Lesson 3: Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

            Technology can play a traditional role, i.e., as delivery vehicles for Instructional lessons or in a constructivist way as partners in the learning process.

• From the traditional Point Of View, technology serves as source and presenter of knowledge. –David H. Jonassen 1999.
• Technology like computer is seen as a productivity tool.
• With the eruption of the INTERNET in the mid 90’s.
•  From the constructivist Point Of View, educational technology serves as learning tool that learners learn with.

From a constructivist perspective, the following are roles of technology in learning: (Jonassen, et al 1999).

 Technology as tools to support knowledge construction:

• For representing learner’s ideas, understanding and beliefs
• For producing organized, multimedia knowledge bases by learners

Technology as information vehicles for exploring knowledge to support learning-by-constructing:

•   For accessing needed information
•   For comparing perspective, beliefs and world views

 Technology as context to support learning-by-doing:

•   For representing and stimulating meaningful real-world problems, situations and contexts.
•   For representing beliefs, perspective, argument and stories of others
•   For defining a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking

Technology as a social medium to support learning by conversing:

•   For collaborating with others
•   For discussing, arguing, and building consensus among members of a community
•   For supporting discourse among knowledge-building communities

Technology as intellectual partner (Jonassen 1996) to support learning-by-reflecting:

•  For helping learners to articulate and represent what they know
• For reflecting on what they have learned and how they came to know it
• For supporting learners ‘intellectual negotiations and meaning making
•   For constructing personal representations of meaning
• For supporting mindful thinking