another day, another handful of articles...

so, as is my MO lately, i got ticked off while reading an article for class. Today, it was Clark's (1994) "Media will never influence learning" and i was peeved from Go...it was a nagging feeling that stuck with me through the whole article, even when I agreed with some of his arguments.

Here's the thesis, paraphrased: media are only vehicles for content delivery, exactly as a truck that delivers vegetables. The media cannot bring about an increase in a learners' learning any more than a truck can enhance the nutritional value of the food it's delivering. The key to increasing learning is appropriate instructional methods and use of technology to deliver the message (which doesn't impart anything, per se, to the content except ease of access & speed of delivery).  Secondly, unless a media is unique it cannot add anything to learning that another media couldn't do.

Although the "unique media" piece is a narrowish perspective, in my opinion, it makes some sense to me considering the bulk of instructional media i've seen. Khan's academy, for example, is a perfect case-in-point: there isn't anything new about instructional videos being used to help kids learn. Mr. Rogers did that for fifty-odd years. Khan's math tutorials, advocates say, help struggling students by offering repetition until they learn it. Well, as luck, providence, twittergods would have it, @davidwees retweeted an awesome blog post from @delta_dc (here) asking "is rewind the answer?" he says, i think correctly, that nope! it's not...students don't need repetition, they need differentiated instruction, different ways to solve a problem. now, yes, different videos can be used for that but that's what youtube is for, what older student tutors are for, what study hour is for, not Khan, imo. don't expect a kid to go home, watch Khan, and 'get' physics. just sayin.

clark has some very valid points: "we continue to invest heavily in expensive media in the hope that they will produce gains in learning." Yes! part of that whole early-90s thinking that we put a computer in a classroom and BOOM, learning happens. we all know better...it takes a motivated teacher with support, training, and initiative to learn to use the tech wisely and, in turn, models that for the students to follow...my favorite analogy lately "digital sherpa." Clark says that the media are worthless without valid instructional content & planning--again, i agree! it should never be about the technology. if so, you're doing it wrong (to quote my pal @j_allen).

Yet, I'm still teed off with Clark. Kozma (94) said, Clark has introduced an "unnecessary and undesirable schism" between method and medium. is media an integral aspect of method? i think so. Clark stated that computers aren't necessary to teach people how to fly airplanes. Well, i beg to differ...yes they are. Maybe not a Cessna 172, but a Dreamliner pilot ain't steppin' into one of them things without some serious training and computer-driven sim time, baby. nor would, one supposes, Clark would want her to, either, if he was aboard for a ride.

it took me a bit to wrap my mind around the article and peg down what's a-chafin' me...Clark's viewpoint is so very narrow. Kozma asked him to be more open to the idea of future technologies (this was 94, recall) being able to influence learning. Clark's stiff refusal to concede any ground smacks of ivory-tower recalcintrantism (that's not a word, yet) if you ask me. you didn't, but i tell you anyhow.

so, do you think media matters? does it carry meaning like a truck, ala Clark? or are media & the message one and the same, ala McLuhan?

blogging, again, for the first time.

i dug up an old domain name i purchased a while back and resurrected it...welcome to purgatoby.

i've tried me hand at this blogging stuff before but school, life, school and life have gotten in the way. i'm gonna try to incorporate some school and life stuff into this one--a mishmash of this and that, in attempts to make myself reflect and write.

so, what's happening: it's summer and i've brilliantly enrolled in two one-month-long grad classes. i'm in a hurry to gradumate and am so very ready to finish this degree so's i can start thinking for a living!

my doc-level course is a practicum and we're studying media and online study. so far (10 days in) and i've picked up some foundational work in our field of educational technology--stuff i've not read previously.

• McLuhan's "the medium is the message" (1964) is pretty good...i think it fits in our age of rapid communication & insta-on, hyper-connected everything.
• Postman's technological change (1998) and consequences of using technology (2000) are also striking chords with me--the little things we tend to focus on in this field (do 1:1 programs work, byod, firewalled school networks) will likely (hopefully, rather) dissipate over the next few years as techy devices get cheaper and more readily available for kids to use in the classroom. Bigger issue, to me, is how to get teachers to use the bloody equipment to teach, and to let the students use their own equipment to learn how to learn for themselves in lieu of being spoonfed useless, out-of-context facts and figures. Postman's point is to relax--most of these issues sort themselves out over time, regardless of how many papers are published/torches lit and castles stormed/cries on the street are carried out. The consequences of using tech are omnipresent--cyberbullying & digital divide issues are bigger, more serious--how can we alleviate these worrying problems? What are we asking kids to do with technology? how can we train 'em better? etc etc 
• Digital Natives. sigh. sigh again. Prensky's (2001) second article about digital natives sets forth the idea that kids these days (how long has that been a phrase?) live and breathe through the four inch displays in their pockets. they all know tech backways and frontsides...they've had powerpoint shoved down their throats since Pre-K and mobile phones since they were three. the problem is, however, that many students just plain don't know how to use the technology wisely...either they didn't have access to it as a kid at home or school (d-divide issues again) or were never asked by a teacher to dig deeper into these fantastic tools can do...when was the last time you used an Advanced Google search? have you ever? it's not as easy as it once were--google removed the stinkin' button (bring it back! we loves it!) and now one is required to use several clicks to find those options. Anyway, many many kids and students now haven't been allowed to learn how they learn, haven't been challenged to NOT seek a right answer, to use tech tools to express their creativity through blogs, artwork, music, writing. they've not shared documents with each other. granted, the technology is only recently decent enough to really collaborate on some of this stuff, but still. so, reading prensky's gross overgeneralizations about this generations' plastic minds and how teachers are ill-preparing their students (all of 'em, i assume--he doesn't mention any numbers to back up anything he's said--it's all bloody anecdotal evidence--another huge gripe of mine). yes...too many teachers ask their students to do homework that has that right answer, one that's easily googled. we need to fix that in higher ed. but, i happen to know--i've seen and experienced f2f, through twitter, and through reading real research-based articles--that students need teachers' help to use the tech wisely. the 'natives' are a popular theory...NOT a research-based one.  so there, prensky...
• Games! my 2nd class is about games and I've just read Gee's most most excellent article about 13 principles of using games in education. so very fantastic...i'd quote the whole thing here if it wouldn't break copyright. it's seriously good...go read it, very readable, etc. you'll thank me.

ah, the end of post one. several more are percolating in me had and need to go down on virtualpaper: brands i believe in and support. starting and maintaining an exercise regimen when you're old and too busy with other crap, making one's way through a phd program, how i finally came to be in love with my grill, music--always music, and insomnia--curse or welcomed? to name a few...