display and handheld controllers to create a simulated environment. They preface this idea that as a society we are always striving for the easier, quicker and more efficient ways of transferring knowledge in teaching and learning. They go further to say most technology helped in enabling access to information, but did not fundamentally change the way in which it was consumed. 

Virtual Reality (VR) was boasted to allow both visual representation and the ability to interact with the content in a new way. The role of the instructor will shift from “content delivery to content facilitation”. This allows near realistic conditions in digital spaces that may not exist anymore, are inaccessible, or break rules of reality to allow for teaching and learning. 

They claim there are 5 properties of good VR learning experiences, 

• Immersive: create an experience to bring the subject to life
• Ease of Use: use simplistic design choices to reduce the need for VR skills
• Meaningful: develop stories to spark more than understanding, spark interest and inspire
• Adaptable: give learners control to pace learning and adjust difficulty
• Measurable: instructors should have measurable criteria for success

Kozma would likely argue the use of VR fundamentally changes the process in how we learn. The use of this technology is a different experience and environment for teaching and learning to occur in a new way. The abilities of this digital format allows for events that cannot occur in an interactable 3D space as accurately or practically.

Clark would likely argue this is just another vehicle in which to deliver learning experiences. It may provide economic benefit in the means of being less expensive or the most cognitively efficient way, but it may not pass the replaceability test as there is likely another method available.

Looking at these articles through the media debate lens, we are able to identify techno-deterministic claims and critically evaluate how and where the technology effectively fits into the learning experience. Adobe’s claim that “VR will change how we learn and teach” immediately solicits a critical response. Perhaps, Adobe would be more accurate to claim, VR can support learners by providing real-life examples or VR will support teachers in problem-based learning scenarios. Although their claims likely have some merit, there is still a potential bias for the technology itself as the “next step in evolution for education”. Adobe does not directly produce VR gear (yet) but financially benefits from VR use as their software is used in the planning, design, and implementation of VR environments. Knowing what we do about the media debate, reading the Bullis School article, it can be appreciated that the school acknowledges that pedagogy is the priority and the technology is there to support it. This provides credibility to the school and the programs offered using advanced technology to facilitate learning. 

In conclusion, we agree both perspectives of Kozma and Clark can have merit when applied to several scenarios. Clark and Kozma seem to agree that the technology itself will not be the determining factor of successfully meeting learning outcomes, how the teacher uses the technology to support meeting the learning outcomes will be (Clark, 1994; Kozma, 1994).  We think the recent advancements in technology make it easier to argue in favour of Kozma’s stance today versus the time of the debate. 

References

Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29.

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning: Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19.