Media, Technology, and Learning

Media, Technology, and Learning

 integrate prior experience and thus facilitate learning of abstract concepts. For example, many students have watched various aspects of the construction of a highway or street. However, they need to have all these experiences integrated into a generalized nation of what it means to build a highway. 

THE ROLES OF MEDIA IN LEARNING

     Media can serve many roles in learning. The instruction may be dependent on the presence of a teacher (i.e., instructor directed). Even in this situation, media may be heavily used by the teacher. Such student-directed instruction is often called “self-instruction” even though it is fact guided by however designed the media.

Instructor-Directed Instruction 

Research has long indicated the importance of the instructor’s role in effective use instructional media. For example, early studies showed that when teachers introduced films, relating them to learning objectives, the amount of information students gained from films increased (Wittich & Fowlkes, 1946). Later research confirmed and expanded on these original findings. Ausubel (1968), for example, developed the concept of advance organizers as an aid to effective instruction. Advance organizers can be effective instruments for ensuring that medi play their proper role as supplemental supporters of instruction. 

Instructor-Independdent Instruction

Media are often “packaged” for this purpose: objectives are listed, guidance in achieving objectives in given, materials are assembled, and self-evaluation guidelines are provided. In informal educational settings, media such as videocassettes and computer course ware can be used by trainees at the worksite or at home.

Cooperative learning is closely related to self-instruction. Cooperative learning with hypermedia can lead to stimulating interchanges among students as they go through and discuss their response to the materials. Hypermedia programs that allow for users to make additions to the information lend themselves particularly well to this type of learning experience. 

The use of self-instructional materials allows teachers to spend more of their time diagnosing and correcting student problems, consulting with individual students, and teaching one on one and in a small gropus. 

Media Portofolios

      A portofolio is a collection of student work that illustrates growth over a period of time. Portofolios often include such artifacts as student-produced illustrated books, videos, and audiovisuaal presentations. 

Portofolios allow students to do the following:

• Gather, organize, and share information analyze relationship
• Test hypotheses
• Communicate the results effectively
• Record a variety of performances
• Reflect on their learning and activities
• Emphasize their goaals, outcomes, and priorities

Demonstrate their creativity and personalty

Portofolios could contain the following artifacts:

• Written documents such as poems, stories, or research papers
• Media presentations, such as slide sets or photo essays
• Audio recordings of debates, panel discussions, or oral presentation
• Video recordings of students’ athletic, musical, or dancing skills
• Computer multimedia projects incorporating print, data, graphics, and moving images
• The idea of portofolio assessment, then, is to measure students’ achievements by their accomplishments in term of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Electronic Portofolios. The use of computer workstations with video and audio digitizing cards, printers, scanners, and digital cameras allow students to prodece electronic or digital portofolios. Electronic portofolios are a means of organizing, designing, and viewing traditional styles of portofolios. Electronic portofolios have advantaages over traditional portofolios in the way they are created and navigated. 

Thematic Instruction

        A good anchor or theme must capture and hold students’ attention, provide problem-solving experiences, support interdisciplinary activities, and include a variety of media and technology. Themes used successfully include the Oregon Trail, the Civil War, the Olympics (every four years), the solar systemm, local history, local industry, travel, holidays (such as Martin Luther King’s birthday), and countries.

Distance Education

        Distance education is a rapidly developing approach to instruction worldwide. The approach has been widely used by business, industrial, and medical organizations. 

The media may be primarily print (books and paper-and-pencil tests), as an traditional correspondence courses.  Or, it might oinvolve a variety of media, including audio-cassettes, videotapes, videodiscs, and computer courseware sent to individual students. Computer conferencing enables “conversations” among students who log on at different times and different locations to exchange messages. 

Education for Exceptional Students

    Media play in important role in the education of students with exceptionalities. Adapted and specially designed media can contribute enormously to effective instruction of all students and can help them achieve at their highest potential regardless of their innate abilities.

Gifted and talented students can use videotape and other media to explore topics beyond or in addition to that covered by other students in the class. They can also use the Internet to ssearch for information related to topics being covered in class or for their own personal interests and hobbies.

METHODS

     Methods are the procedures of instruction selected to help learners achieve the objectives or to internalize the content or message. Media then, as already defined, are carriers of information between a source and a receiver.

Ten Method Categories

The general categories of methods are:

Presentation. In the presentation method, a source tells, dramatizes, or otherwise disseminates information to learners. It is a one-wway communication controlled by the source, with no immediate response from or interaction wwith learners.

Demonstration. In this method of instruction, learners view a real or lifelike exmple of the skill or procedure to be learned. Demonstrations may be recorded and played back by means of media such as video. If two-way interaction or learner practice with feedback is desired, a live instructor or a tutor is needed.

Discussion. As a method, discussion involves the exchange of ideas and opinions among students or among students and teacher. It can be used at any stage of the instruction/learning process, and in small or large gropus.

Drill-and-Practice. In drill-and-practice learners are led through a series of practice exercises designed to increase fluency in a new skill or to refresh an existing one.

Tutorial. A tutor in the form of a person, computer software, or special printed materials presents the content, poses a question or problem, requests a learner’s responses, analyzes her response, supplies appropriate feedback, and provides practice until the learner demonstrates a predetermined level of competency. Tutoring is most often done one on one and is frequently used to teach basic skills, such as reading and arithmetic.

Cooperative Learning. Critics of competitive learning urge instead an emphasis on cooperative learning as an instructional method. Students can learn cooperatively not only by discussing texts and viewing media but also by producing media. 

Gaming. Gaming provides a playful environment in which learners follow prescribed rules as they strive to attain a challenging goal. It is a highly motivating technique, especially for tedious and repetitive content. Games often require learners to use problem-solving skills or to demonstrate mastery of specific content demanding a high degree of accuracy and efficiency.

Simulation. Simulation involves learners confronting a scaled-down version of  a real-life situation. It allows realistic practice without the expense or risks otherwise involved. The simulation may involve participant dialog, manipulation of materials and equipment, or interaction with a computer.

Discovery. The discovery method uses an inductive, or inquiry, approach to learning; it presents problems to be solved through trial and error. The aim of the discovery method is to foster a deeper understanding of the content through involvement with it.\

Problem Solving. Problem solving involves placing students in the active role of being confronted with a novel problem situated in the real world (see “Close-Up: The Ebola Problem”). Students start with limited knowledge, but through peer collaboration and consultation they develop, explain, and defend a solution or position on the problem. It uses reality-based, problem-centered materials that are often presented by media (e.g., written cases, computer-based situations, and videotaped vignettes). As a part of solving the problem, students go to the library media center and/or access computer databases through the Internet.

TECHNOLOGY

     The notion of technology being a process is high-lighted in the definition of instructional technology given by the leading professional association in that field: “the theory and practice of design, development, untilization, management and evaluation of processes and resources for learning” (Seels & Richey, 1994). The developers of programmed instruction called it a technology for learning. They believed that what was really important was the process of analyzing learning tasks, breaking them down into their components, and then devising the steps necessary to help learners master those tasks.