Section 3:
The Impact of Learning“ With” Media and Technology in Schools
Section 3:
The Impact of Learning“ With” Media and Technology in Schools
The Meaning of Media and Technology as Cognitive Tools
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Cognitive tools have been around for thousands of years, ever since primitive humans used piles of stones, marks on trees, and knots in vines to calculate sums or record events. In the broadest sense, cognitive tools refer to technologies, tangible or intangible, that enhance the cognitive powers of human beings during thinking, problem-solving, and learning. Something as complex as a mathematical formula or as simple as a grocery list can be regarded as a cognitive tool in the sense that each allows humans to“ off-load” memorization or other mental tasks onto an external resource.
Today, computer software programs are examples of exceptionally powerful cognitive tools( Jonassen, 1996a; Lajoie & Derry, 1993). Also referred to as " cognitive technologies "( Pea, 1985), " technologies of the mind "( Salomon, Perkins, & Globerson, 1991), and“ mindtools”( Jonassen, 1996a), they will be referred to as“ cognitive tools” in this report( Kommers, Jonassen, & Mayes, 1992). As computers have become more and more common in education, researchers have begun to explore the impact of software as cognitive tools in schools( Jonassen & Reeves, 1996).
Computers as cognitive tools represent quite a different approach from media and technology as vehicles for educational communications( see Section Two of this report). Computer-based cognitive tools have been intentionally adapted or developed to function as intellectual partners to enable and facilitate critical thinking and higher order learning. Examples of cognitive tools include:
• databases,
• spreadsheets,
• semantic networks,
• expert systems,
• communications software such as teleconferencing programs,
• on-line collaborative knowledge construction environments,
• multimedia / hypermedia construction software, and
• computer programming languages.
In the cognitive tools approach, information is not encoded in predefined educational communications which are then used to transmit knowledge to students. Indeed, with cognitive tools, the need for formal instructional systems design processes are reduced. Instead of specialists such as instructional designers
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