Authors: Weri Gadou & Chris Henderson
Education technology is rapidly transforming classrooms and redefining the ways students engage with learning with various tools like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), interactive whiteboards, and mobile devices, to name a few. This blog post examines the insights of two influential scholars, Richard E. Clark and Robert B. Kozma, in response to recent articles that highlight the impact of these technologies on education based on their perspectives from the Great Media Debate of the early 90s. While Clark adopts a more cautious stance, emphasizing the importance of effective instructional design over the medium itself, Kozma champions the potential of technology to create immersive, collaborative learning environments. By exploring their contrasting perspectives, we aim to understand the complex role that educational technology plays in enhancing student engagement and learning outcomes and reinforce the continued relevance of Clark and Kozma’s perspectives toward ed tech.
Revolutionizing Education – The Impact Of VR Headsets
In his March 2024 Forbes article, Bankim Chandra discusses the benefits and challenges of VR headsets and reviews four of the more common VR headsets on the market. Chandra (2024) posits that VR headsets achieve greater engagement with learners through immersive experiences. He identifies three key benefits of using VR headsets in education:
- Allowing educators to cater to various learning styles
- Visualizing complex or abstract concepts
- Increasing inclusivity by allowing distributed learners to participate in virtual classrooms
In addition to discussing the assumed benefits of VR headsets, Chandra notes the challenges these devices can present, including the need for extensive IT infrastructure, high hardware, software, content creation, and maintenance costs, as well as specialized training for educators.
In reviewing Chandra’s (2024) proposals and applying the principles expressed by Richard E. Clark in his 1994 paper, Clark would likely have disagreed with much of Chandra’s assertions. While Chandra suggests that immersive experiences achieve greater engagement with learners, Clark would argue that, without sound instructional design strategies, the immersive quality of VR would not produce better learning outcomes. In the 2021 edition of The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, Clark rejects the largely debunked learning styles theory. He would argue that well-designed instruction would be effective for all learners, regardless of whether the VR headsets catered to various hypothetical learning styles. Regarding the visualization of complex or abstract concepts, Clark would likely argue that VR headsets provide no unique cognitive effect for learning complex tasks and that attempting to visualize them could result in misconceptions in learning and understanding such concepts. Finally, Clark might acknowledge the benefits of connectivity that VR headsets could provide to distributed learners. Nonetheless, he would question the influence on learning outcomes without considering the instruction quality.
In contrast to Clark’s hypothetical dismissal of Chandra’s claims, when emulating Robert B. Kozma’s 1994 rebuttal to Clark, he would likely agree with Chandra, provided the claims were based on scholarly evaluations of VR’s affordances and how they complement the social and cognitive processes involved in knowledge construction. Thus, Kozma’s perspective could support Chandra’s assertion that the immersive visual and auditory affordances of VR headsets assist learners in engaging with the content in a way that is not possible in text. While there appears to be no evidence in the literature that Kozma expressed a perspective on the debunked learning styles theory, Kozma might consider how VR headsets allow learners to interact with the content through exploration, manipulation, or collaboration and enhance learning outcomes. In alignment with the Tinker Tools example in his paper, Kozma would resoundingly echo Chandra’s point that VR headsets can be used to visualize complex or abstract concepts to establish the necessary mental models for understanding, particularly for novice learners. Lastly, although Kozma was unaware of VR headset technology then, his remarks about voice-video debates demonstrated that he understood and acknowledged the potential connectivity afforded to distributed learners by such technologies. As such, he would argue this is evidence that media can transform educational environments by providing previously unavailable opportunities. However, in his 1994 paper, Kozma warned about the possible emergence of “edutainment virtual reality adventure games” (p. 8) created without “the contribution of educational technologists” (p. 8). In addition to his recognition of the potentially beneficial affordances of VR headset technology, he supports the role of instructional design in producing effective improvements in learning outcomes. Interestingly, in a 2023 LinkedIn post, Kozma weighed in on VR headsets, and while he supports their occasional use, he cautioned against the constant use of such devices due to their intentionally addictive design that attempts to replace our essential social and physical connections to the outside world.
How Technology is Revolutionising Education: AR, Smartboards, and Beyond
In the article How Technology is Revolutionising Education: AR, Smartboard. And Beyond, Chopra (2024) explores how education technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), interactive whiteboards, iPads, and Learning Management Systems (LMS) are reshaping the learning environment. Chopra emphasizes how these tools enhance student engagement by transforming them from passive recipients to active participants. The article highlights three major advancements:
- AR provides immersive, hands-on experiences in subjects like biology or history
- iPads promote personalized and multimodal learning, fostering creativity and collaboration
- LMS platforms improve the organization of classroom materials and communication between teachers and students.
Chopra acknowledges the transformative potential of these technologies but also stresses the importance of reimagining education to align with the evolving digital space.
Clark would adopt a more cautious and skeptical stance on the educational technologies discussed in Chopra’s article. He would challenge the notion that the introduction of technology, such as AR or smartboards, inherently transforms learning. According to Clark (1994), technology is merely a vehicle for delivering instruction, and its effectiveness depends on the underlying pedagogical strategies (p. 26). He would caution against overestimating the role of technology in educational change, stressing that evidence-based teaching, not the medium, is the true driver of learning outcomes. Therefore, he would likely argue that while technologies such as AR, iPads, and smartboards may appear exciting and innovative, they do not actually transform education in any meaningful way without effective pedagogy: the same learning outcomes could be achieved using traditional methods, provided that effective teaching approaches are applied (Clark, p. 27, 1994). For instance, he might suggest that teachers using well-designed instructional strategies, even without advanced technologies like AR, could still foster creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking, as the key factor is the quality of instruction, not the medium through which it is delivered.
In contrast, Kozma, as a strong advocate for the transformative potential of technology in education, would strongly support Chopra’s claims about the benefits of AR, interactive whiteboards, and iPads in education. Kozma has long argued that media and technology have the potential to transform learning by creating immersive, situated learning environments that go beyond traditional methods. In his 1994 article, he argues that the focus should not merely be on whether media influences learning, but rather on how media, when integrated with pedagogy, can transform the process of learning in meaningful ways (Kozma, 1994, p. 18). Kozma’s belief in the transformational power of technology aligns with Chopra’s argument that AR and other tools allow for deeper engagement with the content. For example, AR enables students to interact with 3D models and simulations, making learning more situated and contextualized, which Kozma emphasizes is crucial for fostering creativity and problem-solving. He would likely highlight that these tools not only support traditional learning goals but also open new avenues for collaborative learning, allowing them to share experiences and work on problems together, no matter where they are located. Kozma would view Chopra’s call for educators to reimagine education with technology as fully aligned with his belief that media can facilitate new forms of collaboration and learning, offering a richer, more engaged learning experience.
Conclusion
In reviewing the recent education technology articles authored by Chandra and Chopra from the perspective of Clark and Kozma, it’s clear that the Great Media Debate continues to be relevant to the field of learning and technology. By emulating Clark and Kozma’s 1994 arguments and augmenting them with more recent perspectives, Clark and Kozma remind us of the importance of critical appraisal in the application of technology in education. Clark challenges the claims of the affordances of technologies without sound instructional design, while Kozma encourages us to consider the transformational possibilities of new technologies. While these are important and core considerations in educational technologies, Kozma and Clark’s recent writings allude to a third factor beyond the media/message argument, and that is the underlying values and incentives embedded in education technologies, a topic we hope to discuss in the upcoming Book Club #2.
References
Chandra, B. (2024, March 28). Revolutionizing education: The impact of VR headsets. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/03/28/revolutionizing-education-the-impact-of-vr-headsets/
Chopra, D. (2024, September 20). How technology is revolutionising education: AR, smartboards, and beyond. India Today. https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/how-technology-is-revolutionising-education-ar-smartboards-and-beyond-2603253-2024-09-20
Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2). 21-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02299088
Clark, R. E., Feldon, D. F. and Jeong, S. (2021), Fifteen common but questionable principles of multimedia learning. In Mayer, R. E., & Fiorella, L. (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (pp. 25-40). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108894333
Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning: Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30218683
Kozma, R. B. (2023, June 7). “Why do we need these?” [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robert-kozma-ph-d-26b7278_a-first-try-of-apples-3500-vision-pro-activity-7072272247041708033-IHy7/
Attributions
Adobe Stock. (n.d.). High angle view of schoolkids studying on digital tablet while [Stock image]. Adobe Stock. https://stock.adobe.com/ca/images/high-angle-view-of-schoolkids-studying-on-digital-tablet-while/246460100
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