• Intelligent tutoring system have not had significant impact on mainstream education because of technical difficulties inherent in building student models and facilitating human-like communications .
Overall , the differences that have been found between media and technology as tutors and human teachers have been modest and inconsistent . It appears that the larger value of media and technology as tutors rests in their capacity to motivate students , increase equity of access , and reduce the time needed to accomplish a given set of objectives .
Learning “ With ” Media and Technology
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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 , media and technology are given directly to learners to use for representing and expressing what they know . Learners themselves function as designers using media and technology as tools for analyzing the world , accessing and interpreting information , organizing their personal knowledge , and representing what they know to others
The foundations for using software as cognitive tools in education are :
• Cognitive tools will have their greatest effectiveness when they are applied within constructivist learning environments .
• Cognitive tools empower learners to design their own representations of knowledge rather than absorbing representations preconceived by others .
• Cognitive tools can be used to support the deep reflective thinking that is necessary for meaningful learning .
• Cognitive tools have two kinds of important cognitive effects , those which are with the technology in terms of intellectual partnerships and those that are of the technology in terms of the cognitive residue that remains after the tools are used .
• Cognitive tools enable mindful , challenging learning rather than the effortless learning promised but rarely realized by other instructional innovations .
• The source of the tasks or problems to which cognitive tools are applied should be learners , guided by teachers and other resources in the learning environment .
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