ultimately futile because fifty years of media and technology comparison studies indicate no significant differences in most instances. Whatever differences are found can usually be explained by differences in instructional design, novelty effects, or other factors( Clark, 1992).
However, even though media and technology may lack unique instructional effects, some educational objectives are more easily achieved with media and technology than in other ways( Kozma, 1991). For example, certain symbol systems can only be experienced with specific technologies, e. g., slow motion is a medium afforded by film and video. A teacher could try to describe the flight of a bumble bee for hours without enabling students to perceive its mystery, whereas a slow motion video reveals the wonder of the bee’ s flight in seconds. A teacher could try to motivate children to appreciate the bumble bee’ s flying feats with words and pictures, but playing an orchestral recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’ s“ Flight of the Bumblebee” could be far more powerful.
Media and technology have many other advantages in terms of repeatability, transportability, and increased equity of access. In addition, although the research evidence is sparse, the cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, and return-on-investment of media and technology may be of great benefit under certain conditions, especially in developing countries( Reeves, Harmon, & Jones, 1993).
The Importance of Design and Implementation
Media and technology can be more or less well-designed depending on the talents, resources, and timelines available for the development effort. There are numerous scientific principles to guide design( Moore, Burton, & Myers, 1996; Ragan & Smith, 1996), but every instructional development effort involves large amounts of creativity and hard work. There are no comprehensive or infallible instructional design formulas( Gustafson & Branch, 1997). In fact, the design of media and technology for education retains as many aspects of a craft as it does a science. Evaluation has an especially important role in the instructional design process, but it is often underutilized( Reeves, 1997).
Implementation at the local level is as important as instructional design. In most instances, the conditions under which students actually experience and use media and technology in schools are decided within the confines of single classrooms by individual teachers. While some educational technologists have recommended that media and technology innovations should be“ teacher-proof” to ensure fidelity in implementation( Winn, 1989), teacher empowerment is more likely to have positive effects than attempts to limit the prerogatives of teachers to implement media and technology as they wish( Glickman, 1997).
The Apple Classroom of Tomorrow( ACOT) Project( Fisher, Dwyer, & Yocam, 1996) illustrates the enormous importance of implementation in efforts to infuse media and technology into classrooms. In 1985, Apple Computer, Inc. began a long-term collaboration with several widely-separated school districts around the USA. Students and teachers were provided with computers and software for both school and home use, and research has been conducted in the participating
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