TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

Technology in the Classroom

Technology in the Classroom

Introduction

Educational visionaries and reformers have held high hopes for the use of technology to improve the quality of education. Distinct from technology education, which emphasizes technology skill development as a content area, educational technology is used to enhance or augment instruction in other subjects. With each innovation in communications technology during the 20th century, claims have been made that their use in classrooms would revolutionize the educational process, improving effectiveness, resource efficiency, and/or pedagogical approach. Advocates promoted the adoption of educational motion pictures in the 1920s, educational radio in the 1930s, educational television in the 1950s, personal computer use for education in the 1980s, and classroom use of the Internet in the 1990s. The general consensus of those who have studied technology's influence, however, is that these innovations have failed to engender either significant learning benefits or reform in mainstream schooling.

Assessments of educational technology's value and effectiveness are in part influenced by the definition of the term that is used. Current colloquial usage tends to assume that technology refers to devices, especially digital innovations, such as software, laptop computers, and PDAs, that are used in learning contexts without inherent consideration of the device's pedagogical design. Many of those who conduct educational technology research, however, hold an alternative perspective that defines educational technology as an application of scientific principles to consistently attain specified outcomes. When this definition is used, pedagogical design itself is considered the dominant functional aspect of educational technology that drives student outcomes. The selection of specific media to deliver these technologies is driven solely by cost and organizational factors.

Discussion

Educational Technology and Learning

One of the best-known proponents of this perspective, Richard E. Clark, argues that media can never influence learning, because media are “mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition.” Substantial empirical evidence supports this perspective. A meta-analysis conducted in 2004 synthesized 232 studies published between 1985 and 2002 studying the effectiveness of distance education technologies. Analysis found that research methodology accounted for the most variation in outcomes, followed by pedagogical approach, and then media. In general, the study found that distance education (delivered primarily through computer-based means) and classroom instruction are equally efficacious. Further, extreme variability in results from individual distance education studies led to the conclusion that the structure and relevance of the instruction to the medium has substantially more power than the medium itself. (Thormann, 2004)

Not all scholars agree with this view. William Winn, another widely recognized leader in the field, characterized the development of educational technology as progressing through four “ages.” The first age was that of instructional design, in which researchers and educators found that instruction could be planned and evaluated independently from human interactions with students. This allowed students to learn material in a more efficient way in terms of both their cognitive effort and freedom to learn from material at their own pace without needing ...