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License: Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) Attribution: 3 Considerations for Tech in the Classroom educause

Instructional designers have many opportunities to recommend to an instructor appropriate media for implementing the instructional strategies.  Selecting the appropriate media mix can be often challenging and is a critical component of the instructional design process.  This section will address some guidelines for selecting instructional media.

Many various forms of technology are depicted in this photo.  Do you think each of these could be used in the classroom? If so, how? If not, which ones are not appropriate for the classroom and why? Pixabay.com– CC0 license

Media and Technology

What is the difference between media and technology? Philosophers and scientists have argued about the nature of media and technologies over a very long period. The distinction is challenging because in everyday language use, we tend to use these two terms interchangeably. For instance, television is often referred to as both a medium and a technology. Is the Internet a medium or a technology? And does it matter?

There are differences, and it does matter to distinguish between media and technology, especially if we are looking for guidelines on when and how to use them. There is a danger in looking too much at the raw technology, and not enough at the personal, social and cultural contexts in which we use technology, particularly in education. The terms ‘media’ and ‘technology’ represent different ways altogether of thinking about the choice and use of technology in teaching and learning.

Technology

There are many definitions of technology.  Essentially definitions of technology range from the basic notion of tools, to systems which employ or exploit technologies. Thus,

• ‘technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems‘ is a simple definition;
• ‘the current state of humanity’s knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants’.

In terms of educational technology we have to consider a broad definition of technology. The technology of the Internet involves more than just a collection of tools, but a system that combines computers, telecommunications, software and rules and procedures or protocols. Beware, that once a definition begins to encompass many different aspects of life it becomes unwieldy and ambiguous.

Educational technology is seen as tools used to support teaching and learning. Thus, computers, software programs such as a learning management system, or a transmission or communications network, are all technologies. A printed book is a technology. Technology often includes a combination of tools with particular technical links that enable them to work as a technology system, such as the telephone network or the Internet.

Technologies or even technological systems do not of themselves communicate or create meaning. They just sit there until commanded to do something or until they are activated or until a person starts to interact with the technology. At this point, we start to move into media.

Media

Media (plural of medium) is another word that has many definitions and it has two distinct meanings relevant for teaching and learning, both of which are different from definitions of technology.

The word ‘medium’ comes from the Latin, meaning in the middle (a median) and also that which intermediates or interprets. Media can be defined as requiring the active creation of content and/or communication, and someone who receives and understands the communication, as well as the technologies that carry the medium.

We use our senses, such as sound and sight, to interpret media. In this sense, we can consider text, graphics, audio and video as media ‘channels’, in that they intermediate ideas and images that convey meaning. Every interaction we have with media, in this sense, is an interpretation of reality, and again usually involves some form of human intervention, such as writing (for text), drawing or design for graphics, talking, scripting or recording for audio and video. Note that there are two types of intervention in media: by the ‘creator’ who constructs information, and by the ‘receiver’, who must also interpret it.

Media of course depend on technology, but technology is only one element of media. Thus we can think of the Internet as merely a technological system, or as a medium that contains unique formats and symbol systems that help convey meaning and knowledge. These formats, symbol systems and unique characteristics (e.g. the 140 character limit in Twitter) are deliberately created and need to be interpreted by both creators and end users. Furthermore, at least with the Internet, people can be at the same time both creators and interpreters of knowledge.

Computing can also be considered a medium in this context. Computing as a medium would include animations, online social networking, using a search engine, or designing and using simulations. Thus Google uses a search engine as its primary technology, might classify as a medium, since it needs content and content providers, and an end user who defines the parameters of the search, in addition to the technology of computer algorithms to assist the search. Thus the creation, communication and interpretation of meaning are added features that turn a technology into a medium.

Thus in terms of representing knowledge we can think of the following media for educational purposes:

• Text
• Graphics
• Audio
• Video
• Computing

Within each of these media, there are sub-systems, such as;

• text: textbooks, novels, poems
• graphics: diagrams, photographs, drawings, posters, graffiti
• audio: sounds, speech
• video: television programs, YouTube clips, ‘talking heads’
• computing: animation, simulations, online discussion forums, virtual worlds.

Furthermore, within these sub-systems there are ways of influencing communication through the use of unique symbol systems, such as story lines and use of characters in novels, composition in photography, voice modulation to create effects in audio, cutting and editing in film and television, and the design of user interfaces or web pages in computing. The study of the relationship between these different symbol systems and the interpretation of meaning is a whole field of study in itself, called semiotics.

In education we could think of classroom teaching as a medium. Technology or tools are used (e.g. chalk and blackboards, or PowerPoint and a projector) but the key component is the intervention of the teacher and the interaction with the learners in real time and in a fixed time and place. We can also then think of online teaching as a different medium, with computers, the Internet (in the sense of the communication network) and a learning management system as core technologies, but it is the interaction between teachers, learners and online resources within the unique context of the Internet that are the essential component of online learning.

From an educational perspective, it is important to understand that media are not neutral or ‘objective’ in how they convey knowledge. They can be designed or used in such a way as to influence (for good or bad) the interpretation of meaning and hence our understanding. Some knowledge therefore of how media work is essential for teaching in a digital age. In particular we need to know how best to design and apply media (rather than technology) to facilitate learning.

Over time, media have become more complex, with newer media (e.g. television) incorporating some of the components of earlier media (e.g. audio) as well as adding another medium (video). Digital media and the Internet increasingly are incorporating and integrating all previous media, such as text, audio, and video, and adding new media components, such as animation, simulation, and interactivity. When digital media incorporate many of these components they become ‘rich media’. Thus one major advantage of the Internet is that it encompasses all the representational media of text, graphics, audio, video and computing.

Different media can be used to assist learners to learn in different ways and achieve different outcomes. In a sense, researchers such as Clark were right: the teaching methods matter, but different media can more easily support different ways of learning than others.

Perhaps even more important is the idea that many media are better than one. This allows learners with different preferences for learning to be accommodated, and to allow subject matter to be taught in different ways through different media, thus leading to deeper understanding or a wider range of skills in using content. On the other hand, this increases costs.

Online learning can incorporate a range of different media: text, graphics, audio, video, animation, simulations. We need to understand better the affordances of each medium within the Internet, and use them differently but in an integrated way so as to develop deeper knowledge, and a wider range of learning outcomes and skills. The use of different media also allows for more individualization and personalization of the learning, better suiting learners with different learning styles and needs.

If we are interested in selecting appropriate technologies for teaching and learning, we should not just look at the technical features of a technology, nor even the wider technology system in which it is located, nor even the educational beliefs we bring as a classroom teacher. We also need to examine the unique features of different media, in terms of their formats, symbols systems, and cultural values. These unique features are increasingly referred to as the affordances of media or technology.

The concept of media is much ‘softer’ and ‘richer’ than that of ‘technology’, more open to interpretation and harder to define, but ‘media’ is a useful concept, in that it can also incorporate the inclusion of face-to-face communication as a medium, and in that it recognises the fact that technology on its own does not lead to the transfer of meaning .

As new technologies are developed, and are incorporated into media systems, old formats and approaches are carried over from older to newer media. Education is no exception. New technology is ‘accommodated’ to old formats, as with clickers and lecture capture, or we try to create the classroom in virtual space, as with learning management systems. However, new formats, symbols systems and organizational structures that exploit the unique characteristics of the Internet as a medium are gradually being discovered. It is sometimes difficult to see these unique characteristics clearly at this point in time. However, e-portfolios, mobile learning, open educational resources such as animations or simulations, and self-managed learning in large, online social groups are all examples of ways in which we are gradually developing the unique ‘affordances’ of the Internet.

More significantly, it is likely to be a major mistake to use computers to replace or substitute for humans in the educational process, given the need to create and interpret meaning when using media, at least until computers have much greater facility to recognize, understand and apply semantics, value systems, and organizational features, which are all important components of ‘reading’ different media. But at the same time it is equally a mistake to rely only on the symbol systems, cultural values and organizational structures of classroom teaching as the means of judging the effectiveness or appropriateness of the Internet as an educational medium.

Thus we need a much better understanding of the strengths and limitations of different media for teaching purposes if we are successfully to select the right medium for the job. However, given the widely different contextual factors influencing learning, the task of media and technology selection becomes infinitely complex. This is why it has proved impossible to develop simple algorithms or decision trees for effective decision making in this area. Nevertheless, there are some guidelines that can be used for identifying the best use of different media within an Internet-dependent society.

Selecting Media

License: Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) Attribution: What Learning Science Tells Us About How to Use Educational Technology e-Literate TV

A major part of instructional design is selecting the appropriate media mix to effectively teach the learning outcome(s). Selecting the best media mix increases learning and maximizes cost-effectiveness. Some concepts are extremely difficult to teach without the correct media mix. This section of the chapter explains how each medium relates to learning and describes how media can affect a learner’s motivation. The strengths and weaknesses of each medium are presented with respect to the different learning outcome classifications.

Media Categories

The media categories you can include in an online course are:

• text
  • Text is typically presented on computer screens but the resources you provide can also include print-based materials.
  • It is particularly important for you to make text understandable when students are learning at a distance.
• audio
  • Audio can be heard from DVD-ROM/CD-ROM disks, computer hard drives, an intranet, and the Internet. However, an online course can also include resources like tapes (audio cassettes), radio, television, and live commentary.
• visuals
  • Visuals can be stored on DVD-ROM/CD-ROM disks, computer hard drives, an intranet, and the Internet. Other resources can include slides, photographs, overhead transparencies, and paper based material.
• video
  • Video can be retrieved from DVD-ROM/CDROM disks, computer hard drives, an intranet, and the Internet. Other sources can include miniDV tapes, film, and VHS tapes.
  • Video typically includes natural images recorded with video equipment, whereas animations are usually created artificially with computers and/or other models.
  • Video often includes an audio component.
• animations
  • Animations can be stored on DVD-ROM/CDROMdisks, computer hard drives, an intranet, and the Internet. Film, VHS tapes and other sources can also contain animation resources.
• real objects
  • Real objects include actual equipment and models.

Media and Learning

The media you select does not determine whether learning will occur. The media you use can influence the amount of learning that occurs. If you combine the media’s strengths with instructional methods that take advantage of these strengths, you can positively influence learning.

Complete instructional packages can, but should not necessarily, include all of the different media. Note that:

• Learning from course content that includes more than one medium is usually more effective than content using
  only one medium. This is partly because different parts of the brain process different information. For example,
  some parts of the brain process text, while others process visuals. When instructional materials activate more regions of the brain, there are increases in learning and retention compared to materials that require fewer parts of the brain to process information.
• In many situations, you can and should use more than one medium to teach the skill. You will need to determine the media that will complement the intended instructional strategy.
• If you use too many media at one time, you can impede learning.
  • Although multi-sensory learning experiences tend to be effective, learners can only process a limited amount of information at one time. Imagine trying to read text while a supporting animation is being shown on the screen.
  • Media should support and enhance each other.
• Base your media mix decision on what is being taught, how it is being taught, how it will be tested, and the characteristics of your target audience.
  • Different media may be needed for different learning outcomes. For example, video may be appropriate for the attitude component but may not provide the corrective feedback necessary for the intellectual skills component.
  • Do not select media simply to dazzle or for convenience.

Media and Motivation

Consider a student’s experience with each medium. For example, if the students have typically struggled in text based programs, then consider using other media. Students must have expectations of success with the selected media and have the skills to extract information and learn from the media. This is not always a safe assumption. For example, many learners are used to watching video passively and do not know how to focus their learning or take effective notes while watching video. Depending on a student’s learning preferences or learning style, the media you choose could be liked or disliked. If the selected media are not preferred, enhance motivation through:

• explaining how the material will fulfill the student’s needs;
• illustrating how the material is important; and
• reminding.

Here are a few practical guidelines on the selection and use of instructional media:

• Text is better than video and audio when the topic is complex. Text is especially effective for verbal skills such as describing, listing, and naming. With proficient readers, verbal information can usually be learned faster with text than with other media. For higher-level skills, remember that practice and feedback are particularly critical. Text is often a major component of effective practice and feedback.
• Make text understandable and clear, avoid excessive wording.
• Minimize reading. Minimizing reading helps students with weak reading abilities and those with disabilities.
• Develop a good writing style, following basic writing principles. Keep writing natural and use active verbs.
• Keep in mind if any instructional materials you develop are computer based that the best location for a key point, such as a formula, is the screen’s upper left area.  Poor areas for key points are the screen’s top right and bottom left. This is because people read English from the left to right and top to bottom. Since people tend to focus on a curved path along the screen, the top left is the best location to be seen and understood.
• For the best readability, you should left justify paragraphs. In general, you should avoid full justification. Full justification is harder to read than left-justified text.
• Choose a font that is clear and easily readable such as Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman. Although some
  people may call these fonts “boring” or “unattractive”, readability is critical for online applications — especially
  when students will read text for longer time periods.
• Hypertext is text that is linked to other information. Hypertext allows learners to quickly get more information
  by activating, such as by clicking a mouse over highlighted parts of the screen. Highlighted active words are sometimes called “Hot words”. Hypermedia goes beyond hypertext by providing access to a variety of media. Since links often lead to other links, the links are like a three-dimensional web. In general, hypertext and hypermedia applications simply provide access to information rather than teaching specified learning outcomes. hypertext and hypermedia can be weak from an instructional perspective.  For learning to occur in hypertext and hypermedia environments, learning should be specifically planned and guided.
• You can use audio to effectively teach many skills such as attitudes, especially if you personalize the material. Audio is also effective for teaching intellectual skills such as learning languages. You can also use audio to gain attention, give feedback, give directions, personalize computers, provide realism such as through presenting actual speeches, make annotations, teach the pronunciation of new words, provide multilingual support, accommodate non-readers, and provide meaning for images. You should also supplement audio with effective preparatory and follow-up activities. An advantage of audio over text is that listening is much easier than reading. You can use audio effectively for students who are visually impaired and those with poor reading abilities. For those with poor reading abilities, one solution is to provide text but let students click on an audio button whenever they want to hear a narration of the text. Although this strategy is useful for some students, many learners find this annoying. Audio can be problematic when played at a different speed than the student is able to read.
• You can use audio to effectively teach many skills such as attitudes, especially if you personalize the material. Audio is also effective for teaching intellectual skills such as learning languages. You can also use audio to gain attention, give feedback, give directions, personalize computers, provide realism such as through presenting actual speeches, make annotations, teach the pronunciation of new words, provide multilingual support, accommodate non-readers, and provide meaning for images. You should also supplement audio with effective preparatory and follow-up activities. An advantage of audio over text is that listening is much easier than reading. You can use audio effectively for students who are visually impaired and those with poor reading abilities. For those with poor reading abilities, one solution is to provide text but let students click on an audio button whenever they want to hear a narration of the text. Although this strategy is useful for some students, many learners find this annoying. Audio  can be problematic when played at a different speed than the student is able to read.
• Animation is another medium that you can incorporate into your online courses. It is important for you to consider using animations as a part of the instructional strategy since animations can significantly enhance learning, motivation, and attitudes as well as reduce the time needed for learning. Animation means “to give life to” something. Animations, which are a series of visuals that change over time, are like video sequences except that animations are created with a computer, other tools, or manually rather than by filming real objects in motion. For this reason, a video can be easier to make than an animation.

A major part of the instructional design process you need to do is select the appropriate media mix to effectively teach the learning outcome(s). Selecting the best media mix will enable you to increase learning. Learning from course content made with more than one medium is usually more effective than content comprised of only one medium. In many situations, you can and should use more than one medium to teach the skill. However, remember that if you use too many media at one time, you can impede learning. Base your media mix decision on the learning outcomes, how they are being taught, and how testing will be done. To be successful, students must also have the skills to extract information and learn from the media. You may also need to motivate your students to learn from the media selected.

Remember that the media mix you choose must be able to meet the requirements of the instructional strategy and address all of the instructional events. In particular, the media mix must effectively teach all of the learning outcomes and should allow for practice and feedback. Use the aforementioned general guidelines for selecting the appropriate media mix for the learning domains of verbal information, intellectual skills, psychomotor skills, and attitudes. (Learning domains are discussed in Section 3.1 of this text.)

For verbal information such as knowledge and comprehension, you should use text and visuals. Remember to use the computer to provide interaction as that can be difficult or cumbersome to do with paper-based materials.

For intellectual skills such as applying skills to new examples, you can effectively use each medium depending on the skill being taught. Following the instructional design process will help you determine the best media mix.

For psychomotor skills such as those requiring muscular actions, you should use real equipment although, for practical reasons such as cost and safety, you may need to create a simulation that incorporates a variety of media. Video with audio or text support can be superb for teaching psychomotor skills. Similarly, a series of images with text can also be very effective.

Although you can use video and audio to effectively teach attitudes, for example, choosing to say “no” to drugs, your complete instructional strategy should consider other methods such as role-playing. Remember to consider learner characteristics when selecting instructional media.

Synchronous or Asynchronous

Synchronous 

Synchronous technologies require all those participating in the communication to participate together, at the same time, but not necessarily in the same place.

Thus live events are one example of synchronous media, but unlike live events, technology enables synchronous learning without everyone having to be in the same place, although everyone does have to participate in the event at the same time. A video-conference or a webinar are examples of synchronous technologies which may be broadcast ‘live’, but not with everyone in the same place. Other synchronous technologies are television or radio broadcasts. You have to be ‘there’ at the time of transmission, or you miss them. However, the ‘there’ may be somewhere different from where the teacher is. Synchronous activities may include live (face-to-face) lectures, seminars, tutorials, labs, workshops, webinars, video conferencing, virtual worlds, remote labs.

Some options for the delivery of these synchronous activities may include, but, are not limited to the following:

• WebEx
• Jigsaw
• Skype
• Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect, Canvas (the Big Blue Button)

Asynchronous

Asynchronous technologies enable participants to access information or communicate at different points of time, usually at the time and place of choice of the participant. All recorded media are asynchronous. Books, DVDs, You Tube videos, Films on Demand, lectures recorded through lecture capture and available for streaming on demand, and online discussion forums are all asynchronous media or technologies. Learners can log on or access these technologies at times and the place of their own choosing. Asynchronous activities may include self-managed labs, workshops, recorded media such as; books, cassettes, online discussion forums, lecture capture or streamed video, blogs and wikis.

Some options for delivery of these asynchronous activities may include, but, are not limited to the following:

• Jigsaw
• Canvas Conferences (the Big Blue Button)
• LMS’s (Blackboard, Canvas, Desire2Learn, Moodle, etc.)
• Library/learning centers
• Publisher created virtual labs, etc.

Advantages of Asynchronous

Overall there are huge educational benefits associated with asynchronous or recorded media, because the ability to access information or communicate at any time offers the learner more control and flexibility. The educational benefits have been confirmed in a number of studies. For instance, Means et al. (2010) found that students did better on blended learning because they spent more time on task, because the online materials were always available to the students.

Research at the Open University found that students much preferred to listen to radio broadcasts recorded on cassette than to the actual broadcast, even though the content and format was identical (Grundin, 1981; Bates at al., 1981). However, even greater benefits were found when the format of the audio was changed to take advantage of the control characteristics of cassettes (stop, replay). It was found that students learned more from ‘designed’ cassettes than from cassette recordings of broadcasts, especially when the cassettes were co-ordinated or integrated with visual material, such as text or graphics. This was particularly valuable, for instance, in talking students through mathematical formulae (Durbridge, 1983).

This research underlines the importance of changing design as one moves from synchronous to asynchronous technologies. Thus we can predict that although there are benefits in recording live lectures through lecture capture in terms of flexibility and access, or having readings available at any time or place, the learning benefits would be even greater if the lecture or text was redesigned for asynchronous use, with built-in activities such as tests and feedback, and points for students to stop the lecture and do some research or extra reading, then returning to the teaching.

The ability to access media asynchronously through recorded and streamed materials is one of the biggest changes in the history of teaching, but the dominant paradigm in higher education is still the live lecture or seminar. There are, as we have seen, some advantages in live media, but they need to be used more selectively to exploit their unique advantages or affordances.

The Educational Value of Media Richness

But how rich should media be for teaching and learning? From a teaching perspective, rich media have advantages over a single medium of communication, because rich media enable the teacher to do more. For example, many activities that previously required learners to be present at a particular time and place to observe processes or procedures such as demonstrating mathematical reasoning, experiments, medical procedures, or stripping a carburetor, can now be recorded and made available to learners to view at any time. Sometimes, phenomena that are too expensive or too difficult to show in a classroom can be shown through animation, simulations, video recordings or virtual reality.

Furthermore, each learner can get the same view as all the other learners, and can view the process many times until they have mastery.  Good preparation before recording can ensure that the processes are demonstrated correctly and clearly. The combination of voice over video enables learning through multiple senses.  Even simple combinations, such as the use of audio over a sequence of still frames in a text, have been found more effective than learning through a single medium of communication (see for instance, Durbridge, 1984). The Khan Academy videos have exploited very effectively the power of audio combined with dynamic graphics. Computing adds another element of richness, in the ability to network learners or to respond to learner input.

From a learner’s perspective, though, some caution is needed with rich media. Two particularly important concepts are cognitive overload and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. Cognitive overload results when students are presented with too much information at too complex a level or too quickly for them to properly absorb it (Sweller, 1988). Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what can be done with help. Rich media may contain a great deal of information compressed into a very short time period and its value will depend to a large extent on the learner’s level of preparation for interpreting it.

For instance, a documentary video may be valuable for demonstrating the complexity of human behaviour or complex industrial systems, but learners may need either preparation in terms of what to look for, or to identify concepts or principles that may be illustrated within the documentary. On the other hand, interpretation of rich media is a skill that can be explicitly taught through demonstration and examples (Bates and Gallagher, 1977). Although YouTube videos are limited in length to around eight minutes mainly for technical reasons, they are also more easily absorbed than a continuous video of 50 minutes. Thus again design is important for helping learners to make full educational use of rich media.

It is a natural tendency when choosing media for teaching to opt for the ‘richest’ or most powerful medium. Why would I use a podcast rather than a video? There are in fact several reasons:

• cost and ease of use: it may just be quicker and simpler to use a podcast, especially if it can achieve the same learning objective;
• there may be too many distractions in a rich medium for students to grasp the essential point of the teaching. For instance, video recording a busy intersection to look at traffic flow may include all kinds of distractions for the viewer from the actual observation of traffic patterns. A simple diagram or an animation that focuses only on the phenomenon to be observed might be better;
• the rich medium may be inappropriate for the learning task. For instance, if students are to follow and critique a particular argument or chain of reasoning, text may work better than a video of a lecturer with annoying mannerisms talking about the chain of reasoning.

In general, it is tempting always to look for the simplest medium first then only opt for a more complex or richer medium if the simple medium can’t deliver the learning goals as adequately. However, consideration needs to be given to media richness as a criterion when making choices about media or technology, because rich media may enable learning goals to be achieved that would be difficult with a simple medium.